Description There is a close relationship between representations of crime in mass and social media, and policy and legal responses to crime. Media consumers are producing and circulating content about crime and criminality through new media technologies, and some are using social media and the internet to engage in new forms of criminality. In this unit, we explore the complex role of mass media and 'new' media in debates over crime and crime control, and the facilitation of criminality by media technologies. This means studying contemporary media theory and its relevance for criminology, and the effects of social media and computing technology on representations and practices of criminality. The unit maintains a strong focus on the ways in which media and culture informs crime policy and criminal justice processes.
School Social Sciences
Discipline Criminology
Student Contribution Band HECS Band 4 10cp
Check your HECS Band contribution amount via the Fees page.
A basic understanding of foundational criminological theory.
On successful completion of this subject, students should be able to:
Demonstrate an understanding of the theoretical accounts and topics of research that are part of criminological media studies.
Make appropriate links between theoretical accounts and independent research.
Demonstrate the capacity to disseminate theoretical and empirical evidence of the links between culture, media and crime to a professional audience.
Critically assess cultural depiction of crime, criminals and the criminal justice system.
1. An introduction to criminological media studies
- Explains the role and history of media studies within criminology.
2. The Spectacle and Hyper-Reality
- Explore how spectacular images are used to dramatise crime and criminal justice issues in ways that remove or simplify context, and the blurred distinction between the represented and the real.
3. News and true crime
- Examines how the relationship between commercial interests and criminal activity inform and impact news about crime, and how popular culture representations of crime in true crime media impact social expectations about crime and criminal justice issues.
4. Internet and social media
- Introduces the internet as a ‘new media technology’ as a conduit for discourse and representations of criminality and also a potential instrument of criminality, with a focus on the effects of social media on contemporary society
5. Technology
- Examines how key technologies, such as drones and video games, feature in discourses of policing and crime control, and the role of computing technologies in mystifying state violence.
6. Impact on policy and practice
- Provides case studies of the entanglement between media and cultural discourses of crime and public policy, legislative reform and policing practice.
Assessment
The following table summarises the standard assessment tasks for this subject. Please note this is a guide only. Assessment tasks are regularly updated, where there is a difference your Learning Guide takes precedence.
