CRM 312 Lecture Notes - Weegee, Yellow Journalism, Visual Sociology

• School: Ryerson University
• Department: Criminology
• Course: CRM 312
• Professor: Stephen Muzzatti

Document Summary

I see dead people -> visual sociology of fatalities in the media. Cultural criminologists paid close attention to the commodification of violence and visual representation of deviance & transgressive behaviour being normalized (as well as images of dead people/death) But, it was never about the ordinariness of death, it was about the extraordinary, spectacular deaths, or some exciting moment of death. Images of death in the media are not new, but have changed in force that is, the kind of death we are seeing is more forceful, and even more spectacular. A slight change came during the middle ages during the enlightenment era, where there was recognition that humans are not puppets of god and demons, but have free will. This was a time period where you could be executed for almost anything, which also changed the view on death. It was becoming more about the body & pain/suffering. Rapid change with photographic technology also influenced the evolution of death.