Crime, Media, Culture

• The anatomy of written scam communications: An empirical analysis

  Carter, E., 2015-09-11 19:07:37 PM

  This paper examines the interactional construction of written scam communications. It draws on an empirical corpus of 52 envelopes containing letters and leaflets designed to deceive recipients into parting with their money or personal details, and presents the analysis of eight extracts in illustrating the findings. This research draws on interactional methodologies to provide in-depth insights into the underlying techniques used in scams, and to identify a wider framework that accommodates and facilitates their effect. It explores and exposes what elements of the scammers’ communicative efforts are enlisted and directed towards the performance of particular acts such as inferring legitimacy and credibility, and inspiring urgency and secrecy. These elements combine to perform a range of highly effective communicative acts that, although the communication is mass-produced with no knowledge of the recipient other than a name and address, result in the exploitation of their individual vulnerability in a highly personalised manner.
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• Thought bite: A case study of the social construction of a crime and justice concept

  Surette, R., 2015-09-11 19:07:37 PM

  The social construction of copycat crime exhibits a process in which a new criminological meme developed first as a media construct and subsequently as a criminological concept. How common the sequence where criminologists follow the media in the construction of crime and justice reality is unknown. The examination of the social construction of copycat crime suggested that the media create a new crime and justice construct through increased usage and modification of either newly minted or previously existing phrases that are disseminated as new crime and justice memes. In the case of copycat crime, media usage and public acceptance foreshadowed criminologists’ use of the phrase. A multi-step social construction process is hypothesized. A new construct becomes established and accepted in the public lexicon and popular media content; criminology researchers and practitioners note the increased public interest; renamed and reinvigorated research follows, and successful constructs become validated crime and justice phenomena. Employing the social construction history of copycat crime as a case study, this article details the social construction activities in the public and media spheres that created receptive environments for a unique new criminological construct to be developed. Traced from the inception of its component parts to its birth and adoption, the social construction of "copycat crime" demonstrates a useful methodology for the study of other crime and justice constructions and suggests that the relationship between criminology and the media regarding the social construction of crime and justice be further explored.
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• 'We have to start showing who is boss now': Constructing methamphetamine use and users in the South African print media

  Howell, S., 2015-09-11 19:07:37 PM

  This paper critically engages with media representations of the use and users of methamphetamine, or ‘tik’, in South Africa. It makes two primary claims. First, the paper argues that the media has drawn on the themes of criminality, pathology and victimhood in articulating the ‘tik’ phenomenon. Second, it is argued that these themes intersect with much deeper discourses, discourses that are especially pertinent to the South African context – such as race, sex and HIV/AIDS – in order to make meaning. The resulting moral framework encourages punitive approaches to the regulation of ‘tik’, while undermining reductive or rehabilitation-orientated regulation strategies. This occurs despite punitive efforts having never been consistently effective in the country. Consequently, the paper argues that media constructions of ‘tik’ oversimplify a complex socio-political, economic and historically rooted phenomenon, frequently encouraging stigma and the exclusion of the ‘tik’ user from society. This not only prevents more effective measures being thought possible, but frequently also serves to exclude those who already live at the very margins of society.
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• Constructing the victim in the bullying narrative: How bullying discourses affirm rather than challenge discriminatory notions of gender and sexuality

  Foreman, V., 2015-09-11 19:07:37 PM

  This project focuses on how bullying victims are constructed as victims through a content analysis of news articles on Phoebe Prince and Tyler Clementi, two teens who committed suicide after being bullied. While the discourse that emerges from these cases appears to do similar symbolic work as hate crime laws that condemn harassment based on sexual orientation, on closer examination the discourses can also be read as upholding discriminatory systems of patriarchy and heteronormativity in their attempts to explain the suicides as an expected or predictable response to homophobia and sexism. Framing Prince and Clementi as victims of bullying, rather than victims of poor mental health or family discord, creates a narrative that reifies rather than challenges repressive and discriminatory notions of sexuality and gender.
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• 9/11 and the evolution of newspaper representations of incarcerated Muslims

  Umamaheswar, J., 2015-09-11 19:07:37 PM

  Prior research has examined public attitudes towards—and media portrayals of—Muslims in the United States following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Scholars, however, have yet to examine media portrayals of incarcerated Muslims in the era following the attacks. In this article, I analyze newspaper reports published before and after the 9/11 attacks to examine whether representations of incarcerated Muslims shifted following the attacks. Findings indicate that although terrorism and the war on terror, inmate radicalization, and the significance of Muslim chaplains are themes that emerged only in post-9/11 reports, there is also substantial overlap in the content of reports published before and after the attacks. These findings are interpreted by drawing on the minority threat perspective.
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• Border theatre and security spectacles: Surveillance, mobility and reality-based television

  Walsh, J. P., 2015-09-11 19:07:37 PM

  Long central to the exercise of sovereignty and symbolic power, border surveillance and policing are not only being amplified in the name of crime control and counter-terrorism, but exist as mass-mediated sources of fascination and entertainment. Interrogating Border Security: Australia’s Front Line as an example of the emergent genre of border-based reality television, this article examines the program’s cultural meanings and political functions. Through media spectacles that construct government authorities as heroic defenders protecting the nation from an array of external threats and fearful others, the program: legitimates state agendas; addresses anxieties associated with neoliberal globalization; and enrolls citizens as co-producers of national security. Accordingly, beyond representing, the program constitutes and prefigures the ‘reality’ of border enforcement, rendering it inevitable, necessary, and desirable.
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• Book review: Claire Cohen, Male Rape is a Feminist Issue: Feminism, Governmentality and Male Rape

  Salter, M., 2015-09-11 19:07:37 PM

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• Book review: Gray Cavender and Nancy C. Jurik, Justice Provocateur: Jane Tennison and Policing in Prime Suspect

  Danner, M. J. E., 2015-09-11 19:07:37 PM

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• Book review: Mark S. Hamm, The Spectacular Few: Prisoner Radicalization and the Evolving Terrorist Threat

  Vertigans, S., 2015-09-11 19:07:37 PM

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• CODA

  2015-09-11 19:07:37 PM

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