Criminology 1500 words Assignment

Media and Crime

Dr. Kate Fitch, 2019

Learning Objectives

• To introduce media and communication disciplinary perspectives • To identify link between celebrity and crime • To discuss ‘celebrity’ as a news driver and key feature of

contemporary culture • To introduce ideas around celebrity, social mobility, gender and

transgression • To consider public relations and media perspectives on the production

and consumption of celebrity and crime

What is Celebrity?

• ‘a person whose name, image, lifestyle, and opinions carry cultural and economic worth and who are first and foremost idealised media constructions’ (Redmond, 2014:5) • Commodities ‘produced, trade and marketed by the media and

publicity industries’ (Turner, 2004:9) • ‘brand names as well as cultural icons or identities: they operate as

marketing tools as well as sites where the agency of the audience is clearly evident’ (Turner, Bonner & Marshall, 2000:13)

Celebrity Industries

• ‘the smiling professions’ (Hartley, 1992) • The occupations involved in the production of celebrity:

entertainment, image management, media, communication, publicity, public relations, coaching, endorsement, legal and investment industries • Celebrity does not exist without promotional activity: brand identity,

market research, promotions, product tie-ins and endorsement, press releases, articles, speeches, scripts, press agentry, issues and crisis management, event planning, publications (Redmond, 2014)

Celebrity and the internet

• Celebrity is concerned with social mobility and embraces a neoliberal discourse of meritocracy • Celebrity is a celebration of individualism and informs how people

present themselves online • Microcelebrity: people who become famous on social media through

their ability to attract attention e.g. rather than showing democratic principles of the internet, ‘Instafamous’ tend to be ‘conventionally good looking and work in cool industries’ (Marwick, 2015:139)

Celebrated criminality

• ‘Celebrity [as exiting, pleasurable entertainment] is a central governance from within the cultural industry and illustrates the increasingly subtle and pervasive control measures characteristic of Foucauldian governmentality’ (Penfold-Mounce, 2009:51) • Criminal celebrity: where criminals become celebrities e.g. Kray twins • Rogue celebrities: where celebrities become associated with

transgression, crime and deviance e.g. Lindsay Lohan

Celebrity and criminality

• Both celebrity and the criminal play a role in the governing regime of social behaviour, in that both are concerned with transgression • The public relations-media complex that dominates the global media

market shapes public opinion and demands ‘celebrity’ content as much as news values demand sensationalism • Gender: female criminals transgress both criminal and moral laws and

public fascination with the ‘deviance’ ensures these stories are particularly lucrative for news media

Further reading

• Marwick, A. (2015). Instafame: Luxury selfies in the attention economy. Public Culture, 21(10), 137-160. • Middleweek, B. (2016). Deviant divas: Lindy Chamberlain and

Schapelle Corby and the case for a new category of celebrity for criminally implicated women. Crime Media Culture. Doi:10.1177/1741659016646596 • Penfold-Mounce, R. (2009). Celebrity, Culture and Crime: The Joy of

Transgression. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. • Redmond, S. (2014). Celebrity and the Media. Houndmills, Palgrave

Macmillan • Turner, G. (2004). Understanding Celebrity. London, Sage.