Media Construction of White-Collar Violence Revisited: An Examination of Two Nightclub Tragedies

Wright, Cullen, and Blankenship (1995 Wright , John P. , Francis T. , Cullen , and Michael B. , Blankenship . 1995 . “ The Social Construction of Corporate Violence: Media Coverage of the Imperial Food Products Fire .” Crime and Delinquency 41 : 20 – 27 . CSA] Crossref], Web of Science ®] , Google Scholar]) examined print media constructions of a chicken-processing plant fire that killed scores of workers. They found that newspaper coverage of the fire was reluctant to describe the event as corporate violence. We examine the generalizability of Wright et al.'s study by conducting a content analysis of newspaper coverage of two events at nightclubs in Chicago, Illinois, and Warwick, Rhode Island, that left numerous people dead and injured. We found that although newspapers did discuss the extent of personal harm caused by the disasters and the potential criminal sanctions that could be imposed, they seldom made any specific claims as to the cause of the events (i.e., whether they were due to an accident, negligence, or criminal behavior). Contrasting findings between our study and Wright et al.'s suggests that more research should be done if we are to understand media constructions of corporate and white-collar violence.