Crime And The Media

Features

Description

From video games that allow us to participate in Mafia-style violence, to newspaper reports about the latest terrorist atrocity, from detective novels that fill our bedside cabinets, to Hollywood's beloved legal dramas - the mass media is saturated with stories about crime, justice and disorder. Together they create a cultural landscape of crime that is distinctly at odds with reality, as criminologists are apt to complain.

Crime and the Media attempts to make sense of this cultural landscape and its relationship with broader social trends and public attitudes. Through focussed, critical discussions about crime in the media - taking on crime news and fictional representations of cops, courts, and corrections - the text equips students with an understanding of the key theoretical concepts and methodological tools that are required to undertake media analysis.

With questions for discussion, exercises and workshop sessions, as well as techniques for analysing crime in a range of media formats, the book makes an invaluable contribution to crime and media courses, and to the social sciences in general. Review: Written in a lively and accessible style this text has the potential to become central to - and eventually inform - crime and media courses cutting across disciplines such as media, sociology and psychology.

Bursting with case studies, it breaks down the many and varied ways in which crime and media intersect to form a picture of how societies function. In my view this text will be a welcome addition to what is becoming an internationally burgeoning field of study. - Siobhan Holohan, Lecturer in Sociology, Keele University, UK Bringing together a range of literature across disciplines and locations, Crime and the Media offers insightful perspectives on key issues for crime and media courses.

Something new has been added to the area. - Alyce McGovern, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, University of New South Wales, Australia I don't know of another book on this topic which is so specifically addressed to a student readership. The book is pitch perfect. - Sue Turnbull, Professor of Communication and Media Studies, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia 'This is the best crime and media related text I have ever encountered.

It offers comprehensive coverage of fictional and journalistic imagery, excellent discussion of major theoretical perspectives, comparison of various research methodologies and a nice list of historically grounded case studies.' - Cecil Greek, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of South Florida, USA