CRM 601 Chapter Notes - Chapter Articles: Corporate Crime, Semiotics, Racialization

• School: Ryerson University
• Department: Criminology
• Course: CRM 601
• Professor: Anke Allspach

Document Summary

Knowledge about criminals is mostly based on mediated information. 2 main strategies to challenge representation of crime are empirical (facts, social science evidence, qualitative and quantitative data) and constructionist (deconstruct the language of crime and expose its underlying political agenda) Language is words and grammar used within a culture/geographical location, based on semiotics which the communication through signs (anything that expresses an idea) Signi ed: idea/concept to which the signi er refers (ex. Different pictures/sounds/words mean different things to everyone, interpretive. Discourse: language that extends beyond a sentence, different meanings. Ideology: attitudes, assumptions, beliefs, values and morals that frame one"s understanding of the world (ex. Laws that punish street crime more heavily than corporate crime re ect a classist ideology that views poor criminals as more culpable and dangerous than rich ones) Hegemony: when the ideological perspective of those who are more privileged is adopted by the majority; the ruling class controls the dominant modes of meaning-making.