This unique book explores the social processes which shape fictional representations of police and crime in television dramas. Exploring ten leading British and European police dramas from the last twenty-five years, Colbran, a former scriptwriter, presents a revealing insight into police dramas, informed by media and criminological theory.

This unique book explores the social processes which shape fictional representations of police and crime in television dramas. Exploring ten leading British and European police dramas from the last twenty-five years, Colbran, a former scriptwriter, presents a revealing insight into police dramas, informed by media and criminological theory.

Despite being an increasingly high profile subject, few publications address media representations of law and order head on. This book aims to meet this need by bringing together an important range of papers from leading researchers in the field, addressing issues of fictional, factual and hybrid representations of crime in the media.

Media, Crime and Racism draws together contributions from scholars at the leading edge of their field across three continents to present contemporary and longstanding debates exploring the roles played by media and the state in racialising crime and criminalising racialised minorities. Comprised of empirically rich accounts and theoretically informed analysis, this dynamic text offers readers a critical and in-depth examination of contemporary social and criminal justice issues as they pertain to racialised minorities and the media. Chapters demonstrate the myriad ways in which racialised ‘others’ experience demonisation, exclusion, racist abuse and violence licensed – and often induced – by the state and the media. Together, they also offer original and nuanced analysis of how these processes can be experienced differently dependent on geography, political context and local resistance. This collection critically reflects on a number of globally significant topics including the vilification of Muslim minorities, the portrayal of the refugee ‘crisis’ and the representations and resistance of Indigenous and Black communities. This volume demonstrates that processes of racialisation and criminalisation in media and the state cannot be understood without reference to how they are underscored and inflected by gender and power. Above all, the contributors to this volume demonstrate the resistance of racialised minorities in localised contexts across the globe: against racialisation and criminalisation and in pursuit of racial justice.

Focusing on the interplay between policing realities, public perception and media reflections, this text provides an accessible account of the relationship between policing and the media.

In today's society, the public perception of crime has been skewed by how the media depicts it. People use the media for enjoyment, companionship, surveillance, and interpretation. The problem is that it becomes hard to separate fact from entertainment. This raises several questions. How are we consuming media? Are we consuming reality within the news? And are we consuming harmless pleasure from entertainment media? In Crime, Media, and Reality: Examining Mixed Messages about Crime and Justice in Popular Media, Venessa Garcia and Samantha Garcia Arkerson focus predominantly on the social constructions of crime and justice and how we absorb them. They look at the influence of crime news and true crime television series that prevent the public from understanding pure entertainment from the realities of crime and justice. They bring to light the social science knowledge missed by media "infotainment," which has blurred the line between information and entertainment. Throughout, all different forms of media are discussed, news media, crime dramas and true crime television series. In doing so, they keep all of its fascinating coverage while uncovering the reality of crime and justice. This book adds significant information to the constructs held by the general public by placing media depictions into historical, legal, and social context.

Crime, Justice and the Media examines and analyses the relationship between the media and crime, criminals and the criminal justice system. This expanded and fully updated second edition considers how crime and criminals have been portrayed by the media through history, applying different theoretical perspectives to the way crime, criminals and justice are reported. The second edition of Crime, Justice and the Media focuses on the media representation of a range of different areas of crime and criminal justice, including: new media technology e.g. social network sites moral panics over specific crimes and criminals e.g. youth crime, cybercrime, paedophilia media portrayal of victims of crime and criminals how the media represent criminal justice agencies e.g. the police and prison service. This book offers a clear, accessible and comprehensive analysis of theoretical thinking on the relationship between the media, crime and criminal justice and a detailed examination of how crime, criminals and others involved in the criminal justice process are portrayed by the media. With exercises, questions and further reading in every chapter, this book encourages students to engage with and respond to the material presented, thereby developing a deeper understanding of the links between the media and criminality.