Making Crime Television

This book employs actor-network theory in order to examine how representations of crime are produced for contemporary prime-time television dramas. As a unique examination of the production of contemporary crime television dramas, particularly their writing process, Making Crime Television: Producing Entertaining Representations of Crime for Television Broadcast examines not only the semiotic relations between ideas about crime, but the material conditions under which those meanings are formulated. Using ethnographic and interview data, Anita Lam considers how textual representations of crime are assembled by various people (including writers, directors, technical consultants, and network executives), technologies (screenwriting software and whiteboards), and texts (newspaper articles and rival crime dramas). The emerging analysis does not project but instead concretely examines what and how television writers and producers know about crime, law and policing. An adequate understanding of the representation of crime, it is maintained, cannot be limited to a content analysis that treats the representation as a final product. Rather, a television representation of crime must be seen as the result of a particular assemblage of logics, people, creative ideas, commercial interests, legal requirements, and broadcasting networks. A fascinating investigation into the relationship between television production, crime, and the law, this book is an accessible and well-researched resource for students and scholars of Law, Media, and Criminology.

This book employs actor-network theory in order to examine how representations of crime are produced for contemporary prime-time television dramas. As a unique examination of the production of contemporary crime television dramas, particularly their writing process, Making Crime Television: Producing Entertaining Representations of Crime for Television Broadcast examines not only the semiotic relations between ideas about crime, but the material conditions under which those meanings are formulated.

"This book offers a straightforward and vibrant approach to the study of criminal behavior and contemporary criminal justice issues through the use of popular TV shows. Students, researchers, and anyone else interested in crime will find this book an accessible and informative resource for understanding the causes of crime and how society responds to crime"--

This book brings together the theory and practice of local TV news, considering the coverage of crime, for students in journalism, mass comm, media and society, and other areas.

True crime and suspense stories make a killing at the box office, on bestseller lists, and on TV. Both new and experienced writers have found that they can master the special skills required to make crime pay -- in book and movie contracts. "Writing Bestselling True Crime and Suspense shows how you, too, can: - Find and develop compelling true crime stories from everyday sources - Dig out the facts and put them on paper - Fashion your story for books, TV, or movies - Market your story for maximum profit - And much moreAs a special bonus, author Tom Byrnes has included in-depth interviews with true crime movers and shakers including writers, publishers, and Hollywood producers. Writing Bestselling True Crime and Suspense will show you how to craft gripping accounts of the dark deeds that dominate the news and sell them to publishers and beyond. About the Author Tom Byrnes is the author of the national bestseller "Madame Foreman: A Rush to Judgment, about the O.J. Simpson double-murder trial. He is also an award-winning editor and a journalist whose work has appeared in national newspapers and magazines.

Crime dramas have been a staple of the television landscape since the advent of the medium. Along with comedies and soap operas, the police procedural made an easy transition from radio to TV, and starting with Dragnet in 1952, quickly became one of the most popular genres. Crime television has proven to be a fascinating reflection of changes and developments in the culture at large. In the '50s and early '60s, the square-jawed, just-the-facts detectives of The Untouchables and The FBI put police work in the best light possible. As the '60s gave way to the '70s, however, the depictions gained more subtle shading, and The Streets of San Francisco, The Rockford Files, and Baretta offered conflicted heroes in more complex worlds. This trend has of course continued in more recent decades, with Steven Bochco's dramas seeking a new realism through frank depictions of language and sexuality on television. In chronicling these developments and illustrating how the genre has reflected our ideas of crime and crime solving through the decades, author Douglas Snauffer provides essential reading for any fan. This work provides a comprehensive history of detective and police shows on television, with, among other elements, production histories of seminal programs, and interviews with some of the most important writers and producers of crime television. Besides the shows listed above, this volume will also discuss such programs as: Peter Gunn, The Mod Squad, Hawaii Five-O, Columbo, Starsky and Hutch, Charlie's Angels, Magnum P.I., Miami Vice, T.J. Hooker, Remington Steele, Cagney and Lacey, Murder, She Wrote, The Commish, Homicide: Life on the Street, Monk, and many more.

Criminologists and sociolegal scholars have become increasingly interested in studying media representations of crime in popular culture. They have studied representations using content analyses, often examining their "accuracy" against academic research. Alternatively, these scholars have also studied media effects. In contrast to these studies, I focus on the television production process of making entertaining, dramatic representations of crime. In doing so, I empirically address the following research question: how do TV writers know about crime, and how do they transform that knowledge into fictional representations? I answer this question using a triangulation of methods to gather data -- specifically, ethnography, archival research, and interviews with writers and producers -- and through the juxtaposition of several case studies. My case studies include the following Canadian crime television programs: 1) the police drama The Bridge, 2) an original Canadian drama about insurance fraud, Cra$h and Burn, and 3) crime docudramas, such as F2: Forensic Factor and Exhibit A: Secrets of Forensic Science.Taking cues from Bruno Latour's actor-network theory, I focus on the site-specific, concrete, dynamic processes through which each television production makes fiction. I conceive of the writers' room as a laboratory that creates representations through collaborative action and trial and error. This research demonstrates that, during the production process, representations of crime are unstable, constantly in flux as various creative and legal entities compel their revision. Legal entities, such as Errors and Omissions insurance and broadcasters' Standards and Practices, regulate the content and form of representations of crime prior to their airing. My findings also reveal the contingency of (commercial) success, the heterogeneity of people who make up television production staff, and the piecemeal state of knowledge that circulates between producers, network executives and writers.

One of the most important legal developments in the last half of the twentieth century was the change from criminal justice policies shaped primarily by liberal ideas to those shaped primarily by conservative ideas. This book examines images of law in Hollywood films and television crime dramas to better understand this conservative revolution in thinking about crime. The crime stories depicted in popular legal fiction provide interesting as well as insightful perspectives on law in American society, particularly changing images of justice and its administration as well as individual rights.

From Game of Thrones to Breaking Bad, the key theories and concepts in criminal justice are explained through the lens of television In Crime TV, Jonathan A. Grubb and Chad Posick bring together an eminent group of scholars to show us the ways in which crime—and the broader criminal justice system—are depicted on television. From Breaking Bad and Westworld to Mr. Robot and Homeland, this volume highlights how popular culture frames our understanding of crime, criminological theory, and the nature of justice through modern entertainment. Featuring leading criminologists, Crime TV makes the key concepts and analytical tools of criminology as engaging as possible for students and interested readers. Contributors tackle an array of exciting topics and shows, taking a fresh look at feminist criminology on The Handmaid’s Tale, psychopathy on The Fall, the importance of social bonds on 13 Reasons Why, radical social change on The Walking Dead, and the politics of punishment on Game of Thrones. Crime TV offers a fresh and exciting approach to understanding the essential concepts in criminology and criminal justice and how theories of crime circulate in popular culture.