978-1285459059 Chapter 1

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Chapter 1

Crime, Justice, and Media

Chapter Objectives

After reading Chapter 1, students should:

1. understand the importance of the relationship between media, crime, and criminal

justice

2. appreciate how criminal justice policy is impacted by the media

3. know the history of crime-and-justice media

4. understand the basic differences between the types of media

5. understand how different media content is related to media crime-and-justice portraits

Chapter Outline

I. Media and Criminal Justice: A Forced Marriage

A. Why we study crime, justice, and the media

1. Crime and justice provides a substantial portion of the media’s raw material

2. Popular crime and justice stories are framed, packaged, and marketed

3. Media portraits of crime and justice influence public perceptions of:

i. What behaviors should be criminalized

ii. Who should be punished

iii. What the punishment should be

iv. How police, judges, attorneys, correctional officers, criminals, and

victims should act

4. Contemporary technology compounds media influences

i. Technologies such as PDAs, cable television and satellite networks,

VCRs, the Internet, electronic games, virtual reality devices, mobile

communications devices, and social media platforms create faster and

broader access

ii. Have created a hyperactive media environment

1. New, high-speed media world dominated by entertainment

value and visual images

5. Effect of crime and justice in the media on policy

i. Examples:

1. Uncle Tom’s Cabin influenced slavery laws (mid-1800s)

2. I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang affected U.U. correctional

practices (depression era)

3. The Silence of the Lambs influenced serial killer threat policies

(1980s)

B. Media-rendered portraits often drive crime-and-justice practices

1. Memorial criminal justice policies (see Box 1.1)

i. Named for individuals who are usually innocent victims of heinous

crimes

ii. Result from massive publicity

1. Examples:

a. Megan’s Law

b. Amber Alerts

2. “Three Strikes and You’re Out” legislation

i. The cooption of the kidnapping and murder of Polly Klaas

3. Much of criminal justice policy exists because of high profile crimes being co-

opted as campaign symbols

4. Local criminal justice issues tend to spawn broad-based policy responses

i. Contemporary media often cover local crime through a national lens

1. Raises some newsworthy crimes to national prominence

2. Media portrays local crime as beyond the ability and resources

of local criminal justice agencies

3. Solutions to crime painted as sensible are always given a

punitive federal orientation

5. A secondary reason for studying the media, crime, and justice is public

worries most about a set of more visible concerns

i. Examples:

1. Media-orientated terrorist events

2. Copycat crime

3. Coverage of media trials

4. Media-linked social violence

ii. The criminal justice policies we support and pursue due to the media

ultimately affect these issues as well

6. Media ultimately influences how tax dollars are spent

i. Determines how we react to crime

1. Determined by what is visual, newsworthy, entertaining, and

salable

a. Criminal justice policy has become a national political

issue

b. Crime has become another media commodity

II. The Blurring of Fact and Fiction

A. Everyone is wedded to media through one or more of the following:

1. Internet

2. Television

3. Movies

4. Music

5. Video games

6. Multi-purpose new media devices

B. Media provide the broadly shared, common knowledge in our society independent of

occupation, education, and social status

C. Media knowledge is generally perceived as less important and more transient but

more entertaining and enjoyable

D. Technological progress is broadening media’s reach

1. Concerns have grown about:

i. Direct criminogenic media effects on:

1. Copycat crime

2. Media-oriented terrorism

ii. The reality the media create unduly influencing the public’s view of

reality

E. The snapshots of reality the media present provide the public a dramatic but reshaped

and marketed narrow slice of the world.

1. Public awareness of the unrealistic and heavily edited nature of media content

does not deter the public from being influenced

2. Media influence is particularly strong where alternate sources of information

are less available

3. Media-generated perception of crime-and-justice reality is exploited by both

the media and criminal justice policy makers

F. Looping

1. Results when events and information are repeatedly cycled and recycled

through the media into the culture to reemerge in new contexts in differing

media

i. Example: police car chase video cycles from courtroom evidence, to

local news footage, to infotainment program content, to a clip inserted

in a comedy movie, to Internet sites

2. Causes the blurring of fact and fiction

i. People come to believe that fictional events are real, that real events

didn’t happen, and that hybrid events are common

1. Many believe that Hannibal Lector is a real serial killer and

Jack the Ripper is fictional

2. Real events such as World Trade Center terrorist attacks

become hopelessly confounded in a blur of factual and fictional

claims

ii. People no longer trust the news but seem willing to believe

entertainment

G. Media and technology are simultaneously perceived as both a major cause of crime

and violence and a powerful potential solution to crime

1. Media is blamed for many social ills

2. Media is also expected to help reduce violence and drug use, deter crime, and

bolster the image of the criminal justice system

i. Law enforcement and the media

1. aids in criminal investigations

2. aids in manhunts

3. aids in street and vehicle patrols

ii. Courts and the media

1. look to media for assistance in:

