Good Guys Became Bad Guys? Changing Representations of Asians and Other Races in Crime News During COVID-19

IF 3.4 2区文学 Q1 COMMUNICATION

Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly Pub Date : 2024-04-08 DOI:10.1177/10776990241238655

Mingxiao Sui, Newly Paul

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Abstract

During COVID-19, Asian Americans were perceived as a threat to the American society, which could have led to heightened media scrutiny and a shift in media portrayals. This study examines this question with a quantitative analysis of crime stories sampled from five newspapers (2019–2021). Our results suggested that large-scale social events such as COVID-19 might have transformed media representations of Asians and other racial groups, with noteworthy variability: (a) When considering all types of crimes, during the pandemic, news about lawbreaking activities by Asian perpetrators almost doubled that of before-COVID period. No significant change was uncovered in the coverage of Asian victims. (b) However, on two types of crimes—“crimes against persons” and “violent crimes”—that have more newsworthiness and social import, stories about Asian victims during the COVID-19 were higher than those of the before-COVID period. (c) When comparing media representations with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) data, the percentage of Asian perpetrators and victims in newspapers did not differ from that of the FBI in 2019 and 2020; however, Asians were overrepresented as victims in 2021.

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好人变坏人？COVID-19 期间犯罪新闻中亚裔和其他种族形象的变化

在 COVID-19 期间，亚裔美国人被视为对美国社会的威胁，这可能导致媒体审查的加强和媒体描述的转变。本研究通过对五家报纸（2019-2021 年）的犯罪报道进行定量分析，探讨了这一问题。我们的研究结果表明，像 COVID-19 这样的大规模社会事件可能改变了媒体对亚裔和其他种族群体的描述，其中有值得注意的变化：（a）如果考虑到所有类型的犯罪，在大流行期间，有关亚裔罪犯违法活动的新闻几乎是 COVID 之前的两倍。对亚裔受害者的报道没有明显变化。(b) 然而，在两类更具新闻价值和社会意义的犯罪--"侵犯人身罪 "和 "暴力罪"-- 中，COVID-19 期间有关亚裔受害者的报道高于 COVID 之前的报道。(c) 如果将媒体的报道与联邦调查局（FBI）的数据进行比较，在 2019 年和 2020 年，亚裔犯罪者和受害者在报纸上所占的比例与联邦调查局的数据并无差别；然而，在 2021 年，亚裔作为受害者的比例过高。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly COMMUNICATION-

CiteScore

7.20

自引率

5.60%

发文量

期刊介绍： Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly focuses on research in journalism and mass communication. Each issue features reports of original investigation, presenting the latest developments in theory and methodology of communication, international communication, journalism history, and social and legal problems. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly also contains book reviews. Refereed. Published four times a year.