ABSTRACT
Chapter 6 takes the topic of violent crime in the tabloids and examines it in closer detail. In particular, it interrogates the extent to which journalists stylistically draw on tropes from the Hollywood slasher film, popularised in the 1970s and 80s. A representative sample was compiled of all news texts reporting on violent crime in the tabloids, calculating the top ten most frequent words referring to violent acts. By comparing this subsample against the rest of the tabloid dataset, 100 distinct lexical items are obtained which are grouped according to Clover’s (1992) influential component categories of slasher cinema. The analysis proceeds through some of these categories, showing how they are realised linguistically. These include the killer being freed into the community; use of sharp instruments; proximity; graphic violence and dehumanisation. The chapter concludes by suggesting that by framing violent crime in this way, the press invite readers to react fearfully rather than sympathetically.