a. processing criminal cases

b. reducing case backlogs

c. conducting trials

d. presenting testimony and evidence

e. deciding guilt

iii. Corrections and the media

1. look to media images for our perception of correctional

institutions, programs, and personnel

2. look to media to enhance security and surveillance

H. The love-hate relationship of the media-criminal justice marriage is the most

important relationship that exists for criminal justice policy

1. The media are blamed for many of the behaviors the criminal justice system

has to deal with

2. Media are simultaneously looked to for solutions to the problems found in the

criminal justice system and society

3. Studying the media-criminal justice marriage is key to understanding the

historical development and the future of crime and justice in America

III. A Brief History of Crime-and-Justice Media (See Table 1.1)

A. Media is structured along two dimensions

1. Types of Media

2. Types of Content

B. Types of Media (see Table 1.1)

a. Legacy Media

i. Print

ii. Sound

iii. Visual

b. New Media

i. Has hastened the blurring of the types of content by providing

simultaneous access within one device to all types of content

ii. Often combine print, sound, and visuals in new ways

C. Print Media

1. First medium to generate mass market (1830s)

2. U.S. penny press newspapers

a. Example: New York Sun: included daily police-court news column in

1833

i. Other penny dailies followed suit, and human-interest crime

stories quickly became a staple

ii. Class-oriented: portrayed crime as a result of class inequities

and often discussed justice as a process manipulated by the rich

and prominent

iii. Frequently contained due process arguments and advocated

due process reforms while presenting individual crimes as

examples of larger social and political failings

iv. Their success led to a market for weekly crime magazines

1. By the twentieth century, magazines focusing on crime,

sex scandals, corruption, sports, glamour, and show

business all flourished

2. Provided an early model for contemporary news and

modern television programs, mass marketing, and the

consumption of crime infotainment

3. Detective and crime thriller magazines and “dime” novels

a. Social concerns with the popular media originated with these products

b. Escapist literature: described crime as originating in individual

personality or moral weakness (as opposed to originating due to

broader social sources)

c. Downplayed wider social and structural explanations of crime found in

the earlier penny press newspapers

i. Helped reinforce the status quo

d. The “heroic” detectives in these works closely resembled the criminals

they apprehended—calculating and often odd loners

e. Similar to contemporary portraits of crime

i. reinforce the existing social order

ii. promote the impression that competent, often heroic

individuals are pursuing and capturing criminals

iii. encourage the belief that criminals are easily recognized

iv. encourage the belief that crime is ultimately curtailed through

aggressive law enforcement efforts

v. their print media icons were repeatedly replicated in radio,

film, and television programming

4. Comic books

a. Introduced in the 1930s

i. Evolved out of the newspaper-based comic strips of the 1890s

and combined with the twentieth-century pulp magazine

market

ii. Reality-crime comics appeared in 1942

1. based on true crimes and criminals

2. most popular type of comic book genre between 1947

and 1954

b. Feature the following:

