Media echoes: Systemic effects of news coverage

Abstract

This paper examines the effect of massive media coverage on a judicial system by analyzing 3,453 felony cases tried over a 10-year period. The cases span five years preceding and five years following two heavily covered daycare child abuse trials in Miami, Florida. Significant case-processing shifts provide evidence of coverage “echo” effects, which have been hypothesized to exist in the literature but have not been established empirically. High-profile case publicity echoes are thought to reverberate through judicial systems and to condition them to process similarly charged but non publicized cases differently than they would have been processed otherwise. Because they affect non publicized low-profile cases, news media echoes expand the effects of news coverage on the judicial system far beyond single high-profile cases. Although a significant echo is found in this study, it does not extend to all possible processing effects. The need to empirically study other media echoes in other jurisdictions is indicated. © 1999 Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences