Pub Date : 2021-07-13DOI: 10.1177/17416590211031282
Michele Byers, R. Collins
In her study of violent protagonists in American literature, Wilson-Scott argues that “mothers are frequently used as the principle traumatizing factor, demonized and depersonalized in order to reassert their violent offspring’s humanity” (p. 191). Further, Wilson-Scott states that her work “reveals the persistent assumption that mothers make monsters” (p. 193). Taking our tacit agreement with Wilson-Scott as a starting point, we argue along with her that mother-blame remains a central motif of mainstream cultural narratives about violent masculinity. The focus of this essay is on the strategies through which mother-blame is used to validate the authorial authenticity of the male serial killer and his ways of knowing and of being in the world. In this essay we offer the first season of the popular Netflix series Mindhunter (2017–) as a case study and ask how the representation of the serial killer’s insight and seemingly accurate understanding of his own pathology is linked to its antithesis, woman-hate, and often, the pathologizing of the mother.
{"title":"The dead and the abhorred: Mindhunter and the persistence of mother-blame","authors":"Michele Byers, R. Collins","doi":"10.1177/17416590211031282","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17416590211031282","url":null,"abstract":"In her study of violent protagonists in American literature, Wilson-Scott argues that “mothers are frequently used as the principle traumatizing factor, demonized and depersonalized in order to reassert their violent offspring’s humanity” (p. 191). Further, Wilson-Scott states that her work “reveals the persistent assumption that mothers make monsters” (p. 193). Taking our tacit agreement with Wilson-Scott as a starting point, we argue along with her that mother-blame remains a central motif of mainstream cultural narratives about violent masculinity. The focus of this essay is on the strategies through which mother-blame is used to validate the authorial authenticity of the male serial killer and his ways of knowing and of being in the world. In this essay we offer the first season of the popular Netflix series Mindhunter (2017–) as a case study and ask how the representation of the serial killer’s insight and seemingly accurate understanding of his own pathology is linked to its antithesis, woman-hate, and often, the pathologizing of the mother.","PeriodicalId":46658,"journal":{"name":"Crime Media Culture","volume":"18 1","pages":"466 - 481"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2021-07-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45085518","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-07DOI: 10.1177/17416590211030679
Murray Lee
The first half of this article makes that case for, and develops, a preliminary conceptual framework for a ‘musicriminology’. A response to recent provocations for a more sensorially orientated criminology, and more general appeals for cultural criminology to engage rigorously with popular music and sound, a musicriminology could constitute significant contribution to the cultural criminological field. The article proposes two key conceptual themes, culture and co-production that underpin such a framework. Into these broad (Double-C) themes are incorporated theories of the cultural, material, aesthetics, sonics, and the sensorial. The second half of the article uses drill music, a subset of rap or hip-hop music, as a case study. The focus is on the popular western Sydney drill group OneFour, who have recently been subject to police attempts to suppress them on the basis that their lyrics ‘incite violence’. With dark, nihilistic and sometimes violent lyrics typically narrating street life, drill is often characterised by performers’ relationship to place–groups are sometimes even named after their postcode. In the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia drill music has attracted the attention of police, politicians, and mainstream media for artists’ alleged relationship to street-based violence. The article suggests that OneFour’s music challenges an accepted aesthetic and cultural order. However, somewhat ironically the group has become more popular as a result of police attempts to criminalise them and to re-assert such an order.