i. Crime-fighting policeman

ii. Private detectives

iii. Costumed superheroes

c. Socially influential: marketed to both children and adults

i. Most popular among young males, particularly into the 1980s

ii. Have declined in popularity since initial introduction

1. industry came under attack in the late 1940s and early

1950s due to questionable subject matter

a. Outcry and criticisms resulted in a self-adopted

industry code that banned torture, sadism, and

detailed descriptions of crimes

2. have been replaced by other types of media such as

video games

iii. Persist as part of the multimedia web

1. their crime-and-justice portrayals still prosper via

licensing deals that span films, video games, toys, food,

cartoons, and television shows

d. Contemporary print media vs. contemporary digital media

i. Contemporary print media flourishes within new media venues

1. Text in the form of chat rooms, blogs, tweets, and

postings have been compressed in length but multiplied

in form

2. Much communication today is via the “printed” word

but does not involve an actual printed page

ii. Similarity: messages of print media and electronic media are

similar

iii. Major difference is access to their content

1. Print media is easier to select for viewing or to avoid

based on consumer preferences

a. To access, the consumer needs to be literate,

gain access to the materials, and make a clear

decision to use or not use them

2. Electronic media is “mass” media and is difficult to

avoid

D. Sound Media

1. Pure audio media have evolved from vinyl records to 8-track tapes, to

compact discs, to MP3 files, and other digital forms

2. Bridge print and visual media

a. Deliver information in a linear fashion akin to print while evoking

mental images and emotions analogous to visuals

3. First delivered and mass-marketed via radio networks

a. In the 1920s, radio networks dominated as the home entertainment and

information medium

b. Radio portrayals of crime differed from movie portrayals in that radio

portrayals were purely audio, and not visual

i. However, “hearing is believing,” and hearing the sounds of a

crime can be an emotionally gripping event

c. First to have live, on-the-scene news

i. Established by the following:

1. Hindenburg explosion (1937)

2. the Lindbergh baby kidnapping trial (1935)

3. the Scopes “monkey” evolution trial (1925)

d. Radio producers created the style that television would embellish:

i. short-term, visceral, emotional news coverage of discrete

“crime events”

e. Radio drama, at its height during the 1930s and 1940s, included crime-

fighting, detective, and suspense programming

i. “Radio Noir” programs included the following:

1. The Shadow

2. Sherlock Holmes

3. True Detective

4. Gang Busters (began in 1935 and is the forerunner of

current crime stoppers and Most Wanted style

programming)

5. Dragnet

a. Transitioned to television in the 1950s

b. Established the format for the 1950s television

docudramas based on police procedures and

investigations

4. The suspense programming found in radio was a forerunner for the more

graphic visual effects found in today’s media

a. Mental images were formed via sound effects that could not be shown

in films of the time

i. These sound effects preceded today’s graphic visual special

effects

5. Collectively, radio crime-and-justice programming provided the models for:

a. modern-day crime-and-justice reality programming

b. the contemporary stereotypes of criminals and criminal justice

c. the heavy emphasis on law enforcement activities over other segments

of the criminal justice system

d. the exploitation of sensational heinous crimes

E. Visual Media

1. Film

a. Nationalized media content

i. First to provide the media with the ability to blanket all of

society

ii. Content available to every social, economic, and intellectual

stratum

b. Initially silent and inexpensive

i. Did not require a common language

ii. Images were universally available and widely consumed

1. By 1917, the U.S. motion picture industry was

established as the premier commercial entertainment

form in the world

2. By the 1930s two of every three Americans attended a

movie weekly

iii. Film rapidly came to reflect and shape American culture

1. First modern mass media

2. Crossed geographic, economic, and ethnic lines

a. Was both a social event and an information

source

3. First medium to bypass the traditional socializing

agents of church, school, family, and community

c. Dominant crime-and-justice themes

i. The first media criminals were descendants of Western

outlaws, often portrayed in dime novels

ii. Early film criminals were usually portrayed as urban citizens:

depicted ruthless crooks engaged in corrupt business practices

in the pursuit of wealth (a popular contemporary motif)

iii. Nostalgic portrayals (1910-1920): films portrayed simple

youthful criminality by reflecting street gang experiences

among working-class immigrants

iv. 1920s-1950s criminal motifs included:

1. sullen returning World War I veteran

2. high-rolling bootlegger and Depression-era gunman

(1930s)

3. modern corporate or syndicate executive-gangster

4. depictions of violence, terrorism, and becoming more

graphic as gangsters, policemen, and detectives became

more violent and less distinguishable from one another

(1940s)

2. Television

a. Introduced between 1948 and 1951

i. Soon replaced the radio as the prime home entertainment

medium

ii. The movie industry restructured and radio dramas were history

b. Social Impact

i. Influenced the shape and content of all media and in doing so

helped create a new and different society

ii. Programming has always aimed at attracting and holding large

audiences

1. Has experienced phenomenal growth and acceptance

iii. Programming is often described as a vast wasteland of

recycled, mediocre programs

iv. In 1977: ratio of Americans to television sets was 1:1 (ratio has

never declined)

