Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Texas, Aug., 2009. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (PhD) -- Bond University, 2009. / "A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy"-- t.p. Bibliography: pages 336-365. Also available via the World Wide Web.

Esta dissertação tem por objeto as narrativas emergentes a partir de um caso de assassinato ocorrido em Ouro Preto/MG em 14 de outubro de 2001, o caso Aline, que teve repercussão nacional ao ser representado com características de mistério e barbárie, tecendo uma teia de relações causais com diferentes elementos drogas, festas estudantis, satanismo e, em especial, jogos de interpretação de papeis (RPGs). A partir da noção de drama social de Victor Turner, analisa-se a ruptura do cotidiano de Ouro Preto com o crime, abrindo fissuras para a emergência de metáforas radicais de sacrifício e crucificação, que energizam a leitura do crime como ritual macabro. Analisam-se a evolução do processo e o julgamento dos acusados, o encontro de narrativas e o desfecho dissonante das expectativas punitivas. Em seguida, acompanha-se a produção de narrativas dominantes e o escalonamento dos conflitos do caso Aline para as arenas narrativas midiáticas, mágico-religiosas e jurídico-políticas. Discutem-se as expectativas de justiça e punição por meio da análise de linchamento moral e da busca por vítimas sacrificais, unindo-as com uma discussão sobre racionalidade penal moderna que permite questionar a aporia formada pela absolvição. Por fim, tecem-se algumas considerações sobre a produção de ordens e desordens no ritual do júri e o que poderia ser uma narrativa justa do caso Aline. / This dissertation analyzes the rising narratives of a murder case occurred in Ouro Preto/MG in October 14, 2001, the Aline case. This case was nationwide known due to the mystery and cruelty with which it was represented, weaving a web of causal relations with several elements drugs, student parties, Satanism and Roleplaying Games (RPGs). Victor Turners notion of social drama is engaged to analyze how the crime creates a breach in Ouro Preto everyday life, opening cracks for the arouse of root metaphors of sacrifice and crucifixion, that energizes the crime reading as a macabre ritual. The evolution of the process and the defendants trial are discussed as a narrative gathering with an unexpected non-punitive outcome. The crystallization of dominant narratives and the escalating conflicts of Aline case are followed to the media, magical-religious and juridical-political arenas. Then the expectations of justice and punishment are discussed, through an analyze of the moral lynching and the search of a escape goat, and also a discussion of the modern penal rationality, that enables questions on the aporia created by the defendants discharge. At last, some considerations on Jury ritual creations of order and disorder and of what could be a just narrative of Aline case.

The purpose of this thesis was to determine the tv-show Efterlyst’s (Wanted)effects on viewers when it comes to how crime, criminals and victims are portrayed in the show. In order to achieve the purpose of our the study, both  quantitative and  qualitative approaches were used We compared the image Efterlyst gives of crime, criminals and victims to statistical information from The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention and The Central Bureau of Statistiscs. By using focus-groups we also studied how Efterlyst portrays, in the season of 2009, and how it may have affected its viewers. Our conclusion was that there are important differences between how Efterlyst portrays crime and the image of crime the statistics gives. Our study also supports the idea that viewers can be affected by how Efterlyst reports about crime; they can get disorted understandings about crime and be influenced in such way that they feel unjustified  fear from watching Efterlyst – a substantial reduction in their quality of life

Esta dissertação tem por objeto as narrativas emergentes a partir de um caso de assassinato ocorrido em Ouro Preto/MG em 14 de outubro de 2001, o caso Aline, que teve repercussão nacional ao ser representado com características de mistério e barbárie, tecendo uma teia de relações causais com diferentes elementos drogas, festas estudantis, satanismo e, em especial, jogos de interpretação de papeis (RPGs). A partir da noção de drama social de Victor Turner, analisa-se a ruptura do cotidiano de Ouro Preto com o crime, abrindo fissuras para a emergência de metáforas radicais de sacrifício e crucificação, que energizam a leitura do crime como ritual macabro. Analisam-se a evolução do processo e o julgamento dos acusados, o encontro de narrativas e o desfecho dissonante das expectativas punitivas. Em seguida, acompanha-se a produção de narrativas dominantes e o escalonamento dos conflitos do caso Aline para as arenas narrativas midiáticas, mágico-religiosas e jurídico-políticas. Discutem-se as expectativas de justiça e punição por meio da análise de linchamento moral e da busca por vítimas sacrificais, unindo-as com uma discussão sobre racionalidade penal moderna que permite questionar a aporia formada pela absolvição. Por fim, tecem-se algumas considerações sobre a produção de ordens e desordens no ritual do júri e o que poderia ser uma narrativa justa do caso Aline. / This dissertation analyzes the rising narratives of a murder case occurred in Ouro Preto/MG in October 14, 2001, the Aline case. This case was nationwide known due to the mystery and cruelty with which it was represented, weaving a web of causal relations with several elements drugs, student parties, Satanism and Roleplaying Games (RPGs). Victor Turners notion of social drama is engaged to analyze how the crime creates a breach in Ouro Preto everyday life, opening cracks for the arouse of root metaphors of sacrifice and crucifixion, that energizes the crime reading as a macabre ritual. The evolution of the process and the defendants trial are discussed as a narrative gathering with an unexpected non-punitive outcome. The crystallization of dominant narratives and the escalating conflicts of Aline case are followed to the media, magical-religious and juridical-political arenas. Then the expectations of justice and punishment are discussed, through an analyze of the moral lynching and the search of a escape goat, and also a discussion of the modern penal rationality, that enables questions on the aporia created by the defendants discharge. At last, some considerations on Jury ritual creations of order and disorder and of what could be a just narrative of Aline case.

The purpose of this thesis is to show how the image of Jiří Kajínek in the media changed over time, from the time he was first identified as a suspect in a double murder in November 1993 until the spring of 2017 when President Miloš Zeman pardoned him. The work also follows a period of one year after the granting of a pardon in order to capture changes in the presentation of Jiří Kajínek in the media. This thesis should also respond to the question of whether Jiří Kajínek was presented by the media as a celebrity after his release. To determine how the media informed about Jiří Kajínek, a quantitative analysis was used, the last period, ie the period of one year after Jiří Kajínek's release from prison, was further analyzed by qualitative method, specifically the framing method. I analyzed texts from three daily newspapers, Právo, Mladá fronta DNES and Blesk. Among other things this research showed that in the course of the change in Jiří Kajínek's presentation, instead of interpreting his persona as a murderer and recidivist with two examined newspapers - Mladá fronta DNES and Blesk - there were discovered other interpretations, such as interpretation as victim or as a celebrity. In the newspaper Právo the interpretations did not change so significantly. Jiří Kajínek's interpretation as a...

The disparity between the ongoing use, the overall positive attitudes towards criminal profiling and the lack of empirical evidence for its validity is also referred to as criminal profiling illusion. Associated risks for society range from misled police investigations, hindered apprehensions of the actual offender(s), and wrongful convictions of innocent citizens to mistrust in the police and their methods. Research on potential explanations to the Criminal Profiling Illusion is still in its infancy but assumes that people receive and adopt incorrect messages favouring the accuracy and utility of criminal profiling. One suggested mechanism through which individuals may acquire such incorrect messages is the consumption of fictional crime-related media which typically present criminal profiling as highly accurate, operationally useful and leading to the apprehension of the offender(s). By having some relation to reality but presenting a distorted picture of criminal profiling, fictional crime-related media may blur the line between fiction and reality thereby increasing the risk for the audience to mistake fiction for fact. Adopting a cultivation approach adequate to examine media effects on one’s perception, the present study is the first to investigate whether the perception of criminal profiling may be influenced by the consumption of fictional crime-related media based on a correlation study. Although the results provide support for the assumption that misperceptions of criminal profiling are widely spread in the general population and associated with the consumption of fictional crime-related media, the found cultivation effects are small and must be interpreted cautiously. Considering that even small effects may have the potential to influence real-life decision-making, they may still be relevant and affect the society at large.

An Arbeiten zur personalen Dimension der Kriminalitätsfurcht – gemessen an der Furcht im Umkreis der Wohnung – mangelt es nicht. Die anhaltende Diskussion um Ergebnisse zum Kriminalitätsfurchtparadox, Kontroversen um die Methodik, Vulnerabilität, Copingfähigkeiten usw. belegen ein komplexes Bemühen in diesem Forschungskontext, um die Ursachen der Kriminalitätsfurcht genauer zu bestimmen. Kaum theoretische Beachtung dagegen findet die soziale Dimension der Kriminalitätsfurcht, die zuweilen sogar mit der personalen Dimension gleichgesetzt wird. Möglicherweise sind es die \"dramatischeren\" Werte der sozialen Dimension, welche eine gewisse Anziehungskraft, z. B. auf mediale Präsentationen, ausüben. Neben dem Anliegen einer grundsätzlichen Klärung der Aussagekraft dieses Konstrukts im wissenschaftlichen Disput sollte auch beachtet werden, dass immer mehr Kommunen Sicherheitsbefragungen durchführen lassen und bestrebt sind, daraus Rückschlüsse für die Kommunalpolitik zu ziehen. Auch deshalb scheint eine Klärung, welches Konstrukt worüber Auskunft geben kann, dringend geboten. Immerhin erhält gerade die Kriminalitätsfurcht bzw. das Sicherheitsempfinden eine öffentliche Aufmerksamkeit, wie sie für Ergebnisse sozialwissenschaftlicher Forschungen nicht gerade typisch ist. Gerade weil damit aber die Verkürzung eines komplexen sozialen Sachverhalts auf eine Zahl geschieht, ist eine genaue Bestimmung dessen erforderlich, welche Zahl was ausdrückt. Darüber hinaus ist eine Positionierung der personalen und sozialen Dimensionen der Kriminalitätsfurcht dahingehend geboten, dass sie keine demonstrativen (Wettbewerbs-)Items darstellen, sondern als Instrumente für die Analyse von Mechanismen der Kriminalitätsverarbeitung in der Bevölkerung zu verstehen sind. Gerade in Bezug auf eine kommunalpolitische Aufmerksamkeit gegenüber dem gemessenen Sicherheitsempfinden zeichnen sich Tendenzen ab, entweder Ergebnisse zur Intensität der Kriminalitätsfurcht nicht ernst zu nehmen (im Sinne einer subjektiv verzerrten Wahrnehmung, der man durch \"Aufklärung\" begegnen kann) oder sie überzubewerten, indem sie zur Begründung restriktiver Maßnahmen herangezogen werden (umfassendere Maßnahmen für die öffentliche Sicherheit anzustreben). Im Zusammenhang mit der Unterscheidung zwischen personaler und sozialer Kriminalitätsfurcht soll der Einfluss von der Medienrezeption bestimmt werden.

Background. A number of commentators (Holloway 1996 Muijen 1996a; 1996b) have suggested that two events in the form of homicides carried out by mental health service users came to exert a disproportionate influence on English mental health policy over the period 1985-2000. In particular it has been suggested that the events formed the focus for a ‘moral panic’ caused by ‘irresponsible’ and ‘sensationalist’ reporting in UK newspapers (Neal 1998; Prins and Swan 1998). Aims. In the light of such claims this study critically explores the role played by the deaths of Jonathan Zito and Isabel Schwarz play in establishing violent assaults perpetrated by people experiencing mental illness as a ‘social problem’. It examines whether a shift in the discourse on mental illness took place in UK newspapers and explores how the deaths of Isabel Schwarz were and Jonathan Zito were framed in terms of causal responsibility. Finally it evaluates what influence, if any, the deaths in question had on the social policy agenda. Design. Case study / mixed design integrating quantitative and qualitative methods. Method. Content analysis consisting of a longitudinal analysis of the nature of the representation of mental illness changed over the period in two UK newspaper. Framing a sub-type of discourse analysis examined changes in the discourse of mental illness and the effects of the emergence of the community care tragedy as a ‘new’ narrative. It was also used to examine the potential influence on social policy on mental illness of changes in societal level frames particularly the emergence of the risk society. Results. The content analysis found that mental illness appeared increasingly in the context of a threat to public safety in newspapers over the period but that the overall representation was more balanced. The framing analysis identified and evidenced a competitive process in framing the issue of homicides committed by service users with mental health problems and demonstrated the potential influence of macro level social frames on the policy making proces

Experterna i media har till uppgift att kommentera och analysera nyhetshändelser. Genom rollen att göra skeenden begripliga för en större publik besitter de makten att påverka samhällsopinionen. Med utgångspunkt i mediernas fascination för att rapportera om brott och straff undersöktes i den här studien svensk press användning av kriminologer som experter. Studiens empiriska material bestod av 710 artiklar publicerade i elva storstadstidningar mellan den 1 april 2012 och den 31 mars 2017. Uppsatsens teoretiska ramverk byggde på medielogik som förklarar den process i vilken medierna presenterar och distribuerar information. I den här studien bidrog den med förståelse till svensk press val av kriminologer och hur dessa kan kopplas till mediernas behov. Dessutom användes representationsteori i syfte att analysera kriminologernas citat. För att studera detta tillämpades en kvantitativ innehållsanalys där ett kodschema konstruerades och variabler utformades för att besvara studiens frågeställningar. Senare användes en kvalitativ innehållsanalys för att analysera tematik i kriminologernas citat.    Resultatet visade att fördelningen av kriminologer är obalanserad. Framför allt framträdde Jerzy Sarnecki i en dominerande del av artiklarna, men också Leif GW Persson och Mikael Rying förekom i en förhållandevis stor utsträckning. I resultatet konstaterades dock att Leif GW Perssons namn och ansikte oftast användes för att locka till läsning, något som nyanserar bilden av Jerzy Sarnecki som mediernas favoritkriminolog. Vidare påvisades det att studiens topp tre kriminologer sällan tilldelas en närmare presentation än att de är just kriminologer, detta jämfört med övriga kriminologer som ofta legitimeras med forskningsunderlag och ytterligare yrkesroll. Dessutom uppmärksammades att kriminologerna, beroende på hur de uttalade sig, gavs varierat utrymme i olika frågor. / Recent years the criminologists has possessed a larger quantity of space in the Swedish media; many times to contribute with knowledge and theories for the public regarding crime events. At the same time news desks experience a greater task with an increasing pressure to be first with publishing different stories, which could lead to a comfortable approach to new expert sources. The main purpose of the thesis was therefore to examine how criminologists are represented and presented in some of the major Swedish newspapers from a perspective of Stuart Hall’s ideas of representation. With a quantitative and qualitative content analysis a total of 710 news articles in eleven different papers were examined, from the beginning of April 2012 until the end of March 2017. In an early stage it was clear that just three criminologists occurred in over 70 percent of the articles. Later different themes between them could be identified which displayed how their attributes were used in different ways, giving them access to express themselves in varied topics. Furthermore the analysis showed that the experts were represented in a rather hard boiled manner. For example topics as fatal violence and criticism of the police were two categories in which they often appeared.