The focal point of this examination is on how media coverage of the Trayvon Martin case impacted the United States. Considering that knowledge of the Black community is regularly restricted to what is communicated in media publications, it is essential to research the effect of media on police departments. A content analysis of media publications to the shooting of Trayvon Martin as reported throughout the country. The investigation adopted a Social Dominance framework to distinguish methodologies utilized in this medium and linked thematic focus in printed publications. The objective is to establish the potential effect of media reporting on its separate readership and ultimately on the police departments with respect to crime and the use of excessive force. It is anticipated that the uncovering of the ideological ramifications revealed in this investigation will impact future strategy changes for a more populist society (Stutzman, 2012).
Introduction
The murder of Trayvon Martin on the 26th of February 2012 has been given a role as one of the most recent test of equal justice and race relations in America (Alvarez, 2012a). Furthermore, it was likewise a test of a small metropolitan police department. An examination of the handling of Martin’s case by the Sanford Police Department demonstrates a series of sloppy work and missteps and conditions beyond its control, which mired the examination and made it harder to pursue a case that was already sufficiently troublesome. Although the national uproar gradually subsided, as the second-degree murder case against George Zimmerman moved from the public glare to the humiliating process of the justice system and trial, the performance of the Department of Justice and police were scrutinized in more persnickety detail (Alvarez, 2012b). With questions shadowing the scope and quality of police work, the focus shifts on media reporting and how it impacts the United States.
Traditional criminological and contemporary mainstream approaches decrease the link between race and crime reporting to essentialist and solid conceptions in a narrow theoretical vision, which informs an overall theoretical closure (Prieto, 2012). Media consumers are barely requested to be bold in deconstructing traditional texts, as the print media. Similarly, it is fundamental that readers are all around informed, as well as asked to investigate the logical inconsistencies and closures natural in traditional delineations of crime. In this investigation, the role of a range of convincing moral campaigns by newsprint media, a sector of inter-related organizations fixated on regulating differences and rebuffing insubordination. The media cover as much as they uncover about crime. On account of the unavoidable impact of the media the overall population is made to feel both competent and content in discussing crime for the most part and racialized culpability explicitly. Without cross-examining the wellsprings of knowledge and information, the general population is urged to concede to the media and figure out how to take an interest as crime specialists very much supported by media illusions, misleading bits, and one-sided pieces. Through those lines, the impact of media reporting on public perception will become clear. By and large, the racial profiling by the media targets blacks when covering explicitly crime-related stories, sustaining the possibility of this social segment similar to the most criminogenic. This stratification depends on rules that fortify and value bigotry, disparity, and criminality and affects police reforms.
Regularly, contact with individuals from the Black community is frequently constrained to stereotypes and what people read or find in the media about Blacks. This is on the grounds that the marginalization of the people of color far from mainstream society constrains their interaction. Therefore, mainstream society depends on the whole of media for information crime and other concerning issues (Ailon, 2012). Coverage of news involving Blacks and the police offer a great source through which racial discourse in media might be investigated. Lamentably, as Williams (2005) notes, crime control is enormous because of the synonymity with policing lifts the last to the status of practices that produces blameless outcomes. A standout amongst the most imperative yet questionable forces of police in a popularity based society is the use of force. Police are approved justifiably to utilize guns in the apprehension of suspects at whatever point there is a risk to life. Notwithstanding, the authenticity of police shootings of African Americans has regularly been questioned by the Black community, which has for a considerable length of time griping about threatening vibe by police particularly toward youthful African American males (Jeffries & Ransford, 1969). Episodes of police shootings of Blacks is at a level considered epidemic, driving individuals from the Black community to perceive police are disposed to use excessive force where African Americans are concerned. Thusly, a condition of mistrust and hatred towards the police lingers among African Americans and has brought about strained relations among the Black community and police.