{"title":"This Is Not a Drill: Towards a Sonic and Sensorial Musicriminology","authors":"Murray Lee","doi":"10.1177/17416590211030679","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17416590211030679","url":null,"abstract":"The first half of this article makes that case for, and develops, a preliminary conceptual framework for a ‘musicriminology’. A response to recent provocations for a more sensorially orientated criminology, and more general appeals for cultural criminology to engage rigorously with popular music and sound, a musicriminology could constitute significant contribution to the cultural criminological field. The article proposes two key conceptual themes, culture and co-production that underpin such a framework. Into these broad (Double-C) themes are incorporated theories of the cultural, material, aesthetics, sonics, and the sensorial. The second half of the article uses drill music, a subset of rap or hip-hop music, as a case study. The focus is on the popular western Sydney drill group OneFour, who have recently been subject to police attempts to suppress them on the basis that their lyrics ‘incite violence’. With dark, nihilistic and sometimes violent lyrics typically narrating street life, drill is often characterised by performers’ relationship to place–groups are sometimes even named after their postcode. In the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia drill music has attracted the attention of police, politicians, and mainstream media for artists’ alleged relationship to street-based violence. The article suggests that OneFour’s music challenges an accepted aesthetic and cultural order. However, somewhat ironically the group has become more popular as a result of police attempts to criminalise them and to re-assert such an order.","PeriodicalId":46658,"journal":{"name":"Crime Media Culture","volume":"18 1","pages":"446 - 465"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2021-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/17416590211030679","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43111241","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Recent scholarship has explored the potential of subcultural theory for understanding the convergence of Western street and jihadi subcultures. The role of jihadi rap in this radical hybrid culture, however, is yet uncharted. We argue that subcultural analysis allows an understanding of the aesthetic fascination of jihadism, sometimes referred to as jihadi cool, and that jihadi rap should be seen as an integrated part of this cultural amalgam. To better understand the role of hip-hop in the hybrid street-jihadi culture, this paper offers a historical analysis of the relationship between hip-hop and Islam and detailed insight into the more contemporary, and marginal, phenomena of jihadi rap. We track the continuities and discontinuities from the presence of Black Islam in early hip hop to recent convergences between hip hop and jihadism. Our analysis draws on Lévi-Strauss concepts of bricolage and floating signifiers. Subcultures and hip-hop music are seen as bricolages that draw on a multitude of cultural references with their own particular history. In these cultural bricolages, Islam often acts as a floating signifier, with different and often ambiguous meanings. We argue and demonstrate that Islam has a long history of being part of hip-hop rebellion and attraction and that this, channelled through jihadi rap, can contribute to jihadi cool and the contemporary pull of Western jihadi subcultures.
{"title":"Rap, Islam and Jihadi Cool: The attractions of the Western jihadi subculture","authors":"Sune Qvotrup Jensen, Jeppe Fuglsang Larsen, Sveinung Sandberg","doi":"10.1177/17416590211025573","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17416590211025573","url":null,"abstract":"Recent scholarship has explored the potential of subcultural theory for understanding the convergence of Western street and jihadi subcultures. The role of jihadi rap in this radical hybrid culture, however, is yet uncharted. We argue that subcultural analysis allows an understanding of the aesthetic fascination of jihadism, sometimes referred to as jihadi cool, and that jihadi rap should be seen as an integrated part of this cultural amalgam. To better understand the role of hip-hop in the hybrid street-jihadi culture, this paper offers a historical analysis of the relationship between hip-hop and Islam and detailed insight into the more contemporary, and marginal, phenomena of jihadi rap. We track the continuities and discontinuities from the presence of Black Islam in early hip hop to recent convergences between hip hop and jihadism. Our analysis draws on Lévi-Strauss concepts of bricolage and floating signifiers. Subcultures and hip-hop music are seen as bricolages that draw on a multitude of cultural references with their own particular history. In these cultural bricolages, Islam often acts as a floating signifier, with different and often ambiguous meanings. We argue and demonstrate that Islam has a long history of being part of hip-hop rebellion and attraction and that this, channelled through jihadi rap, can contribute to jihadi cool and the contemporary pull of Western jihadi subcultures.","PeriodicalId":46658,"journal":{"name":"Crime Media Culture","volume":"18 1","pages":"430 - 445"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2021-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/17416590211025573","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46071609","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-06-10DOI: 10.1177/17416590211024322
O. Woods
This paper explores how digital media can cause the representational value of rap artists to be transformed. Ubiquitous access to digital recording, production and distribution technologies grants rappers an unprecedented degree of representational autonomy, meaning they are able to integrate the street aesthetic into their lyrics and music videos, and thus create content that offers a more authentic representation of their (past) lives. Sidestepping the mainstream music industry, the digital enables these integrations and bolsters the hypercapitalist impulses of content creators. I illustrate these ideas through a case study of grime artist, Bugzy Malone, who uses his music to narrate his evolution from a life of criminality (selling drugs on the street; a ‘roadman’), to one in which his representational value is recognised by commercial brands who want to partner with him because of his street credibility (collecting ‘royalties’). Bugzy Malone’s commercial success is not predicated on a departure from his criminal past, but the deliberate foregrounding of it as a marker of authenticity. The representational autonomy provided by digital media can therefore enable artists to maximise the affective cachet of the once-criminal self.
