From video games that allow us to participate in Mafia-style violence, to newspaper reports about the latest terrorist atrocity, from detective novels that fill our bedside cabinets, to Hollywood's beloved legal dramas - the mass media is saturated with stories about crime, justice and disorder. Together they create a cultural landscape of crime that is distinctly at odds with reality, as criminologists are apt to complain. Crime and the Media attempts to make sense of this cultural landscape and its relationship with broader social trends and public attitudes. Through focussed, critical discussions about crime in the media - taking on crime news and fictional representations of cops, courts, and corrections - the text equips students with an understanding of the key theoretical concepts and methodological tools that are required to undertake media analysis. With questions for discussion, exercises and workshop sessions, as well as techniques for analysing crime in a range of media formats, the book makes an invaluable contribution to crime and media courses, and to the social sciences in general.

"Ribbon Culture" explores the history, meaning, and sociological implications of the popular practice of 'showing awareness'. The book suggests that we see the rise of awareness campaigns in terms of a growing interest in personal displays of compassion in a cultural climate where empathy has become a by-word for authenticity. Not only this, but "Ribbon Culture" highlights charities' use of slick awareness campaigns to 'reach' their target-audience and explores the repercussions of the transformation of charity into a commercial enterprise.

Since its emergence in 1991, the awareness ribbon has achieved the kind of cultural status usually reserved for big brand icons and religious symbols; yet its meaningfulness as a symbol is often questioned by activists and media commentators. Certainly, showing awareness is not as straightforward a social practice as it might at first seem. The ribbon is, for example, both a kitsch fashion accessory as well as an emblem that expresses empathy; it is a symbol that represents awareness, yet requires no knowledge of the cause it represents; it appears to signal concern for others, but in fact prioritizes self-expression. "Ribbon Culture" explores ambiguities surrounding these ribbons, the nature of contemporary mourning practices, the sociology of compassion, the marketing discourses of charities and the relationship between awareness and consumerism.

This book explores the history, meaning, and sociological implications of awareness campaigns, seeing them as personal displays of compassion in a culture where empathy is a by-word for authenticity. It also highlights how charities use awareness campaigns to reach their audience, and the transformation of charity into a commercial enterprise.