INTRODUCTION

 METHODOLOGY
 
 

Results

Based on Web PageÖ              the consumers' inclination to purchase a product wasÖ
 

	1=Will Not Buy	2=Most Unlikely	3=Undecided	4=Most Likely	5=Will Buy
1.Full, 29 Responses				2, 6%	27, 93%
2. Empty, 31 Responses	30, 96%		1, 3%
3. No-Support, 30 responses	4, 13%	4, 13%	1, 3%	7, 23%	14, 26%
4. No-Variety, 30 responses	2, 6%	5, 16%	17, 56%	3, 10%	3, 10%
5. No-Security, 27 responses	20, 74%	5, 18%	2, 7%
6. No-Design, 32 responses		3, 9%		5, 15%	24, 75%

Table 1-- Consumer Will not Buy/ Will Buy

Item one indicates the influence the four components' presence has on a consumerís decision to purchase a product.  A consumer that is prepared to make a purchase and finds all that he is looking for in a web site, product, and company will almost positively buy from the web site.

Item two proves that the lack of presence of either one or all of these components has a strong enough influence on the consumer to dissuade them from making a purchase.

Item three - Will the consumer's decision-to-buy be affected more or less by the availability of support?  Yes, almost 50% would consider purchasing or purchase a product that does not offer support.  However, 26% of the consumers indicated that support was of enough importance to dissuade them from making a purchase.  In the questionnaire they indicated their dissatisfaction with previously purchasing a defective product and not receiving adequate support.

Item four ? Are a consumer's purchasing decisions affected by product variety?  Yes, almost 56% of the consumers indicated their inability to make a purchase decision based on the lack of product variety.  In the questionnaire the indicated their satisfaction with the presence of other important features.

Item five - Will the consumer consider purchasing a product from a web site that lacks transaction security or not even consider purchasing from such a web site?  An overwhelming majority of the consumers, 92%, indicated their strong disinclination to not buy from a web site that does not offer transaction security.  They indicate their fear of no security manifests from credit card fraud and other crimes.

Item six - If a site has the products that the consumer is looking for, but poorly designed, will the consumer's purchasing decision be affected?  A majority of the consumers indicated their disinterest in the setup of the web site, as long as components such as security and support were provided.

A final question asked the consumer to rank, in order of importance from 1=Most to 4=Least, four components of web site design.  Each component received a different numeric rank from each consumer.  At the end of the experiment, I averaged the rank numbers of each component, ordered the averaged number for each component from smallest (indicating More Importance) to largest (indicating Less Importance).
 

	Support	Variety	Security	Design
Rank Total	411	662	250	698
Averaged Number (179 Total Responses)	2.3	3.7	1.4	3.9
Rank	2	3	1	4

Table 2 --Component Rankings

According to the consumers' rankings of component importance, security is of the most importance.  This follows logically with the previously indicated information since spending was almost nil when security was not present.  True, that the other components affected consumer purchasing to a degree, but no more than securityís affect on consumer purchasing.
 

Sadly, the findings of this study merely affirm previous research and establishes validity to our hypotheses. That is, racial identification of suspects in crime stories leads to prejudice in potential jurorsí guilt determinations which would compromise defendants' fair trial rights.  The guilt rating that respondents assigned to suspects were skewed toward guilt with significant differences found for guilt ratings assigned to black as compared to white suspects.  In other words, respondents were willing to prejudge suspects as guilty after reading about the crime in the newspaper, and these judgements were significantly affected by the race of the suspect.

 This study demonstrates significant differences for all hypotheses.  H1 predicted that subjects would be more willing to judge suspects guilty whose race was identified than those whose race was not identified.  And as predicted, differences were found between the guilt ratings of respondents who read stories with and without racial identification.  H2 predicted that subjects would be more willing to judge black suspects guilty than suspects whose race was unidentified.  Again, as predicted significant differences were found between guilt ratings of black suspects and guilt ratings of racially-unidentified suspects.  H3 predicted higher guilt ratings for black suspects than for white suspects, and yet again, significant differences in guilt ratings were found for these groups.  Finally, H4 predicted that black suspects identified in both the story's text and an accompanying picture would be rated more guilty than black suspects whose race was identified only in text.  The analysis revealed significant differences, in guilt ratings for the two groups of black suspects.

