Tweeting about Crime in Pandemic Times: US Legacy News Media and Crime Reporting During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Purpose – This study explored how the pandemic shaped or shifted legacy news reporting about crime, focusing on Twitter posts as visual elements of the crossmedia landscape.

Methodology/Approach – Drawing a purposive sample of tweets about crime and the pandemic posted from March 2020 to December 2021 by major TV news outlets, the qualitative media analysis (QMA) scrutinized how tweets constructed narratives about crime. The analysis considered images, text, and their juxtaposition within tweets and over time.

Findings – This study found that news organizations partnered the pandemic and crime in the American discourse of fear. Tweets acted as crime news snapshots, which magnified a sense of instability and uncertainty. Tweets constructed a collective malaise that could contribute to users’ sense of ontological insecurity.

Originality/Value – The spectacle of crime churned through news organizations’ tweets, dissociating crime from the complex social context of the pandemic. Attention to the liquidity of images and information in the crossmedia landscape revealed fluctuating social meanings and disorientation.

Citation

Kort-Butler, L.A. (2023), "Tweeting about Crime in Pandemic Times: US Legacy News Media and Crime Reporting During the COVID-19 Pandemic", Deflem, M. (Ed.) Crime and Social Control in Pandemic Times (Sociology of Crime, Law and Deviance, Vol. 28), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 123-139. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1521-613620230000028009