1. Television viewing remains an important activity for

many Americans

c. Crime shows became a staple of prime time television in the late 1950s

i. Example: The Untouchables

ii. 1959-1961: accounted for one-third of all prime time shows

iii. 1960s: leveling off trend

iv. 1970s: increases in crime programming

v. 1975 (peak): almost 40 percent of the three then dominant

networks’ prime time schedules contained shows focusing on

crime and law enforcement

d. Total amount of crime-and-justice programming available via

television is greater than ever with crime stories found within all types

of programming

i. movies shown on television

ii. miniseries

iii. program promotions

iv. syndicated programs

v. local, satellite, and cable network programming

F. New Media

1. Digital interactive media exemplified by:

a. Internet

b. Electronic games

c. Smart phones

2. Competing definitions

a. What comprises “new media”

b. The boundary between where old “legacy media” and the “new media”

is blurry

3. Common characteristics:

a. Made up of devices and capabilities encompassing digital and Internet

technology

b. Characterized by interactive social media and multimedia content

c. Employs digital information that is quickly and easily shared among

large audiences

d. Can take the form of print, sound, moving or still images and all of

their combinations

e. Content is highly fluid and allows for faster and broader

communication between linked consumers and encourages the

merging and looping of content across media forms

4. Information globalization and the social construction of crime have occurred

5. Three characteristics differentiate new media from traditional media:

a. Narrowcasting

i. Key is to target small but loyal audience that shares an interest

in a subject

b. On-demand

i. The delivery of content is controlled and determined to a much

greater degree by the consumer

c. Interactivity

i. Allows the consumer to be an active participant in the

development of the content

ii. Users are often players or surfers and role-playing and content

authorship is a common natural part of new media activities

6. New media moves the audience from passive media customers to active media

co-producers

7. Combined with computers to generate virtual realities

a. These new media experiences are the closest to actual experienced

reality available

IV. Types of Content

A. Four Basic Types:

a. One now commonly sees:

i. product placements in films

ii. news stories produced by corporate public relations offices

iii. infomercials disguised as talk and news shows

iv. product endorsements embedded in Facebook pages

5. Has become a pervasive, multi-avenue, continuous media campaign

interwoven into and throughout other media content

6. Sole media realm found to be comparatively low on crime and violence

E. Entertainment

1. Provides escapism

a. Does not reflect any specific reality or real event

b. Popular because it allows consumers a pleasurable escape from reality

i. Narratives engage and transport

ii. Provides views of realities that cannot be otherwise seen

iii. Describes experiences that will not be personally experienced

via mediated events that did not happen

iv. Able to see impossible crimes, fights, and adventures by people

with abilities that no humans possess surviving experiences

that are not survivable

2. Involves all of the media content that is not forwarded as reflecting any

specific reality or real event

a. Crime-and-justice stories have been estimated to account for about

one-fourth of all entertainment output

F. News

1. Marketed as true, current, and objective information about significant world

events

a. Plays a strong role in one’s perception of reality

2. Contemporary crime news

a. Voyeuristic consumption

i. Information about real events and real people

1. Events are rare and distant

ii. Displays the lives of people caught up in extreme

circumstances such as:

1. bizarre crimes

2. spectacular trials

3. Extraordinary situations

b. Provides filtered, molded snippets of the abnormal criminal events of

the world

i. Provides an escape from the normal via a social construction of

the unusual

c. Has expanded due to an increased number of media outlets

d. “Social control” news

1. includes information about law enforcement efforts and

new social control policies such as:

a. curfews

b. crackdowns

e. Normally unfolds in three segments:

i. Begins with an announcement that a crime has occurred

ii. The viewer is then visually or verbally transported to the scene

of the crime

iii. Finally, the focus shifts to the search, identification, or

apprehension of the offender and related efforts of law

enforcement officials

3. Historical crime news

a. Popular story lines have included the following:

i. Treason

ii. Murder

iii. Witchcraft

iv. Coverage was laden with details of criminal acts intertwined

with moral exhortations to the readers about the dangers of sin

1. reports are surprisingly similar to today’s infotainment

b. 18th-early 19th century: crime-related street literature maintained the

idea that crime news was for profit and entertainment

c. In the mid 1830s, crime reporting became a prominent specialty

d. The emergence of specialized reporters marks the beginning of the

aggressive marketing of crime news to the public

i. The evolution since has been for news to be produced more

and more as a salable commodity.