 Further, analysis revealed a significant difference in guilt ratings of white suspects identified by both photo and text compared to text only.  White suspects identified in text and photo compared were judged less guilty than those identified only in text.  There was also a significant difference in guilt judgements for white and black suspects when both were identified in text and photo.  White suspects identified in both text and photo were judged less guilty than black suspects.

 Possible explanations for these significant findings are discussed below.

 A 1997 study conducted by Fein, Morgan Norton and Sommers investigated the "The Race Card" issue of the O. J. Simpson case.  They found that the issue of race "dominated the post verdict discussions of the Simpson criminal and civil trials like no other."  Results of numerous surveys measuring black and white American attitudes suggest that the issue of race was critically important in the case. They noted that empirical research that has addressed the more general issue of race and stereotypes in jury decision making suggests that race can matter.

 Some research has found that a jury's racial composition, as well as that of the defendant and other people relevant to the case, can have a significant effect on the verdict that the jury reaches.  Bernard (1979), for example, found that black jurors were more likely to acquit a defendant, regardless of the defendants race, than white jurors.  White jurors were more likely than blacks to convict in general, but this was true particularly when the defendant was black, a result Foley and Chamblin (1982) replicated.  The defendant's race can affect how jurors process stereotype-relevant information; jurors may use racial and ethnic stereotypes to help them process information when faced with a complex task (Bodenhausen & Lichtenstein, 1987).

 More than likely, we all have heard stories or have seen movies of past racial injustice in our American legal system. A movie of the past that comes to mind is "To Kill a Mocking Bird." A more recent demonstration of injustice was the acquittal of the four police officers in the Rodney King trial.  With these cases in mind, we disclose a recent dissenting opinion of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.  She states that  "[i]t is by now clear that conscious and unconscious racism can affect the way white jurors perceive minority defendants and the facts presented in their trials, perhaps determining the verdict of guilt or innocence (McCullom, 1991)."  It is clear that conscious and unconscious racism can affect the way black jurors, and black or white judges, police and prosecutors, perceive minority race defendants, witnesses and victims.

 In his book, Randall Kennedy (1996) declares that opinion polls have indicated that there is a solid basis for the general belief that minorities are more likely to be more skeptical of the claims of the criminal justice system than are whites.  He states that racial minorities have been on the receiving end of a good amount of injustice by the administrators of the criminal justice system and, therefore, have good reason to be skeptical of the system.  Nevertheless, he says, it is important to note that there are many instances where minority jurors are just as likely, maybe more likely, to conclude that the evidence presented by prosecutors is credible?after all, victims of crimes committed in the inner cities are overwhelmingly minorities.

 Clay S. Conrad (1998) states in his book that "it is unrealistic to claim that racist juries have never been seated, or deny the risk of a jury returning a racist verdict in occasional cases.  Racist verdicts have occurred, and will in all likelihood occur in the future, whether by bench or jury."

 People know that race does matter. Advertisers know that race matters.  Politicians know that race matters. Certainly attorneys know that race matters. We all know that in our day-to-day lives race does matter.  That being the case, the question is how do we respond to this fact?

Limitations of the Sample
The respondents were all college students of journalism classes which consisted mostly of sophomores and juniors. The sample is probably not representative of society as a whole.  Additionally, because this was not an actual trial situation and because students are routinely surveyed on a variety of topics, the respondents in this study may have felt compelled to offer an opinion on the guilt of the suspects or felt that offering such a opinion would have no real consequences.  Also, it is likely that the students did not regard this study as seriously as they might have than if they actually participated in a trial.

 In conclusion, a central purpose of this study was to help media decision-makers to better understand which types of information may have detrimental effects on the fair-trial rights of defendants. With the significant findings regarding race and pretrial publicity, the information in the stories proved to be sufficient for respondents to be willing to prejudge the suspects guilty.  Therefore, media decision-makers must carefully scrutinize the type of information provided in crime stories.

Directions for Future Research
The study could be improved by using a more diverse sample.  Greater diversity among educational level and real-life environments might produce significantly different results.

 Most of the research done in the field of bias, discrimination and pretrial publicity as focused on white attitudes toward blacks in general and blacks accused of crimes. However, racism could play a role in the decision of black jurors as well.

 Further research will help us to understand whether racism and prejudice and their relation to mass communication and the criminal justice process has taken a new direction, and if so, where are they headed now.