Story character, news source or vox pop? Representations and roles of citizen perspectives in crime news narratives

Abstract

This study analyzes citizen representations in a corpus of 300 Dutch newspaper narratives published between 1860 and 2009. Results show that citizen perspectives are more frequently represented than authority perspectives, although the perspectives of authorities have become somewhat more frequent over time. In-depth analyses of the citizen perspectives show that citizens may fulfil multiple roles in the crime narratives, leading up to a functional typology of citizens as (1) story characters experiencing the news events, (2) news sources providing inside information about the events, and (3) vox pops expressing opinions and evaluations of the events. The variety of citizen perspectives included in crime news narratives and the multitude of roles they fulfill may help audience members to become informed as well as engaged and to explore their personal emotions, which may ultimately reinforce moral, cultural and societal values.