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Abstract
How victims are portrayed in fictional crime dramas is an important way that individuals come to understand and interpret what it means to be a victim of crime. We examine how demographic variables (e.g., gender, race, age), incident variables (e.g., location of offense, relationship between victim and offender, type of crime), and behavioral variables (e.g., drug use/alcohol use, sexual promiscuity, negative personality traits, or concealing elements of personality) predict victim blame. Although some literature has analyzed victims in fictional crime dramas, such literature has been limited to a single year, a single show, a particular crime, or a particular factor. We extend this literature by focusing on multiple factors that predict victim blame using data collected from a systematic sample of 124 episodes from 4 fictional crime dramas (CSI, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Criminal Minds, and Without a Trace) over 7 years (2003–2010).
Notes
Offender data (demographic information) were collected for the larger project, but for the purposes of this article (which focuses on victims), we only examine one variable concerning the offender—namely, the relationship between the victim and the offender (stranger, romantic, family, other).
Because there were many statements made about each victim character throughout each episode, we selected the victim blame category that best fit each victim when at least half (but likely more) of the comments were in that category. We increased the credibility of our category selection by having a second independent coder code a subsample of episodes. As Graneheim and Lundman (Citation2004) noted, “Credibility deals with the focus of the research and refers to confidence in how well data and processes of analysis address the intended focus … Credibility is also a question of how to judge the similarities within and differences between categories. One way to approach this is to show representative quotations from the transcribed text. Another way is to seek agreement among co-researchers, experts, and participants” (p. 110). Therefore, the preponderance of evidence allowed us to seek agreement on the victim blame category and is line with previous content analysis research.
Although we initially coded for three non-White racial categories (i.e., African American, Asian, and an other race category), there were so few cases for each separate category that we collapsed all categories into one and labeled it non-White.