e. By the late 1800s, newspapers came to be produced by modern

corporations with large advertising revenues, staffs, and circulations

f. Crime coverage further increased further with the introduction of

yellow journalism

i. emphasized the details of individual crimes

ii. police officers replaced court personnel and witnesses as the

primary source of crime information

4. Process by which news is created

a. Key for both models is newsworthiness:

i. the criteria by which news producers choose which of all

known events are selected to be news

b. Market model

i. newsworthiness is determined by public interest

ii. journalists simply and objectively report and reproduce the

world in the news

iii. reporters are regarded as reactive news collection agents who

meet public interest needs

c. Manipulative model

i. news is selected according to the interests of the news

agencies’ owners

ii. media purposefully distort reality

1. use the news as a means of shaping public opinion

2. support large social institutions and the status quo

d. Both models are inadequate

i. They ignore the organizational realities of news production,

which by its nature, makes rendering an objective, unbiased,

mirror image of reality impossible

e. Crime news is best understood through the organizational model

i. Factors related to the organizational needs of news agencies

steer the process

ii. Crime news is inherently subjective, though not necessarily

ideologically biased.

iii. What the public receives as news is capsulized, stylized, and

commodified information

5. The bulk of news is formed by journalists working under organizational

pressures

a. Two forms:

i. As organizations, news agencies need to routinize nonroutine

events to plan and schedule the use of resources.

ii. News media personnel must become active co-creators of the

news

1. Reactive to truly unexpected events, proactive and part

of the creation process for the rest of the news

6. Two information-processing systems

a. News agencies

b. Government

i. Beat system: reporters cover specific subject areas, such as

state politics or downtown crime

1. restricts a journalist’s sources and perspectives

a. report on those at the top of the social hierarchy

b. report on those who threaten them (those at the

bottom)

c. report to an audience located in the middle of

the social hierarchy

ii. Contemporary traditional journalism has become characterized

by the processing of news releases and press conferences than

1. The focus of contemporary traditional journalism is

now on individual criminals and street crimes

2. Normally hear criminal justice system and government

officials talking criminals and crimes or receive non-

journalistic accounts directly distributed through new

media avenues

a. Contemporary traditional news agencies often

find themselves using unedited images and

accounts produced at a crime scene by new

media equipped bi-standers

i. As likely to see images from a smart

phone on the news as see footage

produced by a news agency crime

reporter

7. Criteria for the selection of crime news

a. A story will be chosen depending on the following:

i. How it fits into established themes

ii. Seriousness of the events

iii. Whimsical circumstances

iv. Sentimental or dramatic elements

v. The involvement of high-status persons

vi. Engaging images

vii. The seriousness of the event—primary factor

1. crimes occur in the opposite proportion to their

seriousness

a. the news criterion for seriousness is harm to

individuals rather than overall social harm

2. the media report those crimes that are least common

and thus construct a crime reality at odds with the social

reality of crime

a. it is therefore difficult for the public to estimate

the typical crime

8. Crime news production checkpoints

a. Gatekeepers (see Figure 1.2)

i. The person controlling the processing checkpoints

ii. Crime reporter

1. key gatekeeper

2. must develop reliable police resources and maintain

their trust

a. developed a working relationship with the

police that benefited both and, over time, the

two sides developed similar work experiences

and outlooks

iii. Public information officer (PIO)

