ABOUT THIS BOOK

This book brings together key debates within cultural studies, media studies, criminology and sociology on the relationship between the media and crime in a postmodern society – highlighted by recent controversies on the effects of media portrayals of violence and crime on the community at large.

Real-life crime, crime reconstruction and crime as entertainment are categories that are now so interdependent that the media itself is in danger of confusing the genres as it seeks to profit from their undoubted appeal. This intertextuality is a key theme in this collection. The contributors highlight and theorise the symbiosis that exists between real crime and its representations, from media moral panics, policing the crisis and representing order to the postmodern confusion of crime and spectacle, trial by media and trials on media. As recent debates have shown all too starkly, the media's neutrality in this critical area is ever more problematic.

This is an invaluable introduction to new thinking in a pressing contemporary debate.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

David Kidd-Hewitt taught criminology and law and society at London Guildhall University for over 20 years and was retired Head of the Department of Sociology and Applied Social Studies. He was a member of the editorial team on the journal Criminal Justice Matters.

Richard Osborne lectures in cultural studies, mass media and philosophy at the University of Arts London. He has authored many books including Art Theory for Beginners and Philosophy for Beginners.

REVIEWS

'An interesting and very readable addition to academic discourses on crime, violence and the media and will be of use to students across a range of disciplines'
Media, Culture and Society

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Notes on Contributors
Preface
1. Crime and the Media: A Criminological Perspective by David Kidd-Hewitt (London Guildhall University)
2. Crime and the Media: From Media Studies to Postmodernism by Richard Osborne (London Guildhall University)
3. Entertaining the Crisis: Television and Moral Enterprise by Richard Sparks (Keele University)
4. Black Cops and Black Villains in Film and TV Crime Fiction by Jim Pines (University of Luton)
5. Telling Tales: Media Power, Ideology and the Reporting of Child Sexual Abuse in Britain by Paula Skidmore (Nottingham Trent University)
6. Media Reporting of Rape: The 1993 British ‘Date Rape’ Controversy by Sue Lees (University of North London)
7. Through the Looking Glass: Public Images of White Collar Crime by A.E. Stephenson-Burton
8. A Fair Cop?: Viewing the Effects of the Canteen Culture in Prime Suspect and Between the Lines by Mary Eaton (St Mary's University College, Strawberry Hill, Middlesex)
9. Prime Time Punishment: The British Prison and Television by Paul Mason
10. Small Crime to Big Time: An Australian Celebrity Self-Abduction by Noel Sanders (UTS, Sydney)
11. From Desire to Deconstruction: Horror Films and Audience Reactions by Rikke Schubart (University of Copenhagen)
Notes by
Index