{"title":"From roadman to royalties: Inter-representational value and the hypercapitalist impulses of grime","authors":"O. Woods","doi":"10.1177/17416590211024322","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17416590211024322","url":null,"abstract":"This paper explores how digital media can cause the representational value of rap artists to be transformed. Ubiquitous access to digital recording, production and distribution technologies grants rappers an unprecedented degree of representational autonomy, meaning they are able to integrate the street aesthetic into their lyrics and music videos, and thus create content that offers a more authentic representation of their (past) lives. Sidestepping the mainstream music industry, the digital enables these integrations and bolsters the hypercapitalist impulses of content creators. I illustrate these ideas through a case study of grime artist, Bugzy Malone, who uses his music to narrate his evolution from a life of criminality (selling drugs on the street; a ‘roadman’), to one in which his representational value is recognised by commercial brands who want to partner with him because of his street credibility (collecting ‘royalties’). Bugzy Malone’s commercial success is not predicated on a departure from his criminal past, but the deliberate foregrounding of it as a marker of authenticity. The representational autonomy provided by digital media can therefore enable artists to maximise the affective cachet of the once-criminal self.","PeriodicalId":46658,"journal":{"name":"Crime Media Culture","volume":"18 1","pages":"412 - 429"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2021-06-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/17416590211024322","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42046016","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-06-04DOI: 10.1177/17416590211022416
M. P. Ndhlovu, Phillip Santos
Even though corruption by politicians and in politics is widespread worldwide, it is more pronounced in developing countries, such as Zimbabwe, where members of the political elite overtly abuse power for personal accumulation of wealth. Ideally, the news media, as watchdogs, are expected to investigate and report such abuses of power. However, previous studies in Zimbabwe highlight the news media’s polarised and normative inefficacies. Informed by the theoretical notion of deliberative democracy developed via Habermas and Dahlgren’s work and Hall’s Encoding, Decoding Model, this article uses qualitative content analysis to examine how online readers of Zimbabwe’s two leading daily publications, The Herald and NewsDay, interpreted and evaluated allegations of corruption leveled against ministers and deputy ministers during the height of factionalism in the ruling party (ZANU PF). The article argues that interaction between mainstream media and their audiences online shows the latter’s resourcefulness and, at least, discursive agency in their engagement with narratives about political corruption, itself an imperative premise for future political action.
{"title":"Political corruption in Zimbabwe: News media, audiences and deliberative democracy","authors":"M. P. Ndhlovu, Phillip Santos","doi":"10.1177/17416590211022416","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17416590211022416","url":null,"abstract":"Even though corruption by politicians and in politics is widespread worldwide, it is more pronounced in developing countries, such as Zimbabwe, where members of the political elite overtly abuse power for personal accumulation of wealth. Ideally, the news media, as watchdogs, are expected to investigate and report such abuses of power. However, previous studies in Zimbabwe highlight the news media’s polarised and normative inefficacies. Informed by the theoretical notion of deliberative democracy developed via Habermas and Dahlgren’s work and Hall’s Encoding, Decoding Model, this article uses qualitative content analysis to examine how online readers of Zimbabwe’s two leading daily publications, The Herald and NewsDay, interpreted and evaluated allegations of corruption leveled against ministers and deputy ministers during the height of factionalism in the ruling party (ZANU PF). The article argues that interaction between mainstream media and their audiences online shows the latter’s resourcefulness and, at least, discursive agency in their engagement with narratives about political corruption, itself an imperative premise for future political action.","PeriodicalId":46658,"journal":{"name":"Crime Media Culture","volume":"18 1","pages":"393 - 411"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2021-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/17416590211022416","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45414068","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-06-04DOI: 10.1177/17416590211020796
J. A. McVey
This article analyzes the 2012 found-footage buddy-cop film End of Watch. The author analyzes the film’s production, plot, para-textual materials, audience reviews, and audience-generated media to examine the film’s rhetorical strategies and cultural impact. The author shows how police media work inspired the film’s creation, influenced the film’s production, and shaped the film’s messages. End of Watch is a crucial test case for understanding how police collaborate with the entertainment industry to respond to public crises of police visuality. Police media labor shaped the creation, production, and performances of the film, helping create a media product branded simultaneously as a realistic look at police life and a positive correction to negative media representations of police officers. End of Watch breathes cinematic life into commonplace hegemonic tropes of police backlash rhetoric. This article argues that End of Watch uses surveillant narration to humanize police and dehumanize the subjects of police violence. It also demonstrates how End of Watch served as a source of rhetorical invention for pro-police publics who drew on images and tropes from the film to defend police in the face of the crises of police visibility that emerged in the years following the film’s release.
