ABSTRACT
Reality television programming broadcasts crime dramatizations or film footage of police and other emergency personnel at work. Two of the earliest and most successful reality programs, America's Most Wanted (AMW) and Unsolved Mysteries (UM), present vignettes in which the participants or actors reenact actual crimes. The crime genre affirms dominant interests and attitudes even as it offers the vicarious pleasure of suspense and freedom from restrictive bureaucratic rules. People represent and perceive the world through symbols. Widely used symbols affirm dominant social values and condemn threats to the social order. The symbols that circulate in media crime presentations carry ideological meanings. The crime genre privileges authority and order. Authority is located in the hero/detective who triumphs over evil, defining the "good" in terms of a preference for the social order. AMW and UM stake their reality claim on television formats that suggest realism: they appropriate the realistic style of the crime genre, and the televisual empiricism of the news.