Broadly, the objective of this paper is to fundamentally evaluate the job of media in mediating the relationship between crime and color across the United States. The explicit point of this examination was to research the creation of racial discourse in the media. Various inquiries were considered to help disclose the circumstance. For instance, how frequently do individuals, as a rule, read daily papers and are inconspicuously affected by suggestions and allusions without acknowledging it? Daily papers are perused once a day, yet infrequently do we stop to consider and assess the messages they send. In this manner, the investigators analyzed how the media predisposition delivered a racial discourse in reports of the Trayvon Martin shooting. For instance, how do media reports standardize, darken, or potentially defend the Trayvon Martin shooting? Do these reports cast victims as social and physical threats? What degree do these depictions slander victims while celebrating savagery? Second, the investigation explores how these reports foster the recognition that police departments and members of society are discriminatory oppressive and consequently can possibly cultivate tensions between the Black and police communities.
Rationale
This examination expands on the present literature on racial discourse in print media by concentrating on new theoretical perspective with regards to police-community relations in the profoundly disputable period of the shooting of Trayvon Martin that happened in 2012. This new viewpoint is advanced theoretical understandings that will uncover subtleties of the circumstance that presently do not seem to be mirrored by other studies. Furthermore, by concentrating on a larger bigger period, (between 2002 and 2012, the trend will uncover a more exhaustive perspective of the epidemic that impacted the black community for almost 20 years and how media portrayals added to perceptions of the mainstream on the people of color. The significance of this study is enormous as it wires distinctive aspects of social prejudice to exhibit the interconnectedness of various oppression theories and how their application to the Trayvon Martin case and police shootings of people of color in the US with an extension of its bigger relevance to the general abuse of Blacks in America. It is foreseen that the emergent findings add to a more extensive comprehension of Black/White relations in the United States with an end goal to enhance conditions between the two communities.
Literature Review
The literature on the subject uncovers four fundamental themes in media generation of racial discourse: 1) media impacts public opinion, 2) media promotes and reflects resilience for police viciousness, 3) media strengthens racialized belief systems, and 4) media manufactures racism. According to the analysis, these themes are practiced through specific confining of news accounts. That is, the narratives accentuate certain qualities, topics, or elucidations that offering to mean to concern events. Besides, these confinements provide clues that lead readers to assess circumstances that have been introduced. The subliminal enticement controlled by the media develops the predominant philosophy, molds thoughtless methods for comprehension, and homogenizes the regular day to day encounters of racialized communities (Ailon, 2012). The media assumes an essential role in the socialization process in view of its capacity to give images of encounters. Information is mysterious aside from as interceded experiences which guarantee an experiential basis for comprehending reality. For sure, media depictions legitimize order, de-legitimize outcasts and manufacture consent. Concerning crime, Hirschfield and Simon's (2010) explorations that ‘crime beat’ correspondents’ close link with police data necessitates that they report the news in a way that police activities appear lawful, which may once in a while skew the integrity of such reporting. On the other hand, the depiction of casualties of police crime is for the most part not exhibited in the indistinguishable fair way from most victims of homicide. Print media, specifically, assumes a critical role in impacting popular conclusion about racial minorities by sustaining and backing predominant perceptions and convictions, including cultural and racial generalizations, and may even assist in creating new ones.
Of the values connected to news stories, ethnocentrism and faithfulness to safeguarding social order are two of the most noticeable qualities (Celeste, 2013). In crime news accounts, African American suspects are typically viewed and depicted as outcasts (Dovidio et al. 2010: 242-43) while a trend of racial stereotyping build-up that urges certain correlations with Whites. Thus, in turn, decreases Whites’ compassion and increases animosity towards African Americans (Entman and Rojecki 2000: 91). Therefore, by featuring certain viewpoints or properties, media may impact what individuals think and in addition how they consider racial issues (Kuypers 2002), and along these lines, feed racial generalizations that support an antagonistic vibe and dread of African Americans (Entman 1994). Cottle (2000) has likewise called attention to the fact that media assume a key site and play out a critical role in the general portrayal of unequal social relations and the interplay of cultural power (Cottle 2000: 2). Meaning, they develop a twofold of ‘Them’ versus ‘Us’, which foster division in the society. Also, the mass communications assume a remarkable role with respect to public opinion on the police. Weitzer and Tuch (2006) found that repeated exposure to reports about police abuse is a solid indicator of the perception of police conduct, public support and racialized policing. On a large number of these issues, media impacts were obvious for Whites and Blacks alike, however now and again Whites were less influenced. Thus, others have proposed that daily paper inclusion of police-executed murders may reflect and advance open resilience for police savagery. Bedingfield (2012) concentrated on whether articles characterize use-of-force as an individualized or systematic problem and the causes and outcomes of elective frames. It was established general news accounts benefit official portrayals of police viciousness as a typical approved reaction to unsafe conduct.
