Critical Discourse Analysis and the representation of crime in the British press

In today's world, media are considered the major source of the creation and dynamism of culture. The power of these intellectual tools is so great that without them a society with dynamic culture cannot be formed. Media are tasked with spreading information through society and covert functions in the fields of education, information and entertainment. With regards of information, media have the power to inform the audience about what is currently happening in the world, even when it comes to spread unfortunate news, such as offences. Media can increase the seriousness with which crime is perceived, instead of relying on statistical data or academic research for information about the crime. Media, in fact, tends to focus on specific types of crimes (usually violent) and portrays it as typical and a threat to the community and public perceptions. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the field of media discourse in particular regarding the world of crime. The aim of the present study is to investigate how crime phenomena are reported by media, analysing some texts of various genres. In particular, it will be discussed how is crime depicted by media in order to make it newsworthy. Specifically, some aspects of the media representation of crime will be explored: through the analysis of some texts, it will be discussed how perpetrators and victims are depicted by media. Furthermore, another aspect worth exploring regards race. Race, in fact, is rarely explicitly stated in media coverage, therefore it may be more noticeable when it is mentioned, particularly in contexts where racial identification matches racial stereotypes. For this reason in this paper it will be also discussed how media deals with the racial background of victims and offenders when portraying crime.