This edited collection from leading scholars in the fields of media, communications, cultural studies and a number of aligned areas looks to the intersection of capitalism, crime and the media. The text is founded on the principles of cultural criminology – that how we determine and understand crime lies in the social world and that the determination of crime and its mediation in popular culture have a political basis. The book consists of eleven chapters and is divided into three sections. Section one considers the intersection of crime and capitalism in a range of contemporary cultural texts. Section two examines how various power systems influence the operation of the media in its role of reporting crime and holding the powerful to account. Section three considers how texts in a variety of formats are used to conduct politics, communicate politics and enact political decision making.

Consumer capitalism dominates our economy, our politics and our culture. Yet there is a growing body of research from a range of disciplines that suggests that consumer capitalism may be past its sell-by date. Beyond Consumer Capitalism begins by showing how, for people in the developed world, consumer capitalism has become economically and environmentally unsustainable and is no longer able to deliver its abiding promise of enhancing quality of life . This cutting-edge book then asks why we devote so little time and effort to imagining other forms of human progress. The answer, Lewis suggests, is that our cultural and information industries limit rather than stimulate critical thinking, keeping us on the treadmill of consumption and narrowing our vision of what constitutes progress. If we are to find a way out of this cul de sac, Lewis argues, we must begin by analysing the role of media in consumer capitalism and changing the way we organize media and communications. We need a cultural environment that encourages rather than stifles new ideas about what guides our economy and our society. Timely and compelling, Beyond Consumer Capitalism will have strong appeal to students and scholars of media studies, cultural studies and consumer culture.

Originally published thirty years ago, Critique of the Legal Order remains highly relevant for the twenty-first century. Here Richard Quinney provides a critical look at the legal order in capitalist society. Using a traditional Marxist perspective, he argues that the legal order is not intended to reduce crime and suffering, but to maintain class differences and a social order that mainly benefits the ruling class. Quinney challenges modern criminologists to examine their own positions. As "ancillary agents of power," criminologists provide information that governing elites use to manipulate and control those who threaten the system. Quinney's original and thorough analysis of "crime control bureaucracies" and the class basis of such bureaucracies anticipates subsequent research and theorizing about the "crime control industry," a system that aims at social control of marginalized populations, rather than elimination of the social conditions that give rise to crime. He forcefully argues that technology applied to a "war against crime," together with academic scholarship, is used to help maintain social order to benefit a ruling class. Quinney also suggests alternatives. Anticipating the work of Noam Chomsky, he suggests we must first overcome a powerful media that provides a "general framework" that serves as the "boundary of expression." Chomsky calls this the manufacture of consent by providing necessary illusions. Quinney calls for a critical philosophy that enables us to transcend the current order and seek an egalitarian socialist order based upon true democratic principles. This core study for criminologists should interest those with a critical perspective on contemporary society.

Classic and contemporary viewpoints on crime.

A sociological deconstruction of the public response to Bernie Madoff and his crimes. Bernie Madoff’s arrest could not have come at a more darkly poetic moment. Economic upheaval had plunged America into a horrid recession. Then, on December 11, 2008, Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme came to light. A father turned in by his sons; a son who took his own life; another son dying and estranged from his father; a woman at the center of a storm—Madoff’s story was a media magnet, voraciously consumed by a justice-seeking public. Bernie Madoff and the Crisis goes beyond purely investigative accounts to examine how and why Madoff became the epicenter of public fury and titillation. Rooting her argument in critical sociology, Colleen P. Eren analyzes media coverage of this landmark case alongside original interviews with dozens of journalists and editors involved in the reportage, the SEC Director of Public Affairs, and Bernie Madoff himself. Turning the mirror back onto society, Eren locates Madoff within a broader reckoning about free market capitalism. She argues that our ideological and cultural tendencies to attribute blame to individuals—be they regulators, victims, or “monsters” like Madoff—distracts us from more systemic critiques. Bernie Madoff and the Crisis offers fresh insight into the 2008 crisis, whether we have come to terms with it, and what we have yet to gain from the case of the century. Praise for Bernie Madoff and the Crisis “Eren crafts a narrative of Bernie Madoff’s crimes as a sweeping comment on our society at large, which created and upheld the kill-or-be-killed finance ethos, and thereby produced the twenty-first century version of a Wall Street serial killer.” —Erin Arvedlund, author of Too Good to Be True: The Rise and Fall of Bernie Madoff “There is important primary data here and a creative analysis. Eren makes a notable contribution to the literature on financial crime, as well as our understanding of the role that the Madoff case played during an unfolding financial crisis.” —Kitty Calavita, University of California, Irvine, author of Big Money Crime “Eren uses massive amounts of media commentary and interviews—with journalists and Madoff himself—to reveal salient points about the contemporary economy, society, and its demonology. An easy read, and an informative one as we continue to sift through the ashes of the financial crisis and our societal stance on white collar crime.” —Michael Levi, Cardiff University and author of The Phantom Capitalists and Regulating Fraud

This book offers a collection of cutting-edge essays on the relationship between crime, harm and consumer culture. Although consumer culture has been addressed across the social sciences, it has yet to be fully explored in criminology. The editors bring together an impressive list of authors with original ideas and a fresh perspective to this field. The collection first introduces the reader to three sets of ideas which will be especially useful to students and researchers piecing together theoretical frameworks for their studies. New concepts such as pseudo-pacification, the materialist libertine and the commodification of abstinence can be used as foundation stones for new explanatory criminological analyses in the 21st century. The collection then moves on to present case studies based on rigorous empirical work in the fields of consumption and debt, ‘outlaw’ gangs, illegal drug markets, gambling, the mentality that drives investment fraudsters and the relationship between social media and state surveillance. These case studies showcase the strength of the research skills and knowledge these scholars offer to the field of criminology. Written in a clear and direct style, this book will appeal to students and scholars in criminology, sociology, cultural studies, social theory and those interested in learning about the effects of consumer culture in modern society.

The ultimate expression of power is the ability to act beyond the confines of law, with contemporary society enabling elite groups to wield “panoramic power”. From the murderous crimes of the corporate giants that provide us with life’s luxuries and necessities to the data gathering activities of media and educational institutions, the authors offer new thinking on damaging structures of power and privilege. This accessible book provides a comprehensive understanding of elite corporate wrongdoing, and the late capitalist society that enables harm, considering both how we got into this mess and how we get out of it.