Television news magazine crime stories: A functionalist perspective

More than a century ago, Emile Durkheim argued that the rituals of processing and punishing crime are functional in constructing a society's morality, teaching its members to abide by certain rules, and promoting cohesion among members by making it public when individuals have violated shared moral values. This content analysis investigates network and syndicated news magazine crime stories for their potential to promote these three social functions. Programs were exhaustively sampled over a six month period (October 1, 1998 to March 31, 1995). Three coders content analyzed 272 hours of television programs. Results indicate patterns in the data set to support the Durkheimian notion that social systems ritualize crime events with functional implications for the maintenance of social order.