Study Questions

1. Given the criticisms raised here about media criminology sometimes lacking methodological rigor and theoretical interdisciplinarity, what do you think might provide fruitful areas for future research?

2. What do you imagine might be some of the barriers to conducting the kind of research that cultural criminologists like Jeff Ferrell and his colleagues have undertaken?

3. Compile a list of “mega-cases” or “signal crimes.” How would you characterize their place in the collective psyche, and what kinds of wider social, cultural, and legal implications have they had?

4. Are mega-cases always brutal homicides, or do other types of offenses have the capacity to move from being “current events” to “historical events,” living on in the collective memory and serving to frame future mediated public and legal discourses on crime and punishment? Can you think of any state crimes, corporate crimes, ecocrimes, or cybercrimes that could be described as mega-cases?