ABSTRACT
Individuals are held responsible for their fates, in a ‘winner–loser culture’. In an increasingly deregulated global market place, where there is a continuous proliferation of new millionaires and new paupers, the stakes are ever higher. The National Lottery is the quintessence of this new casino culture. Instead of the cradle to grave security of a welfare state the ideal is winner takes all, and the compensation for the substantial risk of losing is the scintilla of hope of being that winner. The riskophobic culture has clearly been replaced by a riskophiliac one. The media play a pivotal role in reproducing, celebrating the winners as celebrities and devaluing any styles of life other than spectacular consumerism. Historical study of how audiences interpret mass media representations of crime and criminal justice clearly raises profound methodological difficulties. Crime narratives and representations are, and always have been, a prominent part of the content of all mass media.
