Rädsla i dagens medielandskap : En kvantitativ studie om sambandet mellan rädsla för brott, nyhetskonsumtion på internet och sociodemografiska egenskaper

Media have a crucial role by informing the public about crime, which could shape people's perception of crime in the society and consequently make them fear crime more than necessary. The aim of this study was to investigate the relation between fear of crime and news consumption on the internet, within a Swedish context, and how the socio demographic attributes gender, age and level of education influence the results. Previous research has been done on this phenomenon in different countries, which to a large extent have shown that more news consumption correlates with more fear of crime, but very few have been done in Sweden. The media landscape has also changed a lot in the past decades, both in what platforms we use and in the content of the news. This study used data from the SOM survey 2022 to perform a multiple regression analysis, using fear of crime as a dependent variable while news consumption, gender, age and level of crime were independent variables. The results showed no significant results regarding the relation between fear of crime and news consumption on the internet in a Swedish context. The results however showed that, with news consumption on the internet in consideration, women and older individuals had more fear of crime than men and younger individuals, while people with a higher level of education had less fear of crime than people with lower levels. All of the independent variables did however not explain fear of crime very well. These findings suggest that more research needs to be done in today's media landscape and within a Swedish context, including more or different factors that potentially could influence fear of crime with regards to news consumption.