October
2006 Volume 48, no. 6
Contents/Sommaire
Constructing Crime: Media, Crime, and
Popular Culture
Ken Dowler, Thomas Fleming,
Stephen L.Muzzatti
La construction sociale du crime: les
me dias, le crime et la culture populaire
Ken Dowler et Thomas Fleming,
Stephen L.Muzzatti
How Not toThink about Crime
in the Media
Aaron Doyle
Seeing Red over Black and White: Popular
and Media Representations of Inter-racial
Relationships as Precursors to Racial
Violence
Barbara Perry,
Michael Sutton
News, Truth, and the Recognition
of Corporate Crime
John L.McMullan
Book Reviews / Recensions de livres
Constructing Crime: Media, Crime, and
Popular Culture
Ken Dowler, Thomas Fleming,
Stephen L.Muzzatti
Arguably one of the most significant and potentially illuminating
areas of criminological inquiry is the analysis of crime, media, and
popular culture.
As residents of a highly technological society undergoing rapid
transformations in the conduits for information on crime, we have
an increasing array of options in forming our ideas about crime and
justice. A staple assertion of introductory texts and lectures is that
societal perceptions of crime are formed through exposure to various
forms of media, including television, film, video, and Internet services.
Our knowledge acquisition has changed dramatically in the past
200 years, from first-hand knowledge of crime and deviance in rural
communities and small urban centres to a society in which we are
inundated with so much information that it is difficult to assess what
specific impacts media have on our ideas and attitudes. Therefore,
when we speak of ‘‘knowledge of crime,’’ we must also be specific
about the type of information we receive and the form in which this
information is presented.
La construction sociale du crime: les
me dias, le crime et la culture populaire
Ken Dowler et Thomas Fleming,
Stephen L.Muzzatti
Nous pourrions soutenir que les domaines les plus importants du
questionnement criminologique, et potentiellement ceux qui nous
e´clairent le mieux, sont l’analyse du rapport entre le crime, les me´dias
et la culture populaire. Nous vivons dans une socie´te´ hautement
technologique et soumise a` une transformation rapide des canaux de
communication de l’information sur le crime. De ce fait, nous sommes
expose´s a` un e´ventail toujours plus large d’options qui inspirent nos
vues de la criminalite´ et de la justice. Nous retrouvons une constante
dans divers textes d’introduction et dans le mate´riel de cours :
l’affirmation voulant que les points de vue de la population sur la
criminalite´ soient influence´s par divers me´dias, notamment la
te´le´vision, le cine´ma, les vide´os et Internet. Nos moyens d’acque´rir
des connaissances se sont transforme´s de fac¸on spectaculaire depuis
deux sie`cles ; nous sommes passe´s de l’acquisition de connaissances
de premie`re main de la criminalite´ et de la de´viance dans des
collectivite´s rurales et de petites agglome´rations urbaines a` une socie´te´
dans laquelle nous sommes tellement inonde´s de renseignements
qu’il nous est difficile d’e´valuer l’incidence re´elle des me´dias sur
nos ide´es et nos attitudes. Ainsi, nous ne pouvons pas parler de
connaissances de la criminalite´ sans pre´ciser aussi la nature des
informations qui nous parviennent et de la forme sous laquelle elles
nous sont pre´sente´es.
How Not toThink about Crime
in the Media
Aaron Doyle
Cet article e´value l’e´tat d’avancement actuel de la recherche sur le traitement
me´diatique de la criminalite´. On y avance que la recherche effectue´e jusqu’a` ce
jour pre´sente certains proble`mes, les principaux e´tant qu’on y pre´sume de
l’existence de certains effets des me´dias, on qu’on attribue une certaine
uniformite´ re´ductionniste a` divers aspects des me´dias et a` la manie`re dont
ils fac¸onnent ou sont fac¸onne´s par les rapports sociaux et institutionnels.
Partant de son analyse de diverses recherches sur la criminalite´, telle que
de´crite dans les me´dias, l’auteur souligne certaines des limites de la recherche
centre´e sur les effets de tels reportages. Il avance en outre que la difficile
question des effets de´coulant des influences exerce´es par les reportages sur
la criminalite´ a e´te´ aborde´e le plus efficacement a` ce jour par des e´tudes
examinant les effets politiques et institutionnels imme´diats du crime, tel
que de´peint dans les me´dias. Il faudrait comple´ter ces e´tudes par davantage
d’e´tudes interpre´tatives sur le sens que donnent certaines personnes aux
reportages sur les affaires criminelles. Il sugge`re enfin qu’il est ne´cessaire
de proce´der a` une analyse soutenue de l’interaction entre l’actualite´ et la
fiction en matie`re de criminalite´.
