Crime and the Media : The Postmodern Spectacle

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.

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.