Journal Description
Crime, Media, Culture is a fully peer reviewed, international journal providing the primary vehicle for exchange between scholars who are working at the intersections of criminological and cultural inquiry. It promotes a broad cross-disciplinary understanding of the relationship between crime, criminal justice, media and culture.
The crime/media/culture nexus speaks to many whose work is embedded in theories of social relations and social change, and therefore maintains high relevance across the full spectrum of social sciences and humanities. Crime, Media, Culture provides a unique and much needed forum for serious debate underpinned by empirically novel and/or theoretically rigorous research.
“Somewhere between criminology and cultural studies in an area of excitement. It is here where the cultural shift is most evident and where a journal like Crime, Media, Culture can provide just the right lens at the right time” Jock Young, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, USA and University of Canterbury, UK
“Crime, Media, Culture acknowledges what so many scholars have long recognized, namely the critical importance of media and cultural representations in shaping popular stereotypes of crime and justice, and thus of official policies. All the better the journal’s international nature promises a long overdue integration of existing scholarship in North America, Europe and the Asia/Pacific region. I am delighted to be associated with this project” Philip Jenkins, Pennsylvania State University, USA
Access all issues of Crime, Media, Culture on SAGE Journals Online.
This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Journal Feed
- by Claire KonkesCrime, Media, Culture, Ahead of Print.
- by Wesley TourangeauCrime, Media, Culture, Ahead of Print. Numerous news media outlets across the world have reported on climate protestors splashing food and paint across some of the world’s most recognisable paintings from van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ to the ‘Mona Lisa’. These events are a type of climate protest that has been gaining popularity in recent years – stunts targeting cultural artefacts and famous artwork to garner media attention. These forms of protest warrant closer analysis for several reasons. In most cases there was no discernable damage to these works of art due to protective glass coverings, yet these (often young) protestors are […]
- by Irem ŞotCrime, Media, Culture, Ahead of Print. This article examines TikTok videos created and shared by partners of incarcerated individuals, using hashtags including #prisonwifetiktok, #prisonwifelife, #prisonlove, #prisongirlfriends, and #prisonmail. The research explores how these partners depict their relationships with incarcerated people on TikTok and how prison communities use the platform to discuss shared challenges. A key focus is on videos showcasing letter exchanges between couples, which are longer, more frequent, and emotionally intense than other videos. These TikToks serve as a platform for sharing grievances and connecting with others in similar situations, making private emotions public to spark conversations about the […]
- “An epidemic of violence”: Examining U.S. news media depictions of anti-trans fatal violence in 2022by Hannah J WalshCrime, Media, Culture, Ahead of Print. Anti-trans fatal violence refers to the hate-motivated murder of transgender and gender-diverse individuals. This study examines news media coverage surrounding 36 victims of anti-trans fatal violence in the United States in 2022. A qualitative content analysis of news articles (n = 75) reveals that journalists often frame anti-trans fatal violence as a systemic issue while highlighting the perspectives of queer organizations/advocates when discussing the murder of transgender individuals.
- by Tarryn PhillipsCrime, Media, Culture, Ahead of Print. People often respond to existential threats by stocking up on items they deem essential for survival. At the onset of COVID-19, Australians were among the fastest and most ardent to bulk buy supplies – especially toilet paper – leading to widespread shortages and tense scenes in supermarkets nationwide. In this article, we examine online and print news media representations of bulk buying behaviours at this time. Results highlight that the media disproportionately blamed shortages on lower socio-economic and migrant consumers and vilified them for panicking irrationally, threatening social decency and order, and being ‘un-Australian’. […]
- by Matthew BallCrime, Media, Culture, Ahead of Print. This article explores the potential of queer archival material to disrupt and nuance dominant criminological narratives on a range of criminal justice-related issues in the lives of queer people. It does so in two contexts: regarding narratives focused on queer experiences of incarceration; and narratives focused on queer offending. Research on queer experiences of incarceration suggests that queer people are particularly at risk of homophobic and transphobic abuse and assault in prison, and that they must repress their sexuality and gender in prison. And research on queer pathways to offending highlights the interconnections between […]
- by CQ QuinanCrime, Media, Culture, Ahead of Print. The past two decades have largely been characterized by mainstream media as emancipatory for LGBTQ communities; indeed, queer and trans people have achieved many legal wins. But despite what has appeared to be a slow march to acceptance and inclusion, the post-marriage equality era has ushered in a virulent form of backlash wherein trans communities are demonized and criminalized through an abundance of anti-trans laws and policies, many of which target trans youth and access to healthcare, schools, and sports. After sketching the broader landscape of trans criminalization, this article moves to an analysis […]
- by Glenn PorterCrime, Media, Culture, Ahead of Print. Landscape photography can be classic renditions of the natural environment within a picturesque tradition found in early English landscape paintings; however, culturally, it can also mean images of other types of environments involving humanity, including human interactions reminiscent of urbanscapes, industrial environments, cityscapes, sites of violent crime, engagement of war and others. Critically, landscape imagery within visual arts also functions within a rhetorical political context by forming concepts of national identity. While this photo-essay comprises of landscape images, the work is not about the landscape or the objects within the space framed by the […]
