Criminology Emergency Remote Learning - Media Literacy True Crime & Infotainment #4

This entry will address some of the issues that you'll need for your Infotainment-Stranger Danger blog post. We continue this section of the course with Media Literacy. I placed three documents in the Criminology Teams site (access through your school district Office 365 account).

For this activity, please review Mass Media Theories & Crime. Also, please review text pages 14-16  (in the pdf it's page 50-52/694), as well as text pages 213-216  (in the pdf it's page 250-252/694) and text pages 487-503 (in the pdf it's page 523-539/694) in the  Media &Culture: Mass Communication in a Digital Age online text.

You should also spend some time looking at various Communication theories from University of Twente (specifically: Agenda Setting, Priming, Framing, Cultivation, Medium, and Uses and Gratifications).

We're diving back in to true crime media...this time, however, I want you to watch a Dateline video called "My Kid Would Never Do That: Stranger Danger".This episode deals with the fear associated with stranger abductions and tests whether kids would know what do to when confronted by someone who attempts to lure them. The Dateline website says:

While stranger abductions are rare, all parents worry about keeping kids safe. In this special report, parents and experts watch as the following scenarios unfold, testing whether or not children know what to do when approached by a stranger.


DATELINE NBC: MY KID WOULD NEVER DO THAT: STRANGER DANGER from Loren Burlando on Vimeo.


Check out these Facebook and Twitter posts in response to the show

So now for the reality of stranger danger and abductions...

• Stranger Danger doesn't teach what a stranger is
• It doesn't account for trusted adults and
• It can demonize all adults to children.

A 2000 Justice Department study found that of the 800,000 kids who were reported missing that year, half turned out to be runaways. MOST abductions turned out to involve family members; only 115 of all the cases reported were a version of the nightmare scenario that most troubles parents - abduction by a stranger. For more information look at kidshealth.org; yahoo.com; ncpc.org; ncjrs.gov; or keeping children safe
 Okay so now what:

1. What do you think the purpose of the "My Kid Would Never Do That: Stranger Danger" show and what assumptions or beliefs do its creators have that are reflected in the content?
2. Who and what is shown in a positive light? In a negative light? Why might these people and things be shown this way? What conclusions might audiences draw based on these facts?
3. What techniques does the Dateline show use to get your attention and to communicate its message?

To help answer questions 1 & 3 take a look at "infotainment" (the blurring lines of entertainment and information) where shows like Dateline and 48 Hours Mystery shape the public's views on crime and crime control. From Britannica...

Historically, news organizations maintained a distinction between “hard” news and entertainment, or “soft” news, programming. In the 1980s, communications theorists began to use the term infotainment (a portmanteau of information and entertainment) as a synonym for soft news. Hard news was generally defined as breaking developments involving major leaders or issues, public policy, or disruptions of daily life such as natural disasters or calamities. Soft news was less institutional as well as more personal and immediate in nature, with an emphasis on human-interest themes.

Stephen A. Kohm wrote a piece that "examines the way shame and humiliation in criminal justice have become increasingly commodified, enacted, and experienced through hybrid forms of mass media that blur the boundaries of reality and entertainment". In it, he argues that, "public narratives about crime in the news media operate on a distinctly emotional level, weaving powerful messages about not only the nature and extent of crime, but also how audiences ought to feel about crime. To Catch a Predator similarly plays upon and appeals to emotions running the gamut from outrage to humiliation".

Rolling Stone had a great article on To Catch a Predator (The New American Witch Hunt) as did the Columbia Journalism Review (The Shame Game). So, what is To Catch a Predator?

To Catch a Predator is a reality television show which features a series of hidden camera investigations by the television news-magazine Dateline NBC. It is devoted to the subject of identifying and detaining those who contact people they believe to be below the age of consent (ages 12–15) over the Internet for sexual liaisons. What is the problem with to Catch a Predator? Lots...but in the context of the course we're in what it has done is shape the public's consciousness about crime to the point that "Creep Catchers" is now a thing...This is not a "foreign" thing...in Nanaimo the RCMP is concerned about vigilante justice there and here in the Comox Valley we also had another vigilante creep catcher event as well. 

Creep Catchers is a strong example of where people see a problem (through the mediated coverage of crime) and decide to bypass law enforcement and take matters into their own hands. In this, the media has created a moral panic about pedophiles and shaped the consciousness of the public about the problem and the apparent lack of police response.

"All jurisdictions across the United States and Canada have trained officers that are on the internet and are trying to interact with these people and find out who they are" said Nanaimo RCMP Cpl. Jon Stuart but To Catch a Predator undercuts the actual detective work of the RCMP and other police services.

So, did To Catch a Predator perform a public service, or was it just another ratings-hungry reality series?


Clearly it was a cultural phenomenon that still reverberates throughout North American society today. The show was parodied on the October 3rd, 2007 episode of South Park titled “Le Petit Tourette.”

It was mocked on Arrested Development

 And on Mad TV


But Chris Hansen is back on tv...


So To Catch a Predator led to Creep Catchers...here the infotainment led to people creating a real vigilante groups...did infotainment television influence the public's reality on crime?

The Real Story Behind the Rise of Creep Catchers, Canada’s Vigilante Pedophile Hunters
Hunting Child Predators With Canada's Freelance Vigilantes
The truth about online vigilante group Creep Catchers: Part One
He lures alleged child predators and shames them on Facebook. Now one of his targets is dead.