Research Proposal

Nov 12, 2017, Alex Georgoulis

With the 2016/343 Directive (European Parliament & European Council, 2016), the EU
will require member states to adhere to the principle of the presumption of innocence by
enacting legal restrictions to public representations of accused persons and suspects.
The proposed project aims to study prejudicial pre-verdict publicity in Austria, in an ef-
fort to inform and facilitate legislating against it. More specifically, the aim is to evaluate
the extent, sources and targets of such publicity and ultimately to throw light on its
causes. Keenly aware of the grip competition between media organizations has on jour-
nalistic standards, as well as of the persistence of sexist and racist discourses in the me-
dia, the study will also look into links with notions of justice as deterrence or retribution.
The research will take place in two separate workstreams. The first workstream con-
sists of a content analysis of news stories, and the evidence that it aims to produce are:
1. How often is the presumption of innocence overtly disregarded?
2. How often are defendants represented with prejudice in general?
3. Which forms of prejudice are most prevalent?
4. Which sources are most commonly responsible for prejudicial messages and how
do these correlate to the various forms of prejudice?
5. Which parameters of news stories can be used to reliably predict the occurrence
of either overt disregard for the presumption of innocence or of general preju-
dice?
Similar research is abundant in the US (e.g.: Dixon & Linz, 2002; Imrich, Mullin, & Linz,
1995; Studebaker & Penrod, 1997); building a research design is a straightforward task
(works on methodology: Elo & Kyngäs, 2008; Hsieh & Shannon, 2005; Krippendorff,
2004; Weber, 1990).
The second workstream, aiming to uncover the causes, is more challenging. The link
between prejudicial pre-verdict publicity and the competitive media landscape has been
studied and established already (Patterson, Smith Fullerton, & Tuñón Navarro, 2016;
Smith Fullerton & Patterson, 2013). Therefore, it is taken as given and this research will
rather focus on the discursive elements of such publicity, the assumption being that
racist and sexist discourses and conservative notions of justice are used as justification
for interfering with the principle. A useful model of analysis of the suspect cases is the
representative claim (Saward, 2006, 2010): any representation is initiated by a maker
(e.g., a journalist) who puts forth a subject (e.g., a media piece) that [cl]aims to stand
for, or describe, an object (e.g., a “guilty” defendant). The object is thus the maker's
construct and it is purported to be an accurate portrayal of a referent (e.g., the actual
defendant). Finally, this portrayal is offered to an audience (e.g., a TV audience). The
model predicts the influence of contextual factors, the resources of the representation.
These include, but are not limited to, constitutional factors (legality) and cultural re-
sources (e.g., the cultural availability -the license- to expose a defendant's presumed
guiltiness ex ante, regardless of the legality of the exposition). It is the latter that this
research will investigate.

Bibliography:
Dixon, T. L., & Linz, D. (2002). Television News, Prejudicial Pretrial Publicity, and the

Depiction of Race. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 46(1), 112–136.

https://doi.org/10.1207/s15506878jobem4601_7

Elo, S., & Kyngäs, H. (2008). The qualitative content analysis process. Journal of

Advanced Nursing, 62(1), 107–115. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-

2648.2007.04569.x

European Parliament, & European Council. Directive on the strengthening of certain

aspects of the presumption of innocence and of the right to be present at the trial

in criminal proceedings., Pub. L. No. 2016/343 (2016). Retrieved from http://eur-

lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv

%3AOJ.L_.2016.065.01.0001.01.ENG

Hsieh, H.-F., & Shannon, S. E. (2005). Three Approaches to Qualitative Content Analysis.

Qualitative Health Research, 15(9), 1277–1288.

https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732305276687

Imrich, D. J., Mullin, C., & Linz, D. (1995). Measuring the Extent of Prejudicial Pretrial

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Patterson, M. J., Smith Fullerton, R., & Tuñón Navarro, J. (2016). At a Crossroads or

Caught in the Crossfire? Journalism Practice, 1–22.

https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2016.1234944
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and the ecological challenge (pp. 183–199). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge

University Press.

Saward, M. (2010). The Representative Claim (Vol. 5). New York: Oxford University Press.

Smith Fullerton, R., & Patterson, M. J. (2013). Crime News and Privacy: Comparing Crime

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