1. public agencies and private lobby and pressure groups

have entered the crime news gatekeeping process

a. the PIO has emerged as the criminal justice

system’s response to this competition

2. new media content such as cell phone videos have

allowed private individuals to influence the crime news

gatekeeping process

9. Crime news makes up a large part of the total news because it:

a. is prepackaged and popular

b. helps news organizations in their routinization task

i. scheduling and resource allocation

c. can be gathered at little cost

d. is popular with the public

G. Infotainment

1. Defined as the marketing of edited, highly formatted information about the

world in entertainment media vehicles

a. combines aspects of news, entertainment, and advertising

i. audience feels like they are learning real facts

ii. audience is really getting a highly stylized rendition of a

narrow, edited slice of the world

iii. makes it less sensible to discuss the three traditional media

components separately

iv. crime perfectly fits infotainment demands for content about

real events that can be delivered in an entertaining fashion

1. infotainment has always played a minor role in the

media’s crime-and-justice content

2. Early examples include:

a. Crime pamphlets

b. Gallows sermons

3. Why did infotainment explode in the late twentieth century?

a. Media, led by television, became more visual, intrusive, and

technologically capable

i. Satellites beam information around the world

ii. News helicopters

iii. Videotaped events

iv. Surveillance cameras

b. Viewing audience became more voyeuristic and entertainment

conscious

i. News and entertainment has blurred

1. Expanded hours, more networks, and new media

competing for audience attention led to a need for more

content

a. led to entertainment elements being

incorporated into news content

2. Blurring began in the 1980s

3. Contemporary consumers are unable to draw a line

between crime-and-justice news and crime-and-justice

entertainment

4. Today, substantial amounts of infotainment content are found across a broad

spectrum of shows

a. Found in:

i. Television

ii. Print

iii. Radio

b. Examples of shows:

i. celebrity sports

ii. lifestyles

iii. interview

iv. game

v. pseudoscience

vi. crime-and-justice

1. COPS

5. Crime control model dominates in crime-and-justice infotainment

a. “Realism” encourages the acceptance of their portrayals by audiences

as accurate pictures of the world because they employ the following:

i. real crimes

ii. reenactments

iii. documentary-like formatting

b. Employ the oldest entertainment crime story structure known:

i. crime → chase → capture

6. Three types of common crime-and-justice infotainment

a. News magazines and web sites and blogs

i. Extend the application of the entertainment values found in

lesser degrees in much of the daily news content

ii. Stories are underdeveloped

1. Because of their time and format constraints, not much

time is spent on any single story

iii. Devote more content to the most interesting stories

1. the most sensational, violent, dramatic, visual or

scandalous

iv. Provide audiences:

1. access to large amounts of information

2. opportunities to share opinions about crimes

3. Within these avenues, a crime can be fully constructed

as an entertainment vehicle along stereotypic story

lines, plots, characters, victims, villains, and dramatic

endings

v. Lower end programs are equivalent to tabloids

vi. Higher end shows include 60 minutes and web sites associated

with established news agencies

vii. Convey the impression that crime is being discussed from

multiple sides and that a full contextual review is being

provided

viii. However, we see a process of commodification

1. Defined: the packaging and marketing of crime

information for popular consumption and commercial

profit

2. crimes and criminals are portrayed as simplistic

3. the public’s ability to evaluate criminal justice policies

suffers

b. Reality-based crime shows

i. Entertain by sensationalizing real stories about crime and

justice

ii. Employ dramatizations of actual crimes interspersed with

police narrative and interviews or actual footage

iii. Concerns arise directly from their claim to be presenting reality

iv. Features:

1. They mix reconstructions, actors, and interviews and

employ camera angles, music, lighting, and sets to

enhance their dramatic and entertainment elements

2. Law and order, social control, and the point of view of

law enforcement officials dominate

3. Stereotyped portraits of crimes, criminals, and victims

4. The crime-and-justice world appears as a violent,

crime-prone underclass held in check by the police

c. Media trials: the co-optation of a regional or national crime or justice

event by the media which are developed and marketed along

entertainment style storylines as a source of drama, entertainment, and

profit

i. A dramatic miniseries developed around a real criminal case

ii. Society is intrigued by the inner workings of the criminal

justice system

iii. Classic example includes the film To Kill a Mockingbird which

gave audience’s a realistic view

iv. Cameras allowed in America’s courtrooms (late 1970s) to:

1. cover deliberations

2. record the emotional responses of the participants

3. conduct interviews with participants

v. Differ from typical news coverage due to the massive and

intense coverage that begins either with the discovery of the

crime or the arrest of the accused

1. The media cover all aspects of a case, often

highlighting extralegal aspects

2. Judges, lawyers, police, witnesses, jurors, and

defendants are interviewed, photographed, and

frequently raised to celebrity status

3. Personalities, personal relationships, physical

appearances, and idiosyncrasies are commented on

regardless of legal relevance

4. Coverage is live whenever possible, pictures are

preferred over text, and text is characterized by

conjecture and sensationalism

vi. “Trials of the century” occur with regularity

1. Early example: 1893: Lizzie Borden ax murder trial

2. Other once-famous names include:

a. Fatty Arbuckle

b. Sacco and Vanzetti

c. Bruno Hauptmann

d. the Rosenbergs

e. Patty Hearst

f. Scott Peterson

g. Drew Peterson

3. Soon to follow examples of once-famous names:

a. Casey Anthony

b. Jodi Arias (see Box 1.2)

