Television and Media - The Emotional Security of Real-life TV

Within Joyce Nelson’s essay, “TV News: A Structure of Reassurance”, Nelson criticizes the TV news structure that perpetually disconnects current events from their historical background through comforting anchorpeople partnered with advanced technology to create a TV program that minimizes the important implications of current events. Though lacking the amount of information that a print news publication can maintain, the TV news can convey immediate information through technological advances of modern TV equipment to allow the medium to remain competitive. The façade of in-the-moment international information broadcasted directly to viewers enables anchorpeople to maintain the feeling of immediateness, keeping the viewers believing the program

Ultimately, justice is what we are seeking in these entertainment driven TV series and movies. When criminals are held accountable for their misdeeds we as society are able to accept the misdeeds of others who are responsible for bringing the dangerous criminals to justice. A sense of peace and restoration of order is established in our hearts providing a sense of harmony in our

It is true that criminal justice is a major part of the entertainment world. In most shows on TV today, I was really surprised when I sat down to think about what shows I watched that would actually fit in to the three components. I didn’t realize at first how many shows I watched that actually depicted the law enforcement, court systems, and the corrections aspects of Criminal Justice.

With producing reality shows comes producing inaccuracies in portrayals in order to reach as many viewers and gain as high ratings as possible every week with each new episode. Every day life is boring, yet people tend to be attracted to the relatable shows that portray real life in eccentric ways – ways that they believe could be imitated by the average person. In many cases, these shows could remain harmless, as it is entertainment. No matter how crude or erroneous, it is just television. However, what happens when these sources of amusement actually start being damaging? Research has shown that crime shows like the ever popular CSI: Crime Scene Investigation have started becoming significantly detrimental to criminal

Even the little things such as this are opinion based. Also, when watching Criminal Minds, Law & Order, Law & Order SVU, Chicago PD, and Blue Bloods, these are all dimmed down versions of the justice system. These shows give people the false notion that every criminal will be caught, every case will be solved and everyone will get the justice they deserve. That’s not the case at all, some cases go cold and some people never get the justice they deserve because the man who killed their relative or friend may still be roaming the streets as a free man. Television romanticizes everything. Another good example would be the reality show, Keeping Up With the Kardashian. The life of the Kardashians is clearly not reality for the majority of people. Most people don’t drive in Bentley’s or have personal makeup artists or go to big extravagant parties every night. Then there are movies which create these socially acceptable people and create the social standard of what everyone should look like. Women should be tall but not too tall and they should be a size 0 in pants and men should be super fit with washboard abs. These are all trying to change people’s opinions rather than teach them the true facts on what life really is. People might as well just wake up and go outside to

Everything on television is not real but they are producing the sense of real to the audience and audience get the thoughts from television. The Cops is producing the realism by handheld camera in the car. The police

Starting with Ken Dowler, Thomas Fleming, and Stephen Muzzatti, the authors of “Constructing Crime: Media, Crime and Popular Culture” (837-839) one can see how they believe the media impacts the view of crime from a public perspective. In Canada, crime is a main segment of the news and while that source would be considered informational, the subject of crime itself can also be for entertainment. Likely, North America favors the subject of crime and this can be prove true based on television content today through shows such as Chicago P.D., Law and Order: SVU, Killer Couples or Rosewood. While these shows and many others manage to hook an audience through intriguing storytelling of crime the lines between the true crime information and creative

Lastly, the dramatization by news programs today produces a glamorization of crime. News stories on crimes are extremely popular due to the fact audiences’ remembers bad news much easier than good news. Take history for example, much of history is filled with recounts of gruesome murders, wars, and scandals. An estimated 71 million viewers across the country tune in to their local news station’s broadcast (Yanich, 2004, p. 537). It can easily be

Heavy users constantly see the criminals that are being arrested in cops fall under the stereotyped image of what criminals look like that they begin to think that such arrests happens every day and all criminals are exactly how they the show portrays them to be .

Let’s say you went to your local bank to despot some checks and out of the corner of your eye you notice a group of men storm into the bank like a bat out of hell, armed with assault rifles and wearing ski masks. With a rifle muzzle shoved in your face you are at the mercy of their every command. Would the first thought that crosses your mind be, “This is the coolest thing ever!” or would you be scared shitless? My assumption would be the second one. With that being said, why is our society so attracted to these aspects of crime portrayed in entertainment but we would do everything to avoid it all cost in real life? Does America’s love for crime, whether on the television or in the movies, secretly revel our own desires to live the dangerous and exciting lives of the criminals, police officers, and FBI agents we marvel at every night? As humans we aren’t all sociopaths but watching other people rolling the dice with their lives is fascinating, and somewhat rewarding.

The Criminal Justice System is made up of several different process law enforcement, judiciary, and corrections this system is where the accused individual are tried and punished for the crime they are charged with. The depiction of criminal justice system in throughout each process (police, courts, and correctional) has become ubiquitous on television today. Shows that give a visual of the arresting and investigation process (law enforcement) are the televisions shows “Cops” and “The First 48 Hours”. The show “Cops” is a television series that follows police officers, constables and sheriff deputies around during their patrol and other policing activity (Cops, n.d). Showing the officer enforcing the laws of the

American Crime Obsession With crime shows like “Making a Murderer,” “the Killing,” “Luther,” and “The Fall” within reach of every person with a Netflix account, it makes it pretty easy to assume most people have, or will, watch a crime show at some point in their life. Americans are so obsessed with crime and the killers that drive it, which is why we are drawn towards the fictional crime tales. We have been apart of so many involuntary crimes and horrible events which shape our country, yet we continue to take these awful events and seek out more information and news about it. The real reason we’ve become so obsessed with true crime is because of the desire that people have to learn more about the legal system, as well becoming intrigued by watching fictional crime shows.

Most television crime shows feature cases that are loosely based on real life crimes. There may be a disclaimer presented at the beginning or end of the show that says it’s fictional and not based on real life characters or events but If you keep up with the news or read crime statistics, you hear about very similar events that are happening in real life. I watched two shows, one was Criminal Minds and the other was Law & Order SVU. I observed the race and gender of the people involved in the stories.

Cops is now known as an original reality series. It was the first show to actually film real law enforcement officers making actual arrests. The show put camera crews in police cars all over the United States. The series was the first show to use Cinema Verite’ style of documentary filming. The show does not use any narration, it relies on the filming and police officers to tell the story being shot. The show is still as popular today as when it

Every television network has a prime time show focused on law enforcement or some form of criminal activity. From Columbo to Law & Order, this genre has stood the test of time. In the opening of Law & Order, there is a brief statement about how all cases are fictional but they added that there story lines are ripped from the headlines. Many hard working, law abiding citizens are fascinated with criminals and the crimes they commit. One explanation maybe that deep in our subconscious we would all love to get away with the perfect crime, secretly we have all had the thought of making a hated co-worker disappear rob a bank, but not get caught. In the 90’s, there was a movie where Tom Cruise was a future police officer. It was called Minority Report. In it, he was in charge of the “pre-crime Unit”, which consisted of 3 psychics. The sole purpose of this unit was to predict a