State managers, intellectuals, and the media: A content analysis of ideology in experts' quotes in feature newspaper articles on crime

Current research in the social construction of crime news continues to reveal key patterns in manufacturing the media version of lawlessness. Many of these investigations rely on content analysis in decoding and deconstructing popular images of crime. This study administers a content analysis on feature newspaper articles on crime appearing in four major newspapers. We examined the content of quoted statements—a rarely studied form of media message—offered by two groups of experts: state managers (e.g., criminal justice practitioners) and intellectuals (e.g., professors). Our analysis yields statistically significant differences between these groups of sources, as measured by two dimensions of ideology of crime—crime causation and crime control. These findings, as well as the roles of the media, state managers, and intellectuals in manufacturing crime news, are discussed in the context of social contructionism.