Setting the Public Fear Agenda: A Longitudinal Analysis of Network TV Crime Reporting, Public Perceptions of Crime, and FBI Crime Statistics

Public perceptions of crime as the most important problem (MIP) facing the country jumped tenfold, from 5% in March of 1992 to an unprecedented 52% in August of 1994. This study analyzed the effects of three network television news predictor variables and two FBI predictor variables to determine what statistically accounted for this “big scare”. Based upon data from 1978 through 1998, results suggest that the 1994 “big scare” was more a network TV news scare than a scare based upon the real world of crime. The television news variables alone accounted for almost four times more variance in public perceptions of crime as the MIP than did actual crime rates.