Crime, Media, and Society

Catalog description

This course will examine the relationship between crime, the criminal justice system, and the mass media. The types of media examined in this course will include television, films, the internet, video games, music, news reports, comic books, novels, magazines, the radio, and scholarly research. This course will further examine how the criminal justice system (police, courts, corrections) is portrayed through various narratives and images in the mass media and its potential impact on crime and justice. Some of the topics covered will include media theory and the social construction of crime, moral panics, crime and justice in news and entertainment, media effects on attitudes toward the criminal justice system, media as a cause of crime, media-driven anti-crime efforts, news media and the courts, the use of media technology in the judicial system and law enforcement, and the relationship between the media and criminal justice policies and practices.