Ailon (2012) contended that the media fortify racialized belief system and practices through the creation of bigot discourse. Different investigations further authenticate this case and exhibit that the American media, when all is said in done, deliver a negative perspective of minority groups (Mahtani 2001; Wortley 2002; Fleras and Kunz 2001; and Henry and Tator 2010). For instance, Black men are regularly delineated as troublemakers and endangering the congruity and solidarity of American culture. Henry and Tator likewise noticed that print media tends to concentrate on social angles and disregard to recognize the positive. That is, in giving an account of the violent death of African American males, the incorporation of irrelevant data, for example, the number of kids left behind and the biological parenthood often distort the reality (Ailon, 2012). They likewise discovered that Blacks are firmly embroiled in activities involving killings, shootings, and firearms.
A result of this over-detailing is the diligent negative portrayal of the African American males (through pictures, thoughts, and words) as criminal, and this, in the long run, leads mainstream society to harbor threatening vibe for African Americans. From a group position point of view, Teun van Dijk (1991) found that the media propagation of racism takes the explicit form of "first class racism”. His postulation sets that since the predominant values of White media are inseparably connected to political, social, and corporate groups, it is added to their greatest advantage to assume a role in delivering and creating consensus (Ailon, 2012). In this regard, the media utilizes certain techniques to debilitate the positions, issues, and thoughts pushed by minority groups, which compromise the present state of affairs. In this way, Ailon (2012) contend that the media corporate elite are conveying a twisted image of the world that is winding up as a ‘commonsense viewpoint” which shuts out the alternative discourses and visions bringing about strengthened racialized belief system (Ailon, 2012).
Methodology
Content and discourse analysis were integrated into research design to reveal the interrelations between textual forms, changes in text and style of distributions over time. Both quantitative and qualitative methodologies were adopted as a research paradigm. In the paradigm, discourse and content analysis were used as devices for analysis and data collection from the Orlando Sentinel and the New York Times in covering of the Trayvon Martin case. Discourse analysis is an examination of language past the sentence since it clarifies discourse on a full-scale level and is compelling in clarifying social structures (Celeste, 2013). Discourse analysis can likewise help in uncovering the auxiliary factors that shape the news (Johnson, Sears & McConahay, 1971). As indicated by Berns, (2004), the role of discourse analysis is to uncover the misrepresentation processes at work in the entirety of their linguistic detail. In more straightforward terms, Johnson et al. (1971) depict discourse analysis as the investigation in the dialect being used. There are two principle approaches inside discourse analysis (Jacobs, 1996). As per Matei & Ball-Rokeach (2005), discourse analysis help in focusing on the manifestation of dominance, conflict, and discrimination with respect to contextual clues and textual structure. One of the many approaches of discourse analysis is to take a gander at the content of dialect under use. The other strategy is to focus on the content's structure grammar and how the structure helps to mean explicit in context (Gee, 2014). For the reasons for the investigation, the two approaches were adopted. Interestingly, as indicated by Celeste (2013), content analysis helps uncover the interrelations between writings, changes in content, new literary structures and new styles of dispersion message that establishes a discourse after some time (p. 178).) Content analysis is a systematic reading of text through compression of numerous words into fewer content classes dependent on unequivocal principles of coding.
