Crime, Media and Policy

Course Content:

This module is designed to provide students with a critical introduction to the field of
crime and the media, with particular emphasis on the visual image. The module provides
a historical foundation to the subject before reviewing key media and criminological
debates against twenty-first century concerns about crime and deviance. The syllabus
develops to explore criminological theory, crime in media culture and the complex
interactions between consumers and producers.
The module is designed to provide students with the knowledge, understanding and skills
to critically engage with debates about crime news reporting, media and moral panic,
media constructions of women and children, media constructions of youth and ethnicity,
crime fiction, film and television crime drama, crime and surveillance society, crime
online, and crime and media policy.

Topics covered include:
? the historical development of the media and the emergence of crime
news and crime fiction;
? theoretical and research approaches to media and crime, and the social
discovery of folk devils and moral panics;
? representations of crime and the criminal, masculinity, morality, and
action.
? media constructions of women and children as ?evil monsters? and
?helpless victims? - from Borden to Bulger;
? the screen machine: visual depictions of policing and deviance: watching
the detectives and crime as popular culture commodity;
? mass media, mass murder, and mass hysteria: serial killer cinema and the
unresisting victim;
? big brother, cctv, and diminishing privacy: crime and the rise of
surveillance culture;
? crime culture as public obsession: stigmatisation, sentimentalisation, and
sanctification;
? Semantics, symbiosis and states of terror: power, politics and the construction of palatable news;
? the world wide web, cultural emancipation or opening the floodgates:
uncensored news, online crime and risk.

Autumn Semester:
? Monsters, mobs, mohocks, and rippers: Media and crime in historical context.
? Folk devils, moral panic and beyond: The news media and public perception.
? The burden of representation: Images of crime, morality and the criminal.
? What does the literature say about media and crime?
? What does the literature say about media, crime, and violence?
? Interpreting headlines: The case of Madeleine McCann.
? Reflections on the Media: Responses to the London riots 2011.
? The screen machine: Crime as popular culture and commodity.
? Mass media, mass murder, mass hysteria: News reporting, pulp fiction, and serial
killer cinema.

Teaching:
2 hour weekly workshop (lectures, group exercise or film presentation).

Assessment:
STUDY OPTION 1:
? A Report (Content Analysis) (50%)
? A 3000-word essay (50%)
STUDY OPTION 2: A Report (Content Analysis) (100%)

Study Option 1 = Whole Year
Study Option 2 = Autumn
Study Option 3 = Spring/summer