Christopher McCormick’s (2010), Constructing Danger: Emotions and the Mis/ Representations of Crime in the News, is a collection of news media excerpts that McCormick analyses in relation to archived police reports and statistics, victimization and self-report surveys, along with condensed versions of ‘professional’ lectures given at a conference about how the media reports crime. Before I elaborate on how McCormick structured his analyses throughout his book and its relevance to his critiques, I will begin by discussing his main arguments. From this, I am able expand on the pedagogical relevance of his work to my own feminist critiques regarding some problems I found in the organization of his book and his methodologies. I argue, that we also need to question where McCormick got his ‘facts’ to make comparisons and the implications that individual subjectivities have in the ‘knowledge(s)’ about crime and articulations of identity. McCormick argues that Constructing Danger is a pedagogical piece that encourages readers to think critically about the ways in which crime is represented in the news media. McCormick focuses on the use of emotion in the ideological and discursive production of crime in the news and the implications it has on how individuals, see, hear and read the news. McCormick suggests, that the news media is not free from ‘bias’, for the news represents crime in a way that simultaneously exorcises and triggers emotion, which in turn, effects the ways in which individuals interpret, negotiate and respond to ‘the[ir] world’. McCormick asserts that utilizing emotions as a resource in understanding how individuals read the news, goes beyond examining what the media distorts, distracts and exaggerates—that in analyzing (and comparing) content, textual, and contextual framing of the news media’s representation of crime—readers can engage critically with the political perspectives and ideological messages that underlie. McCormick (2010) encourages individuals to question the ‘objective’ and ‘commonsensical’ assumptions that are associated with the news media, so that we can think critical about the ways in which “interpretations are couched” (228), how the news “mediates a point of view about the world” (10), and how representations of crime ‘stand in’ for direct experiences. In this case representations of crime are constitutive on the micro-macro relations of society, for there is an interdepenancy between individual readings of the news and the hegemonic social discourses and ideologies are that are produced. In short, the ways in which we ‘know’ ‘the world’ is constructed by the news media’s representations of crimes, but the meanings that are produced by these representations are implicated in individual interpretations and the ideological and discursive constructions that follow. For McCormick the reactionary links between the inter, intra and extalocal made by the news media is vital to his discussion on the ‘diffuse’ of discourse, for the ways in which the media ‘discusses’ crime is reinstated by the media’s accessibility, and its emotional reciprocation. Also, the emotionally inflected spacialization of news media is both alienating and overwhelming, for as McCormick suggests, the news media simultaneously compresses and expands the world—asserting that many individuals are effected by fear, feeling like they ‘lack control’. This is central to McCormick’s intentions for his book, for in order to “replace ourselves back within the public discourse” (230) and regain ‘control’ of our lives, we need to engage in a critical dialogue of the news media. McCormick argues that before we can address the various realties that are excluded, silenced and invisible, readers need to question how, why and what crimes ‘matter’ in society.
He wants readers to acknowledge the relationship between representations, ideologies and public discourse of crime, as a means of addressing the consequences that law, order and justice has on people’s lives. These arguments frame McCormick’s work theoretically and help situate the way he structures his analyses. By organizing his books into themes, and introducing his analysis of the news with a lecture given by a ‘professional’ speaker, McCormick responds in the first person with own critique of the news media. McCormick’s organization of his work helps ground his arguments, promotes critical thinking and encourages readers to make their own analysis, which goes to say, that as a reader, I wondered how McCormick’s own subjectivities effect the structuring of his book? How did he decide that introductory lectures to assign to the themes he extracted from the news media? Were his analyses of the news influenced by the lectures or did he classify the relevance of the lectures after he made the analysis? What does McCormick ‘know’ about crime in order to make these connections and present them in the way that he did and how did he come to ‘know’ it? I also question the connections McCormick makes about experience and emotions in relation to individual perceptions of crime in the news. For instance, McCormick suggests that ‘mis/perceptions’ of crime have consequences individual lives. The problem I have with his use of this term, is that it suggests that there is one ‘true’ way to perceive crime. Although McCormick encourages readers to question how we perceive crime, his use of ‘mis/perceptions’ infers that there exists an ‘absolute’ way to perceive crime. As indicated earlier, I noted that McCormick uses archived statistical data from police and ‘self-reported’ reports, to deconstruct representations of crime in the media, however, despite encouraging readers to question how interpretations are ‘couched’, I question where they are ‘couched’. As it was discussed in our class presentation about representations of AIDS in he media, ‘no media is innocent’. Despite his suggestions for readers to find alternative sources of ‘media’ beyond what is mainstream, I find his analysis is limited by his own uncritical discussion about where he got his own sources for critical comparison. If the media depends on these ‘reports’ to disseminate certain representations of crime, I think it was important to ask how these incidents get reported. Who reports them and who transcribes these reports? I wondered why McCormick did not discuss how interpretations of crime are constitutive of the subjectivities of those police, ‘experts’ and ‘professionals’ that he depends on for information to make comparisons. As result, I also questioned who is being ‘naturalized’ as ‘knowers’ of crime? What do they ‘know’ and how do they ‘know’ it. Are these ‘expert’ ‘knowers’ free from media affect? As a feminist, these questions are important to ask in order to deconstruct how sexism, heterosexism and racism becomes ‘fixed’ or naturalized in the news media. I argue that discourses produced by the news media need to be examined in a larger social and historical context in order to examine how identities become articulated in the news. I assert that representations of crime are not void of identity stereotypes, for crime, ‘criminals’ and ‘victims’ are ideologically and discursively produced in tandem. Despite McCormick’s recognition of gendered violence, sexism, racism and homophobia, I suggest that these socio-cultural hegemonies need to be deconstructed in order to understand the impact the media has on how individuals perceive certain identities. If the media constructs hegemonic discourses that negatively stigmatize certain identities in association to representations of crime, then doesn’t media perpetuate racial, sexual, gender ‘Othering’? In discussing how labeling, framing and contextualizing behaviours that are associated with representations of crime, McCormick alludes to the media’s role in ‘policing’ differences by constructing notions of deviancy. Here I argue, that McCormick was brief and abrupt in his discussions on media’s role in ‘distracting’ larger systems of power. I think that McCormick could have discussed news media ‘distortions’ or crime more extensively to explain what he meant by inferring that the news is responsible for ‘mis/perceptions’ and how they have ‘lived’ consequences. In this regard, and in conclusion, I question to what extent to these representations of crimes necessarily ‘replace’ individual experiences of crime. I felt that McCormick conflated the idea that the news informs how we perceive, and as a result experience ‘the world’, with the idea that these crimes—whether they are ‘distorted’ in their representation—are ‘everyday’ realities for individuals. To what extent do images of sexual assaults and race riots, replace individual’s experience with gendered, racialized and sexual violence? As readers, do we not have active roles in ‘controlling’ our perceptions, interpretations, emotions and agencies? Why is the media so ‘powerful’ for McCormick? Are minority perspectives and experiences of crime, really a point of view of the ‘powerless’? These are difficult questions for me to ask, for as a feminist, experiential ‘knowledge(s)’ are vital in examining micro-macro relations of power, agency and resistance, for in reading McCormick’s work, I often felt that his discussion of ‘control’ limits a discussion of ‘agency’ beyond analyzing the news.

WORKS CITED:

McCormick, C. (2010), Constructing Danger: Emotions and the Mis/Representation of Crime in the News, Halifax: Fernwood Publishing