How Not toThink about Crime
in the Media
Aaron Doyle
This article assesses the state of the art of current research on crime and the
media. It argues that some key problems with previous research lie in simply
assuming media effects, or in ascribing a reductionist unity to various aspects
of the media and the ways they shape and are shaped by social relations and
institutions. In reviewing various bodies of research on crime in the media,
it indicates some of the limits of effects research. It further argues that the
problematic question of the effects of influences of crime stories has been most
effectively dealt with thus far by research that looks at the direct political and
institutional effects of crime and the media. This should be supplemented
by more interpretive research on the meaning of crime stories for particular
audience members. Finally, it suggests that we need a sustained analysis of
the interplay between crime news and crime fiction.
Seeing Red over Black and White: Popular
and Media Representations of Inter-racial
Relationships as Precursors to Racial
Violence
Barbara Perry,
Michael Sutton
Le meurtre re´cent d’Anthony Walker, au Royaume-Uni, te´moigne de
l’antipathie persistante, et meˆme de l’hostilite´ ressentie a` l’endroit de
personnes engage´es dans des relations interraciales, notamment celles entre
un homme noir et une femme blanche. Le jeune Walker, aˆge´ de dix-sept ans,
a e´te´ sauvagement battu, puis tue´ a` coups de hache sur la teˆte ; l’e´le´ment de «provocation» de cette agression e´tant la relation entre ce jeune Noir et son
amie de coeur de race blanche. Cet article se penche sur les perceptions et
les mythes qui ont marque´ l’histoire et qui, encore aujourd’hui, continuent
de stigmatiser les relations interraciales. On y examine de manie`re plus
spe´cifique la manie`re dont ce phe´nome`ne est pre´sente´ dans les divers me´dias
populaires. Les auteurs soutiennent que ces repre´sentations me´diatiques
contribuent a` un environnent « qui facilite, pour ne pas dire favorise » la
violence a` l’endroit des personnes engage´es dans des relations interraciales.
Seeing Red over Black and White: Popular
and Media Representations of Inter-racial
Relationships as Precursors to Racial
Violence
Barbara Perry,
Michael Sutton
The recent U.K. murder of Anthony Walker attests to the lingering antipathy,
indeed hostility, toward intimate inter-racial relationships, especially those
involving black men and white women. Seventeen-year-old Walker was
brutally beaten, then fatally assaulted with an axe to his head – the
‘‘provocation’’ for the attack being this young black man’s relationship with
his white girlfriend. This article assesses the historical and contemporary
images and mythologies that continue to stigmatize inter-racial relationships.
Specifically, we look at the representations disseminated through various
popular media forms. The article suggests that these mediated constructs
condition an environment that facilitates, if not encourages, violence against
those in inter-racial relationships.
News, Truth, and the Recognition
of Corporate Crime
John L.McMullan
Le pre´sent article pre´sente une analyse de la fac¸on dont les me´dias ont accepte´
et continue´ d’accepter comme ve´ridiques les informations relatives a`
l’explosion survenue dans la mine Westray et les re´percussions de cet accident
entre 1992 et 2002. Cet analyse porte sur 1 972 reportages et fait appel
a` la notion de «politiques de la ve´rite´» e´labore´e par Michel Foucault et aux
ide´es de Stanley Cohen sur le de´ni culturel afin de mieux comprendre
l’organisation sociale sous-jacente a` la production de nouvelles et le roˆle
qu’ont joue´ les me´dias qui ont rec¸u et diffuse´ la «ve´rite´» communique´e par
Westray, alors que l’entreprise et les instances gouvernementales e´taient
confronte´es a` des accusations. L’auteur avance que les comptes-rendus de
la ve´rite´ e´taient diversifie´s et divergents et qu’ils ont engendre´ divers
«re´gimes de ve´rite´» autour d’un accident naturel, d’une trage´die au plan
juridique et d’un scandale politique. Mais une chose faisait de´faut en regard
de ces comptes-rendus diversifie´s, c’est-a`-dire une discussion des incidences
sociales de la criminalite´ des entreprises. Cela a mis en lumie`re la capacite´
limite´e des me´dias de communiquer la ve´rite´ aux puissantes instances de
l’entreprise et de l’E´ tat, le fait que leur version de la ve´rite´ a e´te´ amene´e a`
coı¨ncider avec celle des gens exerc¸ant le pouvoir et le fait que la criminalite´ des
entreprises a e´te´ rendue invisible dans la culture populaire.
News, Truth, and the Recognition
of Corporate Crime
John L.McMullan
This article is a study of how the press registered and re-registered news
as truth about the Westray explosion and its aftermath from 1992 to 2002.
The research examines 1,972 news stories and uses Michel Foucault’s concept
of the ‘‘politics of truth’’ and Stanley Cohen’s ideas about cultural denial
to understand the social organization of news production and the implications
of the media for witnessing and accounting for Westray’s ‘‘truth’’ when
corporate and state institutions stand accused. I argue that truth-telling
exercises were diverse and divergent and produced ‘‘regimes of truth’’
around natural accident, legal tragedy, and political scandal. But the absence
in the presence of these varied truth-telling exercises was a social vocabulary
of corporate crime. This absence marked the limit of the press’s ability to tell
the truth to powerful corporate and state interests, the place where their
truth-telling was made coincident with the exercise of power and where
workplace crime was made invisible in popular culture.
