lecture 2

Through the Historical looking glass cultural representations & Soc3029: Media, Crime & Social processes

Justice

Introduction • Contemporary media

interest in crime and justice is a modern phenomenon but has origins in the past

• Structured along two

dimensions:

• Print, sound, visual &

new media

Encoding/Decoding Model - Stuart Hall (1973) Gramsci – Hegemony i.e. dominant ideology Althusser – Interpellation i.e. assimilated self Feedback & Filters

Producer Sender

Message

Medium

Encoded

Third Way A holistic model of communication that suggests an active negotiating audience

Message

Decoded

Noise

Audience Receiver

Early Modern News • Oral tradition dominated the past • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UkXf9kckuk

• 1450 – Western Europe print revolution

• Early crime literature emerged

• Tudor to Victorian England

• Modern vs. Traditional

Victorian Era •

The Pauper/Penny Press

•

Expanded to become the key /major source of media/information in the 19thC/20thC

•

Independent press free from the legal & financial control governments

•

The first medium to generate a mass market

•

Targeted a growing mass of semiliterate urbanites with their human-interest stories

•

Portrayed individual crime as the result of class

The brutal murder of New York prostitute Helen Jewett in 1836 • Violently slashed to death & her brothel room set on fire

• a classic ‘who-done-it’

• ‘inaugurated a sex-and-

death sensationalism in news reporting’

• Suitor found not guilty after

http://www.scribd.com/doc/94014521/The-Murder-of-Helen-Jewett

Jack the Ripper: • The most (in)famous Victorian crime

(i.e. serial killer)

• Newspapers highlighted the public’s

alarm – sensationalism

• Speed of communication increased

• Allowed for the unfolding of a crime

story to be developed

• Effected policy = stricter control over

medical profession & welfare reform

Detective and Crime Thrillers •The rise of the crime

novel – evolved from earlier forms •Represents a

historical shift from arbitrary punishment to rule of law

•

•

Hard Boiled Detective Fiction, Most popular 19thC US print media Magazines and “dime” novels Public concern & attack

• Bleak & cynical

• Wealth, power & status are key elements in the

context of the city

• The competent, ‘heroic’ & rule bending detective

Comic Books • First appeared in the 1930s

• Marketed to both children and adults

• Socially influential

• Feature crime-fighters

• Construct sophisticated images and

analyses of crime and justice

• Public concern & attack

Academic Texts • Historical/critical examination of

popular media representation of street crime & delinquency over the last 200

• Consistently view criminality in

modern society as a new or unique problem

• A criminal present is always

contrasted with a safer past

Pearson (1983) ‘A History of Respectable Fear

Journals - 1945-1990s - Reiner (2003) • Both news (factual) & entertainment (fictional) crime

stories are prominent in all media

• These stories overwhelmingly focus on serious violent

crime, especially murder

• Offenders and victims in these stories are of higher

status and older than actual offenders and victims

Radio •

Dominated as the 1920s/40s home entertainment and information medium

•

Pure audio media

•

Delivering information in a linear fashion akin to print while evoking mental images and emotions analogous to visuals

•

Portrayals of criminality could only be heard, not seen

Film • Provided the first modern

mass/popular media • Rapidly came to reflect &

shape Western culture • Directly reach individuals

with information & images • Dominant themes have been

identified with certain periods • Increasingly more punitive

TV • Became dominant medium post

WW2

• Combined characteristics of both film

and radio to quickly become the dominant media

• Audiences embraced television

• Helped create a new & different

society

new digital interactive media • Specialised crime & justice products • Exemplified by the Internet,

electronic games & PDAs

• Target small homogenous

audiences that have a special interest in a narrow type of content

• Delivery of content is controlled and

determined to a much greater degree by the consumer

Types of Content • Entertainment =

escapism?

• Advertising = big

business

• News = true, current, and

objective information about significant world events?

BUT...what about Media/Crime relation as event-making...and where does Justice fit in? A crime occurs...but for 'this' crime to be news-worthy, in some way it has to have significance as: Identifiable Easily reportable i.e. not complex banking and fraud cases which is related to perceptions of target audience – basically are they bright enough to get it? Categorisable against a tariff of significance (for audience) Has extra features which in themselves may not be criminal e.g. sex, the blonde, the accomplice, a dark past...which somehow appears to explain the event such that the audience can say “oh well..stands to Reason...” matching models of the crime-structure/popular explanation Between reporters and audience.

BUT...what about Media/Crime relation as event-making...and where does Justice fit in? A crime occurs...but for 'this' crime to be news-worthy, in some way it has to have significance as: Identifiable Easily reportable i.e. not complex banking and fraud cases which is related to perceptions of target audience – basically are they bright enough to get it? Categorisable against a tariff of significance (for audience) Has extra features which in themselves may not be criminal e.g. sex, the blonde, the accomplice, a dark past...which somehow appears to explain the event such that the audience can say “oh well..stands to Reason...” matching models of the crime-structure/popular explanation Between reporters and audience.

The need to adapt to lay explanation as key to communicating in an anticipatable way...thus obliging audience to read on And awaiting the next instalment in tomorrow's 'Soar away Sun' And this helps to generate readers = profits Event-alisation as good encoding for; a) exciting/engaging the audience b) as generating hits =new readers/maintaining existing ones (churn rate) c) to keep profits flowing (capitalism – the political-economy approach to media analysis. (Drop the dead Donkey s4, ep 7) @ 2'.48”; 6'; 7'40”; 11'.23”; 19'40”

But 'reported crime event' as a 'bundling of process' – if is a good crime e.g. 'orrible murder with sex and money (@10'.40'') -the reporting takes time in re establishing the scene and the detection process by police et al. But that can get boring for audience unless new aspects – new events can be 'constructed' – i.e. reporting a lead which is titillating, even better another murder (recent and tragic Alice Gross story were likely suspect had in past and in another (old eastern European country where weirdness must happen – vampires etc) murdered his wife.

The wages of Sin – Fatty Arbuckle's last days

And the suspect made the story neat by killing himself...which is almost s good as another murder And produces justice in relation to a short news cycle...rather than a long drawn out trial which must be covered but cost in terms of time and journalists Bit if there is a trial – the justice bit – and the case is big enough it may have to be reported rather like a Hollywood court-room drama which of course is a very coded narrative Judge – ponderous/serious even comic e.g. the famous Peter Cook attack on the Judge at the Jeremey Thorpe trial prosecution mean and forensic defence- keen and persuasive Jury – shocked by; surprised by, upset by.... And the witnesses and other evidence sources – need for dramatic evidence “on which the trial could well turn...” (think of the twists and turns of the Oscar Pistorius trial) – opens up a structural analysis of diacritical positioning.

And of course the verdict as dramatic – “he was sent down for...” But some crimes are iconic: Whitechapel murders; Great Train Robbery 63; Yorkshire Ripper; Dennis Neilsen; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moors_murders Moors Murders 63-66...and make eternal heroes and villains and so becomes a

Conclusion • Crime & Justice – Mediated Experience

• Our mass media is an electronic, visually dominated media

• The current marketing structure of the media is geared toward

narrowcasting, or targeting smaller, more homogenous audiences than were previously the focus

• The media must be understood as a collection of for-profit

businesses