ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the media reporting and depicting of crime, and looks at how specific criminal cases have been presented by the different media of the day. The knowledge and understanding the public have about crime and criminals is largely based on what they have seen or heard through the various media forms. In contemporary society, the media come in a massive and ever growing range of forms and formats. A popular form of nineteenth-century media reporting of crime was printed transcripts of court cases. An aspect of the general interest in crime and punishment evidenced in the media was the reporting of public executions. As with many later youth subcultures and gangs, the hooligans had a distinct look and style of dress and were no doubt overreacted to–although at the time the media and public reaction was one of alarm and panic.
