NCJ Number
216503
Journal
British Journal of Criminology Volume: 46 Issue: 6 Dated: November 2006 Pages: 1037-1057
Date Published
November 2006
Length
21 pages
Annotation
This study used financial literature, newspaper debates, and popular fiction to show how middle-class women in Victorian England (19th century) were victimized by white-collar crime.
Abstract
The study found that the mass media tended to treat white-collar financial crimes as "infotainment," rather than serious crime news. Such stories typically focus on corporate celebrities in trouble with the law; the involvement of the wealthy and well-known in drugs, gambling, or sexual deviancy; and criminal activities by typically feared groups, such as organized crime or terrorism. Also popular among the mass media are long-term concealed fraud that exposes the incompetence and hypocrisy of the corporate world and its regulators. In these stories that involve criminal charges, the police, prosecutors, regulators, suspects, victims, and pressure groups compete for the media audience in order to advance their objectives in the case. In contrast to the mass media, business, technology, and electronic media have a worldwide focus on less sensational white-collar financial cases that have implications for the marketplace, such as a business's reputation in the financial world, business prospects, and technological vulnerability. The study involved interviews with leading British and American print and television journalists who had been involved in producing major white-collar crime stories; analyses of fraud stories in major British, American, and Australian newspapers, television news, and consumer and documentary programs on radio and television over the past 20 years. 45 references