- by Sarah N SnyderCrime, Media, Culture, Ahead of Print. The debate over whether or not to have police officers carry naloxone was waged long enough in Windsor, Ontario that it became referred to in the local media as “the naloxone issue.” Compared to other cities and towns in the Canadian province, Windsor was slow to equip police officers with the life-saving drug that reverses the effects of opioid overdose. In this paper, we document the unhurried development of this particular harm reduction measure as it unfolded over the course of several years. We draw on theories of human disposability in our analysis of […]
- by Václav WalachCrime, Media, Culture, Ahead of Print. This study seeks to expand the criminological interest in narrative fiction by examining the functions that complex fictional stories on crime control can perform. As a case study, the article takes the Czech Television series The Nineties, which tells the story of a police investigation into murders linked to the rise of organised crime in 1990s Czechia. Broadcast in early 2022, the show became widely popular, as it was seen as not only covering real-world events but also providing an interpretation of the complicated period of postsocialism. Inspired mainly by narrative criminology and Rafe […]
- by Janani UmamaheswarCrime, Media, Culture, Ahead of Print. Researchers have examined how perpetrators of harm—and those close to them—grapple with moral questions related to culpability and victimhood, often by developing excuses and justifications that “neutralize” the damage inflicted. Building on this research, I use 18 in-depth interviews with family members of men incarcerated for a violent offense to explore the “fictionalizing tendencies” in their accounts of their loved ones’ harm. Drawing on scholarship in philosophy and literary theory, I illuminate how the imposition of a narrative structure commonly found in fiction facilitated family members’ sense-making processes as they confronted their loved ones’ […]
- by Nickie D PhillipsCrime, Media, Culture, Ahead of Print. In this paper, we examine the role played by popular media in propagating myths around policing and buttressing the prison-industrial complex (PIC). We provide a conceptual framework for understanding how policing logics are amplified, contested, and resonate through popular media as part of a hegemonic process to sustain the PIC. We suggest that the scaffolding for these logics is built through rhetoric that normalizes the routine violence of policing (copspeak), the ways in which police create and control their own image (image work), and the widespread tendency of popular media to portray policing in […]
- by Miltonette Olivia CraigCrime, Media, Culture, Ahead of Print. Research and policy continue to focus on the prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) in the U.S., with estimates indicating that 81 million people have been victimized by a partner in their lifetime. IPV disproportionately impacts women, and Black women in particular face victimization at a much higher rate when compared to other groups. Considering their overrepresentation, advocates have called for increased attention to IPV and its associated risks for Black women. As one of the most effective ways to publicize important health-related information is through the media, assessing coverage and framing is essential […]
- by Cristiana Vale PiresCrime, Media, Culture, Ahead of Print. In October 2021, a growing number of women denounced needle spiking occurrences in the United Kingdom. The scientific evidence demonstrates the reduced prevalence of spiking and the difficulties in proving its incidence. However, when communicating spiking stories, the media tends to reproduce harmful rape myths. By using English-written online media as sources, this study aimed to analyze and describe needle spiking stories as gendered discourses that act as sexual terrorism in post-pandemic nightlife. The author performed a web-based search through Google News to collect the data and used the feminist critical discourse framework to […]
- by Edward LW GreenCrime, Media, Culture, Ahead of Print.
- by Katharina MaierCrime, Media, Culture, Ahead of Print. In 2018–2019, there was a surge of local news media coverage in Winnipeg, Canada about what news media described as “brazen” liquor store theft. Online discussion and social media platforms provided segments of the public with opportunities to assert claims about the causes and consequences of this putative crime wave as well as potential solutions within and outside the penal system. These online fora allowed internet communities to imagine new methods of crime control and vocalize a range of emotions about crime and punishment. Employing a thematic analysis of reader comments across several online […]
- by Tara YoungCrime, Media, Culture, Ahead of Print. This article explores the growing trend of using rap lyrics and music videos as evidence in criminal trials and considers the discriminatory implications of such practice. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 43 police staff (officers and civillian investigators) and lawyers experienced in investigating, prosecuting or defending cases of serious violence, it focuses on instances where ‘joint enterprise’ (or secondary liability in criminal law) has been invoked to charge and prosecute groups of individuals. The findings reveal that despite legal safeguards designed to prevent prejudicial use of such evidence, its application persists in serious youth […]
- by Anna Di RoncoCrime, Media, Culture, Ahead of Print. This article enriches and invigorates the green criminological scholarship concerned with nonhuman animals by proposing two research directions centred around the critical analysis of human control and ‘management’ of wild animals. While the first of these directions considers the control of animals in the city, the second draws on green cultural criminology to deconstruct and unravel cultural, mediated and political dynamics surrounding nonhuman animal ‘management’. The article concludes by contending that, following these lines of research, green criminologists can contribute to reducing human-animal conflicts in the city and beyond, while also offering new ways […]
- by Anita LamCrime, Media, Culture, Ahead of Print.
- by Senthorun RajCrime, Media, Culture, Ahead of Print. Asylum laws, policies, and bureaucracies are structured by spatializing logics of emotion such as compassion, sympathy, fear, anxiety, and hostility. For lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ) people who seek asylum, legal recognition as a refugee is contingent on the extent to which receiving states believe they are deserving of compassion and care. This materializes spatially through racialized legal and administrative cartographies of safety and danger that position LGBTIQ people as being at risk of a “well-founded fear” of persecution. Meanwhile, those LGBTIQ people who seek asylum in a “disorderly” manner or […]