While Dreier, P. (2003) offers an extensive definition of content analysis as a strategy to analyzing texts and reports, which looks to evaluate content as far as foreordained classes are concerned and in an orderly and replicable way. Every one of the three of the definitions perceives content analysis as a quantitative strategy since the information will, in the end, be changed over to frequencies. However, in content analysis subjective abilities and comprehension is expected to build up the classifications or topics which themes or categories are to be fitted, and to likewise recognize the relationships between the crude information and classifications or topics, which is the place where subjective attributes of discourse analysis play a role. The objective is to make interpretive claims and comprehend how news media added to and coursed diverse discourses about race rather than prescient claims. In this manner, qualitative techniques are suitable. Likewise, since the objective is to decipher messages inside an explicitly historical context, discourse analysis is a fitting technique. Other subjective techniques, for example, surveys or focus groups, would give information identified with audiences, which do not fit with the current analysis (Dreier, 2003). As indicated by Dreier (2003), both discourse and content analysis are helpful when looking at and analyzing themes and patterns (Braun and Clarke, 2006). Substance and discourse analysis are incredible approaches in breaking down complex cases like the Trayvon Martin case. The two techniques, content analysis and discourse analysis facilitated responses for the research questions.
The Trayvon Martin case turned into national news, and the mix of the two strategies in the exploration was to supplement the qualitative examination with a quantitative investigation to generate an exhaustive comprehension inside and over the corpus, which was achieved by the illustration on the strengths of the two strategies while limiting the shortcoming of both. Moreover, using the two standards helped answer inquiries since the exploration was not bound to the confinements of a solitary paradigm (Douai & Wu, 2014). For example, inside the quantitative paradigm numbers are used as precision words, though subjective offered the benefits to words and accounts to be used to add importance to numerical information (Collins et al., 2006). The adaptability additionally interpreted different aspects of the exploration theme which was basic in guaranteeing validity in the findings and making interpretative cases from those outcomes (Cheung, 2005).
Amid the examination process, content analysis was utilized to lend a picture of the data set. Discourse analysis depicted the translated implications that were developed inside the articles’ content to help reveal insight into media framing. The approaches enabled the study of social life, for example, the Martin case, without meddling in it and presenting a potential moral hazard to the investigation (Cheung, 2005). The techniques permitted a close investigation of the manner in which news stories are encircled in a national and neighborhood context. In synopsis, using a mixed-method technique approach took into account a more profound comprehension of the surrounding, portrayal, control connections and the development of news amid the Trayvon Martin case by giving parts of subjective and quantitative qualities to help answer the research questions.
Results, Discussion, and Recommendation
Articles, distributed in The New York Times and Orlando Sentinel, were utilized. The Orlando Sentinel addressed local news with the former handling national news. In time span and geographic locale, these two daily papers were chosen since they have a wide readership and contain an assortment of articles regarding the subject matter. The New York Times, as indicated by The Huffington Post, had the second-most noteworthy average circulation in 2012. Both the Orlando Sentinel and The New York Times are accessible through the LexisNexis Academic database. The two distributions' sites were used alongside the LexisNexis Academic database to source articles about the event. To limit the potential articles for examination, time parameters were restricted between February 26th, 2012 and April 12th, 2012, when the coverage changed focus to other subject matters, which is around. The focus was to exclusively examine the hard news articles from both Orlando Sentinel and New York Times. Delicate news is typically emotional in view, in this manner is the reason the goal was exclusively on hard news in the articles to assess the columnist certain claims to objectivity (Berns, 2004).
To guarantee the validity, the news stories retrieved were categorized as soft and hard. As indicated by Berns (2004), hard news is any news announced immediately and adopts a factual approach where reports present the truth in a separated and indifferent way. On the other hand, soft news incorporates human-intrigue pieces, discourse and examination reports, and stories that bargain with themes of excitement, expressions and culture, and big-name news (Berns, 2004). In view of the time parameter of February 26th, 2012 to April 12, 2012, articles that were recovered excluded soft news articles, for example, question and answer design news reports, opinion articles, letters to the editor, live discourses responses and blogs. Also, the only article written in English were included and all non-English articles were excluded from the data set. The primary stage comprised of content analysis while the second phase comprised of discourse analysis.
