Public opinion on security: Psycho-social analytical dimensions around fear of crime and its media treatment

Abstract

We present a state-of-the-art about the relationship between the feeling of insecurity, moral panic, wave of violence, and fear of crime, attending to psycho-social dispositions and Mass Media influence, along with the potential benefits of citizen participation spaces, approaching Neighborhood Councils in Córdoba, Argentina. We notice that Mass Media provoke the increase in fear of crime as well firm up favorable positions into punitivism. On the other hand, we observe conditions for a critical view of media strategies that are not given in Neighborhood Councils.