COMMUNITY, COMMUNICATION, AND INFORMATION: CRIME AND PUBLIC SAFETY INFORMATION-SEEKING BEHAVIORS IN AN URBAN SYSTEM

The relationship between a news organization and its community has been an important topic of study for more than a century. By addressing relevant and timely issues and events for an audience, a news organization can help build connections between citizens and their community. It can also help community members navigate complex local problems and conflicts. However, some critics have noted that news coverage of crime and public safety has negatively affected communities, namely through perpetuation of negative racial stereotypes, an overreliance on institutional policing as a solution to crime, and an overall cultivation of negative perceptions of the world. One by-product of the digital age has been the vast expansion of the number of ways that individuals get information. The community newspaper is no longer among a small group of information providers for those looking for local news. Using a community organization whose mission it is to address issues of crime and public safety in one Southern American city as a backdrop, this dissertation examines the information needs of individuals in the community related to crime and public safety as well as how and why they seek this information. It considers how crime and public safety are represented both in online discussion groups hosted by this organization and in the daily newspaper. Findings indicate that what is needed from crime news reflects an array of topics that are not necessarily clearly and explicitly about crime and policing. Additionally, results of this dissertation show that activity in the online discussion groups is driven primarily by institutional sources such as the city government and that the news organization’s crime-related content provides little information about what individual citizens can do to help minimize crime and enhance public safety. These findings are discussed in terms of implications for journalism as well as the theoretical framework of community information seeking. This dissertation argues that communities have ready tools for addressing problem-specific information but desire additional opportunities to aggregate and curate information that allows them to build stronger community ties, hold government accountable for decisions, and prepare for possible future issues and disasters.Doctor of Philosoph