MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

Television programs centered on crime have become a familiar presence on network and cable television. Fictional police procedures have been a staple in programming since Dragnet and have only grown in popularity with multiple incarnations of shows like CSI, Law and Order, and NCIS pervading the television landscape. True-crime television, documentaries or newsmagazines, have continued to grow rapidly with shows present in network broadcasting (Dateline), cable (Snapped), and true-crime having its own network (ID on Discovery). These programs provide compelling narratives about lust, distrust, and murder (more often than not) for a predominantly older, female demographic. What this presentation seeks to address two issues related to this format burst. First, by focusing on the network ID on Discovery, understanding how the network is constructing their schedules for the assumed audience. A majority of programs are focused on female victims or in some cases women who victimize. The presentation secondly questions what is of value to this demographic. What do these programs provide for audiences and what ideological threads can we pull from schedules that are made to touch upon fear, vulnerability, anonymity, and bodily harm? Why is there such an interest in these narratives? When aggression and violence are couched as male phenomena, what do women’s interest in narratives say about gendered distinctions made in discussions about transgressions? As a cultural studies scholar, I am to look more toward what these programs represent as media texts within the cultures in which they were produced; however, I will also incorporate work down within the field of criminology (victimology and gender) to further elaborate on the relationship between media texts and culture.