The Relationship between crime-related media consumption behavior and public confidence in the organizations in criminal justice system

Abstract

At present, conflicts between public and the criminal justice in Thailand have frequently appeared on media. This could be the fact that people can consume the media anywhere and anytime, allowing them to keep an eye on the cases that arise quickly and in a timely manner. On the other hand, a prompt presentation is subject to less consideration causing a mistake and bad image. Therefore, if people lack confidence in the justice system, the legal punishment will not be respectful or afraid. In this study, the objectives of this quantitative research are as follows: 1) to study the media consumption behavior, 2) to study the relationship between media consumption and public confidence, and 3) to compare the public confidence, categorized by personal factors and justice system experiences. Data were collected using a survey from 420 persons in Bangkok as our sample, purposively sampling through the multi-step and group sample selection. From the results of this research, it was found that most of people in the sample group that consume crime news/crime-related talk show/article/documentary demonstrated the media consumption rate of 2–3 days per week with less than 1 hour per time. Another sample group that consumes the investigation or crime-related drama/movies/novels mostly revealed a consumption rate of once in a while per week with 1-2 hours per time. This sample group frequently consumes crime news from television and radio at the most. On the contrary, they mostly consume the investigation or crime-related drama/movies/novels by online media and print media. All sample groups showed the most media consumption channel through online media, followed by television, radio and print media, respectively. The confidence in criminal justice system was found to be significantly different under the factors of age, occupation, income, accommodation type and experience in the justice system, which corresponds to the research hypothesis. Moreover, the media consumption frequency and the consumption channel of television, media, radio and print media were found to be associated with confidence in the criminal justice system. However, the time consumption of media is not related to the public confidence in the criminal justice system. The important recommendations in this research are summarized as follows. Public relations and image build up should be performed. In addition, the production of media must be focused on comprehensive information and quality content in order to make people understand and to gain the confidence in criminal justice system.