(CRM2a) Crime, Deviance, and Media I

The relationship between crime and the media is a complex one, often focusing on the more traditional investigation of the (mis)representation of crime and deviance and its impact on society. But while we should always consider the impact of such representations of individuals and groups by media, the exploration of that relationship should also include an investigation of how people might use media to engage in and represent their own such activities, as well as how they might navigate newly acquired deviance or criminal identities as a result being represented in media. This session invited papers that consider the relationship between crime, deviance, and the media from a number of different avenues, including but not limited to: how groups are represented by the press/entertainment/infotainment media; how individuals or groups represent themselves using media; public reactions to crime and deviance; and more. Papers from a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches are encouraged. Tags: Criminology, Culture, Media Studies

Organizer: Duncan Philpot, St. Thomas University; Chair: Duncan Philpot, St. Thomas University

Presentations

Ciara Boyd, University of Guelph

Media Representations of Friends and Family Members of Victims of Intimate Partner Femicide

Between 2018 and 2022, at least 850 women and girls were killed in Canada, primarily by men. The news media are a primary source of public information about femicide, making their role significant in determining how femicide is perceived and understood in society. Research has explored friends and family members of femicide victims as news sources, but not what they say or how they may impact media coverage of intimate partner femicide. Focusing on a two-year time period that allows for a comparison of news coverage before and after COVID-19, this paper analyzes Canadian news coverage from 2019 and 2021 using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Analyzing these two years of coverage (approximately 2,415 articles), this paper explores what is being said by both official and personal sources to gain a better understanding of how intimate femicides are being represented and by whom in the media. Working within a feminist theoretical framework, this paper provides a first look at how intimate partner femicides are represented in Canadian news media by friends and family members of victims. Beginning with a scoping review of sources used more broadly in media coverage of intimate partner femicide, this paper presents an overview of what is currently known about various sources used by the media. Following this, the paper draws from framing theory to qualitatively analyze coverage from three select intimate partner femicide cases and identify key themes of friends and family media representations. By analyzing media representations of friends and family members, this paper explores the potential benefits of relying on those more closely connected to the femicide victim as a source of information. For example, relying on friends and family members as news sources may initiate discussion on the broader impacts of intimate partner femicide, such as the effect on children left behind and/or elderly parents left without care. Moreover, exploring media representation of friends and family members may also provide insight into what factors might influence public perception of certain sources as official versus non-official (i.e., personal) sources.

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Non-presenting author: Jordan Fairbairn, King's University College at Western University

Michael Fleming, University of New Brunswick

Street Crime, Sweet Crime, or Suite Crime? Knowledge Claims and Media Framing of the "Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist."

Snider (2000) suggests that corporate crime has been argued into ‘obsolescence’ through the construction and maintenance of plausible pro-corporate knowledge claims. This presentation discusses the role of media framing in sustaining pro-corporate knowledge claims in the aftermath of the case of theft of nearly 3000 tonnes of maple syrup worth almost $20 million in Quebec in 2011-12. This presentation demonstrates that in framing this ‘great Canadian heist’ as individualistic (‘street’) crime, the broader political economy of the maple syrup industry in Quebec has been obscured. In the absence of deliberate examination of the potentially criminogenic relationship between the Government of Quebec and the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers (FPAQ) – a state-sanctioned marketing and promotional body governing the province’s lucrative and iconic maple syrup industry – the most enduring media frame to emerge from this case was one that conceptualized it alternately as a quintessentially Canadian escapade, or otherwise unserious (‘sweet’) crime. In this case, media framing of maple syrup theft effectively un-interrogated both the pro-corporate knowledge claims making process and the impacts of cartel-like control over Quebec’s maple syrup production, sale, and distribution on Quebec maple syrup producers as a form of state-corporate (‘suite’) crime.

Melanie Rogers, Queen's University

The 'Number One Serial Killer Target,' Investigated the Portrayal of Sex Worker as Victims on Criminal Minds

Media representation plays a vital role in shaping public discourse about sex work. Due to the stigmatized and, therefore, secretive nature of sex, much of the general population’s understanding of the sex industry is informed through the media, where representations are produced, negotiated, and repeated. The present study uses narrative analysis to examine the representation of sex workers as victims in the popular crime drama C riminal Minds . Results indicate the show uses motherhood to create more sympathetic victims, engages in high-risk lifestyle discourse and presents a narrow, stereotypical portrayal of sex workers. In contrast, the show provides moments where viewers see agents and other law enforcement members engage in dialogues that counter victim-blaming narratives. The findings demonstrate a more nuanced depiction and the need for further research into the media portrayal of sex workers in fictional crime dramas. 

Wesley Tourangeau, University of Windsor

Pumpkin soup and the Mona Lisa: Exploring climate protests through Debord

News media outlets across the globe responded in concert as climate protestors splashed pumpkin soup across Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa while it was on display at the Louvre in January of 2024. This event is a recent example of a particular style of climate and environmental protest that has been gaining popularity in recent years—using famous pieces of artwork in stunts that capture media attention. Other examples include throwing soup on Vincent van Gogh’s Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers and covering Claude Monet’s Les Meules with mashed potatoes. Captured heavily within news media, and shared further and more rapidly through social media, these forms of protest warrant closer analysis for several reasons. Perhaps the most critical reason worth exploring is that in most cases there was no discernable damage to these works of art due to protective glass coverings, yet these protestors are still framed as criminals, while these paintings become personifications of the ‘ideal’ victim. In this presentation, Guy Debord’s ideas on ‘the spectacle’, ‘détournement’, and ‘recuperation’ are utilized to imagine these acts as complex discursive events with potential contributions to environmental awareness and environmental justice, but subjected to power relations that may limit their transformative potential. In the Debordian sense, these events are set within the ‘spectacle’ of everyday practices of cultural consumption (i.e., of art and museums) as a ‘good’ that is protected by laws and police and then further supported/defended through longstanding social norms and expectations about visiting museums. However, targeting and defacing these paintings provides a fitting comparison to what Debord calls critical art and ‘détournement’—a restructuring of culture and experience through art to create something new by placing it within a new context. On the other hand, staging such newsworthy events also risks what Debord calls ‘recuperation’ wherein the spectacle regains control by intercepting, commodifying, and trivializing radical ideas. In this regard, the media’s role of reducing acts of defacement to consumable images may in turn diminish the aims of protestors. This presentation aims to bring critical sociological and criminological attention to this phenomenon of counter-conduct that uses newsworthy law-breaking to protest environmental harms. The aim is to inspire dialogue on the meaning, and potential impact, of these potentially transformative events being consistently captured and shared in news and social media around the world.