ABSTRACT
Although academicians in criminology and criminal justice have come to appreciate the importance of the media in constructing ideological images of crime and punishment, apparently they have not considered how to use mass communications for the purposes of informing, interpreting, and altering those images to reflect more realistically the social, political, and economic conditions of crime and social control. Students of crime and crime control, recognizing that significant relationships are involved in constructing criminal images and in setting public policy agendas, likewise have devoted their time and attention to the study of mass media and its presentation of criminal activities (Cohen and Young, 1973; Fishman, 1978; Humphries, 1981). Yet in spite of all the discussions about the importance of the media in presenting popular portrayals of crime and justice (Bohm, 1986; Box, 1983; Hall, Critcher, Jefferson, Clark, and Roberts, 1977; Pepinsky and Jesilow, 1984; Walker, 1985; Wright, 1985), nobody has suggested ways of using the media expressly for participating in the mass construction of those portrayals. Beginning with an analysis of the relationships among the developing political economy of the mass media, intellectuals, and conceptions of crime and justice, I shall suggest a criminological practice capable of taking advantage of the opportunities in the production of crime news, which I call newsmaking criminology.
