Rape? Truth? And the media: Laboratory and field assessments of pretrial publicity in a real case.
Item
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Title
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Rape? Truth? And the media: Laboratory and field assessments of pretrial publicity in a real case.
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Identifier
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AAI3204976
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identifier
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3204976
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Creator
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Chrzanowski, Lisa Marie.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Steven D. Penrod
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Date
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2006
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Experimental | Mass Communications
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Abstract
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In today's media saturated society, the task of finding jurors who have not been exposed to potentially biasing pretrial publicity (PTP) is likely to pose challenges to those involved in highly publicized cases. Over the past 40 years, psychological research has consistently demonstrated that PTP can negatively influence jurors' perceptions about a defendant in highly publicized cases; however, some contend that methodological problems associated with PTP research are so problematic that little evidence exists to make conclusive arguments that PTP poses threats to the trial process (Van Dyke, 1971; Ebbesen, 1987; Horowitz & Willging, 1984). To expand on past PTP research this dissertation has taken advantage of a real gang rape case that received a substantial amount of PTP in Southern California. The results obtained from a content analysis on articles in The Los Angeles Times indicated that PTP surrounding this case was primarily biased against the defendants; however, there was some PTP biased against the complainant. A community attitude survey conducted with 200 potential venire persons in Orange County, CA revealed that 74% of the participants knew about the case. Of those individuals, 77% of believed the defendants were either definitely or probably guilty. Data collected from 246 community members called in to potentially serve as a juror in the Haidl case indicated that 80% of jurors were likely to have heard about the case; however, the majority of jurors (70%) reported neutral opinions about the defendants' guilt. To further investigate jurors' decision making processes in the Haidl case, an empirical study was conducted with 246 participants exposed to experimental PTP and 146 participants from California who were exposed to natural PTP. Path analysis indicated that PTP had a significant influence on jurors' verdict preferences pretrial for jurors exposed to experimental PTP (b = .54) and for jurors exposed to natural PTP (b = .29). The effects of PTP on jurors' final verdict preferences attenuated for jurors exposed to experimental PTP (b = .17); however, the effect of PTP on final decisions remained strong for jurors in California (b = .28). Overall, the results indicate that PTP does influence jurors' decision making processes and this impact appears to be greater for jurors exposed to natural PTP when compared to jurors exposed to PTP experimentally.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
