7. Crime and media: understanding the connections
7. Crime and media: understanding the connections
- Chris Greer
Abstract
This chapter examines the link between crime and media. It summarizes major themes and debates that have shaped the research agenda, and considers some less well-rehearsed issues such as the changing global communications marketplace, the development of new media technologies, and the significance of these for understanding the connections between crime and media. The chapter is organized as follows. The first section offers some background information and addresses the crucial question of why exploring media images of crime and control is important. The second section considers how scholars have researched crime and media, and presents an overview of the main findings. The third section examines the dominant theoretical and conceptual tools that have been used to understand and explain media representations of crime. The final section considers the evidence for the influence of media representations, both on criminal behaviour and fear of crime.
