RT Article
T1 “Fair and Balanced?” Justice Issues on Political Talk Shows
JF American journal of criminal justice
VO 35
IS 4
SP 198
OP 218
A1 Britto, Sarah
A2 Dabney, Dean A.
LA English
YR 2010
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1764271548
AB Like their news program predecessors, many political talk shows focus a considerable amount of their coverage on justice issues. Although numerous past studies have examined justice issue presentation in news programs, infotainment, and crime drama, to date only one forthcoming study has examined crime and justice coverage on political talk shows. Political talk shows often present issues in a debate format, as well as emphasize the balanced nature of the content in advertising, with one program even using the slogan “fair and balanced.” Building upon the format of previous media studies, we analyzed a composite month of videotaped footage of three popular political talk shows appearing on cable networks: CNN ’s Lou Dobbs Tonight , MSNBC ’s Hardball with Chris Mathews, and The O’Reilly Factor from the Fox News Channel . Using content analysis techniques, this study examines balance in the form and content of these programs in terms of presentation of justice issues, political party identification of hosts and guests and realistic presentations of race and gender in the context of crime and justice. Results indicate that these programs tend to adopt an advocacy tone rather than an objectivist one. Furthermore, we demonstrate that racial and gender portrayals of crime and justice on these shows are significantly distorted from reality, with a priority afforded to white female victims of violent crime and minority male offenders.
K1 Content Analysis
K1 Gender
K1 Race
K1 Political talk shows
K1 Media and crime
DO 10.1007/s12103-010-9078-y