Emotion Representation in Reporting Crime: A Comparison Between Iranian and Dutch News Texts

This chapter compares the occurrence and function of references to emotions in Iranian and Dutch crime news. Crimes as acts against the law, committed by individuals or groups, carry social repercussions and as such are also burdened by emotional baggage by all parties involved. These emotions play different roles at different stages in the process of the criminal act, and its follow-up: an initial causal one, where the criminal may feel greed, hate, etc., emotions occurring during the crime such as panic and fear etc. and later feelings like regret. It is asked, comparing Iranian and Dutch crime news, as to what the emotion representations may imply about conceptualization and framing of crime as mediated in newspapers of the two cultures.