{"title":"Point and shoot: Police media labor and technologies of surveillance in End of Watch","authors":"J. A. McVey","doi":"10.1177/17416590211020796","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17416590211020796","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyzes the 2012 found-footage buddy-cop film End of Watch. The author analyzes the film’s production, plot, para-textual materials, audience reviews, and audience-generated media to examine the film’s rhetorical strategies and cultural impact. The author shows how police media work inspired the film’s creation, influenced the film’s production, and shaped the film’s messages. End of Watch is a crucial test case for understanding how police collaborate with the entertainment industry to respond to public crises of police visuality. Police media labor shaped the creation, production, and performances of the film, helping create a media product branded simultaneously as a realistic look at police life and a positive correction to negative media representations of police officers. End of Watch breathes cinematic life into commonplace hegemonic tropes of police backlash rhetoric. This article argues that End of Watch uses surveillant narration to humanize police and dehumanize the subjects of police violence. It also demonstrates how End of Watch served as a source of rhetorical invention for pro-police publics who drew on images and tropes from the film to defend police in the face of the crises of police visibility that emerged in the years following the film’s release.","PeriodicalId":46658,"journal":{"name":"Crime Media Culture","volume":"18 1","pages":"375 - 392"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2021-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/17416590211020796","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49438626","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-06-03DOI: 10.1177/17416590211017937
Sebastián Galleguillos
In this article, I propose and apply a digital vigilantism model to a specific incident that occurred in Mexico, where the death of two innocent people was filmed through Facebook Live. Using a mixed methods approach and content analysis, I analyzed digilante Facebook posts (N = 942) coding gender, digital vigilantism categories, discriminatory comments, and punitive attitudes aimed at the perpetrators and the inciter of the lynching. The categories include investigating, blaming, or rebuking, while the discriminatory comments include classism, racism, homophobia, and body-shaming. I coded the punitive attitudes distinguishing four categories: non-physical punishment (calling for God’s wrath and the guilty conscience of the targets), legal sanction, death, and other punishment. The findings reveal the key role gender played in digilantism: females tend to conduct more investigations and low level attacks (blaming) than males, but males tend to perpetrate more harsh attacks (rebuking) than females. The most popular punitive attitude is calling for the death of targets, revealing tensions between legal sanctions and digilantes’ desired punishment. This study suggests the presence of different expressions of discrimination and reasons to engage in digilantism, encompassing both legal and illegal behavior deployed in a mainstream social media platform such as Facebook.
