Juvenile delinquency: Media reporting in daily and popular newspapers

Abstract

The following article is concerned with a study into the balance of media reporting from two German daily newspapers during the election campaign in the federal state of Hesse in 2007/8. After an introduction to the scope of the study (questions, methods of analysis, conceptual clarifications), some remarks about the actual state of the research and the methodology will follow. Next, data will be examined to show that during the analysis period cases of youth crime and juvenile delinquency were particularly prominent and heavily reported in the media. The study found that during this time period the reporting of the Siiddeutsche Zeitung was more informative, value neutral, and less punitive than that of the Bild. Moreover, it was apparent that juvenile delinquency had top priority in the latter newspaper and its reporting style was strongly reminiscent of the political standpoint of the Christian Democratic Union. Whether consequences can be drawn from this study is one of the several open questions that round out this article.