ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how some of the dynamics between crime and justice are conceived in an era of global interconnectedness. The transformations in media technology wrought by print, telegraph and wireless communication, which gave birth to the electronic age from the mid-twentieth century, have led to the phenomenon of mediatization. Silverstone emphasizes just how much of the media's work is concerned with constructing and maintaining boundaries - from micro to macro levels their 'primary cultural role' is a ceaseless 'playing with difference and sameness'. McLuhan argued that the world initially expanded through urbanization and transport developments, but has now 'imploded' as the mass media bring the world closer together again. In his analysis of contemporary 'wound culture', Seltzer demonstrates how a fundamental reconfiguration of individual and collective understandings of suffering, trauma and witnessing has recently taken place, which 'takes the form of a fascination with the shock of contact between bodies and technologies'.
