Television viewing and fear of victimization: Is the relationship causal?

Previous findings have suggested that people who watch a lot of television are more likely to fear their environment than are those who report being less frequent viewers of television. From this simple correlation, previous authors have suggested that television causes people to overestimate the amount of danger that exists in their own neighborhoods. The present study attempted to replicate this finding and to determine if the apparent effect was due to a previously uncontrolled factor: the actual incidence of crime in the neighborhood. Respondents to a door-to-door survey indicated their media usage and estimated the likelihood of their being a victim of violence. Neighborhoods were chosen so as to include a high- and a low-crime area in downtown Toronto and a high- and a low-crime area in Toronto’s suburbs. Pooling across the four areas sampled, the previous findings were replicated. However, the average within-area correlation was insignificant, suggesting that when acicual incidence of crime is controlled for, there is no overall relationship between television viewing and fear of being a victim of crime. A multiple regression analysis and a canonical correlation analysis confirmed these findings.