Sponsored by the Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology section of the American Sociological Association (CITAMS), this volume features social science research that examines the practices, patterns and messages related to representations of crime in mass media around the world.
Despite being an increasingly high profile subject, few publications address media representations of law and order head on. This book aims to meet this need by bringing together an important range of papers from leading researchers in the field, addressing issues of fictional, factual and hybrid representations of crime in the media.
Offering new and innovative ways of thinking about the relationship between media and crime, Media and Crime in the U.S. critically examines the influence of media coverage of crimes on US culture and identity.
The basic premise of this text is that people use knowledge obtained formt the nedia to build a picture of the world and then base their actions on this constructed image.
Drawing on theoretical insights, contemporary cases and recent research, this book introduces key issues in crime, media and culture and discusses methods of interrogating relationships between media representations of crime and crime 'reality'.
Media, Crime and Racism draws together contributions from scholars at the leading edge of their field across three continents to present contemporary and longstanding debates exploring the roles played by media and the state in racialising crime and criminalising racialised minorities. Comprised of empirically rich accounts and theoretically informed analysis, this dynamic text offers readers a critical and in-depth examination of contemporary social and criminal justice issues as they pertain to racialised minorities and the media. Chapters demonstrate the myriad ways in which racialised ‘others’ experience demonisation, exclusion, racist abuse and violence licensed – and often induced – by the state and the media. Together, they also offer original and nuanced analysis of how these processes can be experienced differently dependent on geography, political context and local resistance. This collection critically reflects on a number of globally significant topics including the vilification of Muslim minorities, the portrayal of the refugee ‘crisis’ and the representations and resistance of Indigenous and Black communities. This volume demonstrates that processes of racialisation and criminalisation in media and the state cannot be understood without reference to how they are underscored and inflected by gender and power. Above all, the contributors to this volume demonstrate the resistance of racialised minorities in localised contexts across the globe: against racialisation and criminalisation and in pursuit of racial justice.