> At least they did not shoot her.

Exactly. The giant glaring irony of the situation is that these paranoid neighbours are themselves the biggest danger to their neighbourhood. They're the ones creating an environment where you can't walk down the street, ring someone's door, ask for help, photograph your car, or pretty much do anything in public anymore.

They are the real menace to society, but they can't see that.

Please note that the fear-instilling effect of media coverage is not backed by conclusive evidence.

George Gerbner's famous television studies suggested that heavy viewers of crime shows would become more fearful and over-estimate violent crime (hence the name "scary world theory"). But scientific support is mixed, it's not safe to assume that this effect exists.

Seems to me that this is a direct corollary of the claim that people’s beliefs are affected at least somewhat by the data they are exposed to. This seems self-evidently true.

Maybe, but there's more to it.

(1) inconclusive means we may not have looked hard enough, or

(2) the effect may be very very small, as in not distinguishable from zero, or

(3) there are alternative models of learning. People could do bayesian updating, but they may also employ thresholds, toggle between belief systems and so on.

Summary: it's very complicated, lack of evidence suggests caution.

Maybe, but it's also possible that the people who LIKE crime shows tend to be less overly paranoid about it vs. people who just watch the news not necessarily expecting to see negative content, but do.

Similarly, the effect of media coverage can also be thought to be visible in perceptions of race relations. When polled, Americans say that their local race relations are still near the best they've ever been, but for the past few years have tended to respond more and more negatively about the quality of race relations at a national level — ie, what they perceive through the media and social media.

Decades old and still completely relevant, "Culture of Fear": https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Fear-Americans-Afraid-Things/...

Also, in my experience older people just get more paranoid. I have seen it happen with family members who are otherwise pretty sharp. They get more wary or suspicious in ways that aren't very rational. Since that is a lot of the folk who hang out on places like Nextdoor, I can see how that goes. That's why you need diversity and young families in neighborhoods. It provides balance.