Perception of security and the media. Analysis and reflection

Abstract

Scientific literature on the perception of security has shown a lack of correlation between official crime statistics and people’s perceptions. In planning security policy it is therefore important not only to study crime rates in a given area but also to analyse “uncontrollable” feelings of insecurity. Here we examined the role played by the media in this phenomenon. In recent years, the Italian media have paid special attention to security as an individual or collective state to safeguard against risks arising from crime and deviance. The attention of public opinion has concentrated largely on insecurity related to certain types of crime and certain well-defined social categories, underestimating others and risk factors with much graver implications for individual safety. We found two basic contradictions in the way the media has recently constructed the topic of security: 1. an increased sense of insecurity is not justified by an increase in crime rates which are actually in general decline; 2. certain concrete risk factors for personal safety are underestimated in favour of excessive emphasis on insecurity arising from certain types of criminality and the presence of certain social categories. It is therefore plausible that the media played a role in imposing and aggravating this distorted perception, both quantitatively and with regard to its causes.