vii. These trials become the palettes for the social construction of

the criminal justice system

1. They provide simplistic explanations of crime within a

“real” trial

2. Crime is nearly universally attributed to individual

characteristics and failings (rather than to social

conditions)

viii. Represent the complete merging of information and

entertainment

V. Crime and Justice as a Mediated Experience

1. Mediated Experience: the comparative experience that an individual has when he or she

experiences an event via the media versus actually personally experiencing the event

a. Evolution of the Mediated Experience

i. Radio provided sound, live coverage, and home delivery

ii. Films provided continuous action

iii. Television provided a combination of image, sound, live coverage, and

home delivery

iv. New media technological developments have evolved to create delivery

vehicles that increase access and choice in media consumption

v. Electronic interactive games and computer-generated images have moved

the mediated experience via virtual and augmented reality to be physically

competitive to a real-world experience while simultaneously shifting the

audience from passive observers of events to digital participants

b. The evolution of the media has had a significant impact on the criminal justice

system

i. Mediated crime-and-justice experience and knowledge dominates real-

world crime-and-justice experience and knowledge

1. Most Americans have limited direct experience with crime and the

criminal justice system despite reports to the contrary

2. Experiencing crime and justice via the media is preferable to

experiencing crime-and-justice events directly

c. Crime-and-justice policies are created from mediated reality

i. We live in a multimedia environment where content, particularly images,

appear ubiquitously throughout the media landscape

ii. In some instances the mediated event blots out the actual event so that

what people believe happened based on widespread media renditions

supplants what actually happened.

1. The facts of an event become irrelevant in the face of the mediated

rendition of the event.

2. This trend toward media portrayal over reality is particularly

powerful in crime and justice where news, entertainment, and

advertising combine with infotainment content and new media to

construct our mediated crime-and-justice reality

3. What we believe about crime and justice and what we think ought

to be done about crime and justice is based on a view of reality that

has been parsed, filtered, recast, and refiltered through the

electronic, visually dominated, multimedia web

d. Mediated crime-and-justice experiences become more socially significant and

influential then actual experiences.

2. In sum, five realities of twenty-first-century media are important for crime and justice

a. Mass media is an electronic, visually dominated media

i. Content is fluid and moves quickly from medium to medium

ii. Images have more value than other media content

iii. Multimedia renditions of events are the norm

iv. Goal is to make the mediated experience indistinguishable from actual

experience

v. New media is altering the manner in which crime-and-justice information

is collected, disseminated, and interpreted

b. The current marketing structure of the media is narrowcasting

i. Content is constantly reformatted, reused, and looped to reach multiple

and varied markets

ii. New media have decentralized the creation and distribution of content

iii. Audiences have moved from passive consumers to active participants

c. Media must be understood as a collection of for-profit businesses

i. From a media business perspective, advertising is the most important

content

1. Each media business must make money to survive, and the primary

purpose of media is to deliver a consumer to an advertiser

ii. From a media business perspective, advertising is the most important

content

iii. From the consumer and social impact side, the most important content is

infotainment

iv. New media has begun to drastically change the profitability of legacy

media, especially print-based ones

d. Media businesses exist within a highly competitive environment

Chapter Key Terms

memorial criminal justice policies [2]

looping [5]

multimedia web [9]

yellow journalism [17]

newsworthiness [17]

market model [17]

manipulative model [17]

organizational model [17]

gatekeeper [18]

infotainment [19]

commodification [22]

media trial [23]

mediated experience [25]

Helpful and Interesting Internet Sites

The following sites are interesting sources for this chapter. Please review them before

recommending them to your students.

Memorial Criminal Justice Policy Links & Crime Information Links

http://www.amberalert.gov/

http://www.klaaskids.org/index.htm

http://www.meganslaw.ca.gov/

http://www.wetip.com/

Media History and Media Links

http://www.tvhistory.tv/

http://dmoz.org/News/Media/

http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/crimemedia/medialinks.htm

http://www.fcc.gov/

http://www.otr.com/private.shtml

Legislative Policy

http://thomas.loc.gov/

http://www.threestrikes.org/index.html