Skip to Main Content

Race, Class, Gender and Crime Community Syllabus

Media Portrayal of Race, Class, Gender and Crime - Class Definition

With television and social media being the main form of how people receive their news, it’s important to pay attention to how certain groups across race and gender are portrayed especially in the news media. With the focus primarily on white victims and black and Latino offenders, we must also look at how the news media has been used to further victimize minority groups, such as Asian Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic. We also must acknowledge the language used to describe the portrayals between the victims, offenders, and crime being committed.

Suggested Readings

  • DiBennardo, R. A. (2018). Ideal victims and monstrous offenders: How the news media represent sexual predators. Socius, 4, 2378023118802512.
  • Dixon, T. L. (2019). Media stereotypes: Content, effects, and theory. In Oliver, M.B., Raney, A.A. and Bryant, J. (Eds.), Media Effects (pp. 243-251). Taylor & Francis. 
  • Dixon, T. L., Weeks, K. R., & Smith, M. A. (2019). Media constructions of culture, race, and ethnicity. Oxford research encyclopedia of communication. Retrieved from: https://oxfordre.com/communication/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228613-e-502
  • Gonzalez, E. (2019). Stereotypical depictions of Latino criminality: US Latinos in the media during the MAGA campaign. Democratic Communiqué, 28(1), 46-46.
  • Russell-Brown, K. (2022). The color of crime. In Russell-Brown, K. (Ed.), The Color of Crime, Third Edition. (pp. 53-74). New York University Press.
  • Slakoff, D. C. (2020). The representation of women and girls of color in United States crime news. Sociology Compass, 14(1), e12741.
  • Stone, R., & Socia, K. M. (2019). Boy with toy or black male with gun: An analysis of online news articles covering the shooting of Tamir Rice. Race and Justice, 9(3), 330-358.
  • Tsai, J. Y., Phua, J., Pan, S., & Yang, C. C. (2020). Intergroup contact, COVID-19 news consumption, and the moderating role of digital media trust on prejudice toward Asians in the United States: Cross-sectional study. Journal of medical Internet research, 22(9), e22767.

Search Snowden Super Search:

Advanced Search

Discussion Questions

  1. When violent crime is being reported, what do you think is the main purpose of the news reports?
  2. How do African Americans tend to be represented in advertisements? How does the representation change when it comes to news reports?
  3. What are the social and psychological repercussions of news reports on violent crimes on the victims?
  4. How does media representation affect racial minority groups? Use the correlation of the Covid-19 pandemic reporting and the rise of Asian-American hate crime as an example.
  5. What gender differences exist in news reporting? How does the reporting react to who is the victim and who is the offender?