Crime news in lithuanian mass media: the aspect of audience

Crime news in Lithuanian mass media often is presented as hard news. It is not always a mistake, because some of the features of crime news help the audience to orientate themselves and to value their social environment much more fairly. However crime news can seem too important in many kinds of news media, as theoretically crime news should be attributed to soft news category. Quality of crime news depends on the co-operation of mass media and justice institutions, because police or prosecutors often are the only source of information for journalists. Also journalists who work on crime issues must know and be able to put into practice legal and ethical norms. In case of changing prejudices of society related to crime and avoid the marginalization of crime (which often causes the attraction to crime subjects), news media and justice institution should create crime control policy. The attraction to crime news is also caused by cultural factors. Such nations as Lithuanians who are used to live in small communities find it difficult to adapt themselves to the urbanization and the growing of social distance among people. This is one of the reasons why people feel attracted to death – it reminds instincts of closeness and attachment. Power of mass media makes crime and death collective phenomenon and strengthen the pathological public sphere. In this case news media works as a mediator and keeps together all members of community. Empirical research showed that the audience takes crime news as information useful for its safety. Audience also expects facts from crime news. However media men are sure that people are interested in sensational details, scary views and emotional plots