The first section assesses why media always fail to report the likelihood of civil right prosecutions as enumerated under Section 242 to examine the consequences of such obliviousness. The media to a great extent assumes an important role with respect to reporting of social equality infringement (Johnson & Farrell, 1993). Similarly vital, the media's failure even to mention section 242 clarifies why the larger part of the population is to a great extent less informed about the working of such prosecutions. The reality that general society does not realize the function of such indictments is a possibility, as it were, keeping the kind of grassroots mobilization that may be afraid to force government investigations in a greater number of cases of social equality infringement. In light of these implications, it is proposed that media should cover incidents involving police use of excessive force including findings from educators and their contributions to help maintain a well-informed public about their rights and possible violations.
In our view, the media's inability to accept a proactive reporting role and giving an account of the likelihood of abuse of power are numerous causes. The clearest is that numerous journalists, especially the individuals who have no legal training, may not know that section 242 can be employed as a cure in circumstances including extreme force by police (Freivogel, 2014). They are likely uninformed on the grounds that it is underutilized. Incidentally, their inability to give an account of section 242 makes an endless loop by fortifying the probability that it remains underutilized. Another cause is that correspondents are reluctant to raise the likelihood of government criminal allegations when such charges are not pending maybe believing that it is unseemly to do as such. In numerous other circumstances, the media regularly gives an account of the likelihood of criminal allegations prior to their filing. In any case, it does not imply that individuals from the media have completely integrated their perspectives on the point. Then again, columnists may stress over risking their relationships with citizens, police, and their departments, which are important sources of information related to crime and other subject matters.
The same correspondents who cover criminal activities inside a specific ward and who depend on police for input might be the ones who might provide details regarding section 242 and are, in this manner, not by any stretch of the imagination absent to the external outcomes of their choices. Various outcomes spill out of the media's inability to investigate the likelihood of government indictments under section 242. The clearest is that general society is then not informed about such indictments. In the event that the society is in need of such information, it cannot make responsible decisions and hold leaders accountable for the failure in investigating, questionable decisions and sloppy investigations on the choice to prosecute or not. The lack of information in the public may, thus, prompt fewer grassroots activism, advocacy, and activism for the government to embrace such investigations with regards to whether an indictment is proper. While the government is obviously not bound to react to public mobilization, the Department of Justice is categorized as one of the political branches and recounted evidence recommends that the department’s response can be sensitive to public clamor.
Additionally, regardless of whether such indictments occur, the discussions of such arraignments in the public discourses create a motivating force for institutional change. Police departments that trust they may have escaped punishment may reexamine their practices and support reforms. Regardless of whether divisions themselves are hesitant to change, the lawyers representing such departments may demand alterations to current arrangements. What is more, current police officers may be uneasy about the possibility of being indicted, may try to proactively consider the established parameters that apply to their employment and endeavor to apply them in everyday policing. The absence of a discourse of section 242 indictments may likewise prompt lost legitimacy for both the media and justice system. Conclusion
Without thinking about section 242, observing genuine media discussion of legal parameters under section 242, and seeing the Department of Justice thinking about indictment under the law may create the impression that there are no legal remedies for citizens such as George Zimmerman and rogue officers. In addition, when the media neglects its role in assessing the likelihood of arraignment and prosecution of such culprits, it is easy for the community to believe the absence of legal remedies for the poor and particularly the blacks. On the other hand, when the media gives an account of the section, the community will have their concerns in part approved, especially when the Department of Justice eventually decides to investigate the case. Regardless of whether arraignments follow or not, the community will feel heard somewhat, and since their perspective towards such incidents is clarified, indictments are critical to a healthy and functioning public. However, even the declaration of a decision arraign presents an outlet for repressed indignation and disappointment, and lack of such an outlet would result in despair and a subsequent bad relationship among different races and police departments.