Reforming a Mean World: Hero Reports
"In times of terror, when everyone is something of a conspirator, everybody will be in the position of having to play detective" --Walter Benjamin 1938 In the research on media effects, one of the most fully developed findings is what is known as the "mean world syndrome." Research finds that the average citizen grossly over-estimates how dangerous her neighborhood is because she reads the newspaper and assumes that the crime reports are actually a sample of the whole and thus amplifies them accordingly. In practice, a higher portion of violent crimes get reported than most people assume, although there...
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