{"title":"Digilantism, discrimination, and punitive attitudes: A digital vigilantism model","authors":"Sebastián Galleguillos","doi":"10.1177/17416590211017937","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17416590211017937","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, I propose and apply a digital vigilantism model to a specific incident that occurred in Mexico, where the death of two innocent people was filmed through Facebook Live. Using a mixed methods approach and content analysis, I analyzed digilante Facebook posts (N = 942) coding gender, digital vigilantism categories, discriminatory comments, and punitive attitudes aimed at the perpetrators and the inciter of the lynching. The categories include investigating, blaming, or rebuking, while the discriminatory comments include classism, racism, homophobia, and body-shaming. I coded the punitive attitudes distinguishing four categories: non-physical punishment (calling for God’s wrath and the guilty conscience of the targets), legal sanction, death, and other punishment. The findings reveal the key role gender played in digilantism: females tend to conduct more investigations and low level attacks (blaming) than males, but males tend to perpetrate more harsh attacks (rebuking) than females. The most popular punitive attitude is calling for the death of targets, revealing tensions between legal sanctions and digilantes’ desired punishment. This study suggests the presence of different expressions of discrimination and reasons to engage in digilantism, encompassing both legal and illegal behavior deployed in a mainstream social media platform such as Facebook.","PeriodicalId":46658,"journal":{"name":"Crime Media Culture","volume":"18 1","pages":"353 - 374"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2021-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/17416590211017937","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42620136","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-17DOI: 10.1177/17416590211017933
Petr Kupka
This study focuses on the social construction of gangs in Czechia. Although the country is not usually associated with the activities of street gangs, the adoption of gang representations is evident in this context, including the use of the gang label itself. In order to capture the gang glocalization process, I employ the concept of translation, whereby glocalization is conceptualized as a complex process of the transposition of symbols based on the constant assessment and negotiation of the formed equivalent in the new discursive context. This approach allows us to understand the similarities and differences between how gangs are labelled not only across various cultural contexts, but also within them, with a honed analytical focus on the discursive strategies of the actors being studied. The concept of glocalization as translation is illustrated using the example of the Novák collective operating in a marginalized urban area in Czechia. While official discourse characterized this collective as an international drug gang, this construction was entirely absent in the discourse employed by the residents of the area. This discrepancy explains the gang construct within Czech public discourse as an equivalent of organized and sophisticated crime which automatically excludes certain ethnic groups by definition.
{"title":"Gang in translation: Official and vernacular representations of a “Roma” drug gang in Czechia","authors":"Petr Kupka","doi":"10.1177/17416590211017933","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17416590211017933","url":null,"abstract":"This study focuses on the social construction of gangs in Czechia. Although the country is not usually associated with the activities of street gangs, the adoption of gang representations is evident in this context, including the use of the gang label itself. In order to capture the gang glocalization process, I employ the concept of translation, whereby glocalization is conceptualized as a complex process of the transposition of symbols based on the constant assessment and negotiation of the formed equivalent in the new discursive context. This approach allows us to understand the similarities and differences between how gangs are labelled not only across various cultural contexts, but also within them, with a honed analytical focus on the discursive strategies of the actors being studied. The concept of glocalization as translation is illustrated using the example of the Novák collective operating in a marginalized urban area in Czechia. While official discourse characterized this collective as an international drug gang, this construction was entirely absent in the discourse employed by the residents of the area. This discrepancy explains the gang construct within Czech public discourse as an equivalent of organized and sophisticated crime which automatically excludes certain ethnic groups by definition.","PeriodicalId":46658,"journal":{"name":"Crime Media Culture","volume":"18 1","pages":"337 - 352"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2021-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/17416590211017933","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48830447","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-07DOI: 10.1177/17416590211015747
Jon Frauley
Chapter Seven concludes the book with macro, meso and micro levels of analysis. At the macro level, film is understood to be a powerful resource that informs public opinion. We Are Monster and Everyday were seen as providing a voice for marginalised groups and exploring the realities of prison life. However, depictions of violent prisoners legitimise the carceral turn. At the meso level, it was understood that whilst such depictions may be gorily entertaining or allow for vicarious experiences of resistance and rebellion, they ignore the non-violent, domesticated reality of most prisoners’ incarcerated lives, reinforcing monstrous stereotypes. Physical violence was seen as unrepresentative of contemporary imprisonment, which relied on more insidious, neo-paternal controls to ensure compliance, though except for its depiction in Bronson, the interpretation of penal power as an iron fist in a velvet glove came exclusively from the audience. Again, the question remains here of film’s role – is it to educate or entertain? Would the audience think that films have a responsibility to represent prisoners more fairly? Such areas provide fertile ground for future research to explore the role of prisoners in critiquing prison films. At the micro level, the films encouraged the audience to turn inwards and reflect on personal experiences. This book is an exciting read, not only for its remarkable content but because of the opportunities for future research. Bennett and Knight propose that alternative audiences, alternative media and alternative viewing experiences are just some ways that this research area may be expanded. This study is clearly limited by time, number and type of participants, but these limitations do not prevent the study from breaking new ground in an innovative area, allowing imprisoned people to return and refute the voyeuristic cinematic gaze. The book also challenges the notion that prisoners are unfit to consume media. The participatory audience show themselves to be astute and sagacious critics who are more than capable of informed and analytical discussions. With this recognition, it is possible to see that prisoners might play a part in the consumption and critique of media, but also, as Bennett and Knight suggest, in the production of media. Such work may contribute to rehabilitation by encouraging creativity and teaching relevant skills, and its products may also challenge public perceptions of prisoners and even the shibboleth of the prison itself.