Book Reviews / Recensions de livres
Contacts, Opportunities and Criminal Enterprise. By Carlo Morselli.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2005.
Reviewed by Edmund Chattoe-Brown, University of Oxford.
Designing Out Crime from Products and Systems. Edited by Ronald V.
Clarke and Graeme R. Newman. Monsey, NY: Criminal Justice Press.
2005.
Reviewed by Brian A. Lawton, Sam Houston State University.
The Effects of Imprisonment. Edited by Alison Liebling and Shadd
Maruna. Portland, OR: Willan Publishing. 2005.
Reviewed by Michael Weinrath, University of Winnipeg.
Feneˆtres sur la justice. Par Jean-Claude He´bert. Montre´al : Bore´al.
2006.
Recension faite par Andre´ Normandeau, Universite´ de Montre´al.
The Forensic Laboratory Handbook: Procedures and Practice. Edited
by Ashraf Mozayani and Carla Noziglia. Totowa, NJ: Humana Press.
2006.
Reviewed by Stacey Walker, Sam Houston State University.
The Forensic Psychologist’s Casebook: Psychological Profiling and
Criminal Investigation. Edited by Laurence Alison. Cullompton, U.K.:
Willan Publishing. 2005.
Reviewed by Mary Ann Campbell and Naomi Doucette, University of
New Brunswick.
Global Surveillance and Policing: Borders, Security, Identity. Edited
by Elia Zureik and Mark B. Salter. Cullompton, U.K.: Willan
Publishing. 2005.
Reviewed by Laura Huey, Concordia University.
Histoire et dictionnaire de la police : du Moyen Aˆ ge a` nos jours. Sous
la direction de Michel Aubouin, Arnaud Teyssier et Jean Tulard. Paris :
Robert Lafont. 2005.
Recension faite par Andre´ Normandeau, Universite´ de Montre´al.
Institutionalizing Restorative Justice. Edited by Ivo Aertsen, Tom
Daems, and Luc Robert. Portland, OR: Willan Publishing. 2006.
Reviewed by Kim de Beus, Phoenix, AZ.
Japan as a Low-Crime Nation. By Dag Leonardsen. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan. 2005.
Reviewed by Brian A. Lawton, Sam Houston State University.
Justifiable Force: The Practical Guide to the Law of Self Defence.
By Robert Manning. Chichester, U.K.: Barry Rose Publishers. 2005.
Reviewed by Brian A. Lawton, Sam Houston State University.
La militarisation des appareils policiers. Sous la direction de Fre´de´ric
Lemieux et Benoıˆt Dupont. Que´bec : Les Presses de l’Universite´ Laval.
2005.
Recension faite par Vincent Seron, Universite´ de Lie`ge.
La nouvelle police belge. De´sorganisation et improvisation. Par Lode
Van Outrive. Bruxelles : Bruylant. 2005.
Recension faite par Vincent Seron, Universite´ de Lie`ge.
Organised Crime. By Alan Wright. Cullompton, U.K.: Willan
Publishing. 2006.
Reviewed by Margaret Beare, York University.
Policing Illegal Drug Markets: Geographic Approaches to Crime
Reduction. By George F. Rengert, Jerry H. Ratcliffe, and Sanjoy
Chakravorty. Monsey, NY: Criminal Justice Press. 2005.
Reviewed by D. Kim Rossmo, Texas State University.|
Prison Readings: A Critical Introduction to Prisons and
Imprisonment. Edited by Yvonne Jewkes and Helen Johnston.
Portland, OR: Willan Publishing. 2006.
Reviewed by Martha L. Henderson, Southern Illinois University
Carbondale.
Le profilage de l’he´roı¨ne et de la cocaı¨ne : une me´thodologie moderne
de lutte contre le trafic illicite. Par Olivier Gue´niat et Pierre Esseiva.
Lausanne : Presses Polytechniques et Universitaires Romandes. 2005.
Recension faite par Claudia Zambrana, Universite´ de Montre´al.
Treating Sex Offenders: An Introduction to Sex Offender Treatment
Programmes. By Sarah Brown. Portland, OR: Willan Publishing. 2005.
Reviewed by Patrick N. McGrain, DeSales University.
Understanding Youth and Crime: Listening to Youth? By Sheila Brown.
Maidenhead, U.K. : Open University Press. 2005.
Reviewed by Jennifer L. Robinson, University of Waterloo.
Erratum
An entry in the list of Book Reviews in Volume 48, no. 4 (July 2006)
had an incorrect author’s name. This listing should have been:
Behind the Eight Ball: Sex for Crack Cocaine Exchange and Poor
Black Women. By Tanya Telfair Sharpe. Binghamton, NY:
Haworth Press. 2005.
Reviewed by Jeff Edwards, Four Counties Addiction Services.
