Learning About Crime: Conceptions of Crime and Law Enforcement as They Relate to Use of Television and Other Information Sources

From the introduction: The possibility that television might influence our view of the world--that is, may teach values, expectations, and even norms of behavior-- has inspired a variety of attempts to identify and measure the consequences of exposure. TV's programming emphasis in recent years on the dramatization of crime control (a subject already salient in the real world) makes crime and law enforcement an especially important area in which to look for potential effects of television. At the same time, the fact that other relevant information sources may be capable of generating the same biases and misconceptions, renders inconclusive any simple statistical link between particular responses and exposure to television.