{"title":"Book review: Rafe McGregor, A Criminology of Narrative Fiction","authors":"Jon Frauley","doi":"10.1177/17416590211015747","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17416590211015747","url":null,"abstract":"Chapter Seven concludes the book with macro, meso and micro levels of analysis. At the macro level, film is understood to be a powerful resource that informs public opinion. We Are Monster and Everyday were seen as providing a voice for marginalised groups and exploring the realities of prison life. However, depictions of violent prisoners legitimise the carceral turn. At the meso level, it was understood that whilst such depictions may be gorily entertaining or allow for vicarious experiences of resistance and rebellion, they ignore the non-violent, domesticated reality of most prisoners’ incarcerated lives, reinforcing monstrous stereotypes. Physical violence was seen as unrepresentative of contemporary imprisonment, which relied on more insidious, neo-paternal controls to ensure compliance, though except for its depiction in Bronson, the interpretation of penal power as an iron fist in a velvet glove came exclusively from the audience. Again, the question remains here of film’s role – is it to educate or entertain? Would the audience think that films have a responsibility to represent prisoners more fairly? Such areas provide fertile ground for future research to explore the role of prisoners in critiquing prison films. At the micro level, the films encouraged the audience to turn inwards and reflect on personal experiences. This book is an exciting read, not only for its remarkable content but because of the opportunities for future research. Bennett and Knight propose that alternative audiences, alternative media and alternative viewing experiences are just some ways that this research area may be expanded. This study is clearly limited by time, number and type of participants, but these limitations do not prevent the study from breaking new ground in an innovative area, allowing imprisoned people to return and refute the voyeuristic cinematic gaze. The book also challenges the notion that prisoners are unfit to consume media. The participatory audience show themselves to be astute and sagacious critics who are more than capable of informed and analytical discussions. With this recognition, it is possible to see that prisoners might play a part in the consumption and critique of media, but also, as Bennett and Knight suggest, in the production of media. Such work may contribute to rehabilitation by encouraging creativity and teaching relevant skills, and its products may also challenge public perceptions of prisoners and even the shibboleth of the prison itself.","PeriodicalId":46658,"journal":{"name":"Crime Media Culture","volume":"18 1","pages":"155 - 159"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2021-05-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/17416590211015747","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41584789","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-04-22DOI: 10.1177/17416590211007896
Robert Heynen, Emily van der Meulen
This article traces the development of popular forms of anti-trafficking activism in the United States through a social network and discourse analysis that focuses on NGO websites, celebrity advocacy, merchandising, social media campaigns, and policy interventions. This “branded activism,” as we describe it, plays an important role in legitimizing an emerging anti-trafficking consensus that increasingly shapes both US foreign policy and domestic policing, and is frequently driven by an anti-sex work politics. Popular anti-trafficking discourses, we find, build on melodramatic narratives of victims and (white) saviors, depoliticize the complex labor and migration issues at stake, reinforce capitalist logics, and enable policy interventions that produce harm for migrants, sex workers, and others ostensibly being “rescued.” Celebrity and marketing-driven branded activism relies especially strongly on parallels drawn between histories of chattel slavery and what anti-trafficking campaigns call “modern-day slavery.” We challenge these parallels, particularly as they encourage participants to see themselves as abolitionist saviors in ways that reinforce neo-liberal notions of empowerment rooted in communicative capitalist networks.
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