Crime Drama Research Articles

Noir Than Ever: Crime Drama as the Popular Genre in Turkish Streaming Services

The article focuses on the original series of Turkish streaming services Blu TV and Puhu TV released between 2017 and 2020 in terms of genre, and aims to discover their differences from the traditional television series having highly conservative narratives. After identifying that the crime drama genre is primarily preferred by these services, the ideological approach of genre analysis is adopted to study four series which are Masum (Innocent), Bozkır (Steppe), Şahsiyet (Persona), and Dip (Base). It is found that all four of the series share a common pessimism in a social context which is created by representing the evil as omnipotent and all members of the society as more or less victims. In addition, depicting the status quo as unchangeable strengthens the emphasis on -no escape- in general. It is possible to criticize these narratives for normalizing dysfunctional legal system, and neutralizing the prospect for improvement. In conclusion, the article claims that what these new series offer are far from being progressive, despite the freedom of their medium

The Indispensability of Forensic Accuracy in Criminal Justice System

DNA analysis has transformed forensic science, assisting in the capture of serial killers and the exoneration of innocent people falsely accused of major crimes. As DNA profiling becomes more sensitive and is utilized in more cases, it is critical that public and professional expectations are based on reality rather than television crime drama. In the pursuit of justice, DNA evidence is a useful and neutral instrument. DNA evidence will play an increasingly essential part in investigating crimes in the future, whether it helps convictor absolve persons. As a result, victims will receive better justice, and communities will be safer. This article discusses the vitality of DNA in the criminal justice system and provides an analysis pertaining to international practices.

Uncharted Surrealism: the Emotional Cartography in Diao Yi'nan's Films

In the contemporary time, the Chinese cinema has seen the emergence of various cinematic strategies in representing filmic cities. Among the sixth-generation directors, the topophilia strategy is most frequently discussed. However, Diao Yi'nan, an often neglected sixth generation director, emerges to the spotlight with his ground-breaking crime drama, Black Coal, Thin Ice and continues to gain attention ever since. Differing from the typical topophilia approach, Diao adopts distinct cinematic strategies to explore the intersection of individual sentiments and urban spaces. This essay builds itself on past research to analyze these strategic differences. The key theory adopted is the "emotional cartography", a psychogeography concept that explores the intersection of spatiality and subjectivity. Viewing filmic city as an "emotionally heightened space", the emotional cartography allows for the unveiling of hidden social relations as mediated by feelings and sensibility in a specific spatial system. The anxiety of living in a fleeting material world and changing social relation could be thus seen as the implicit political message hidden in Diaos narrative. The second part is built on past research and analyzes the narrative force of Diao Yi'nan's film. Affirming the logic of "atypical affects" () proposed by Qi Wei, the second part argues that the logic of atypical affects is also the underlying force for Diao's emotional cartography. Last but least, the essay argues for Diao's use of surrealism adheres to the logic of affects and externalize characters' psychologies.

A Few Bad Apples or the Logic of Capitalism?

This article investigates how neoliberal globalization has been mediated through audiovisual narratives since the 2000s. It identifies a cluster of films, produced by and circulating on German public television, which use the generic conventions of the popular crime genre to constitute a sub-genre—the televisual economic crime drama. Using a content and textual analysis that focuses on the backdrop of historical context and genre norms, the article examines key tropes to assess the critical potential of this sub-genre. The analysis demonstrates that both the containment theme of “a few bad apples” and a systemic critique can structure these narratives of neoliberalism. At its best, the televisual economic crime drama argues that alternatives to neoliberalism are possible by referencing Germany’s history of the social market economy and by featuring characters as well as images of active citizenship, solidarity, and collective action in the workplace.

Invisible Lives of the Rural Idyll: Midsomer Murders and Cynan Jones’ The Long Dry

This article explores how certain rural lives are rendered invisible by the enduring dominance of the genre of the rural idyll, which is particularly strong in British culture. Drawing on my previous work about ‘living ghosts’, on Jacques Derrida and on Akira Lippit, I contend that, when dealing with the invisibilized lives of the rural, it is crucial to ask in what sense these lives are invisible and what each form of invisibility makes (im)possible. Two case studies are discussed: the popular television crime drama Midsomer Murders (1997-present), set in rural England, and the 2006 novel The Long Dry by Cynan Jones, set on a Welsh farm. With regard to Midsomer Murders, I show how it affirms the rural idyll’s construction of the English countryside as a space of whiteness. With regard to The Long Dry, I argue that it exposes the rural idyll, in Lauren Berlant’s terms, as a waning genre whose good-life fantasy is no longer viable, while also opening up the possibility of a posthuman idyll adequate to the contemporary globalized rural.

Shadows from the past: Unstable memories and collective trauma in Black Earth Rising1

Among the many important issues addressed by contemporary European crime drama production, one can find the construction of collective and individual memory, oftentimes linked to major traumatic events of the twentieth century. This article focuses on Black Earth Rising, a UK production created by Hugo Blick. The series’ protagonist, Kate Ashby (Michaela Coel), is a legal investigator, orphaned during the 1994 Tutsi genocide in Rwanda and later adopted by a renowned British prosecutor in international criminal law. Black Earth Rising revolves around Kate’s investigations, which in turn lead her back to Rwanda, where she faces not only trauma and shadows of her childhood in Rwanda, but also the tragic violence that shaped the history of her country. Considering the relationship between memory, processing trauma and the crime genre, this article examines different aspects of Blick’s TV series. More precisely, the article explores the crime drama’s utilization of investigation as a narrative tool that guides the viewer through the history of the Rwandan genocide, the role of its female protagonist and the function of reoccurring black-and-white animated sequences. In this analysis, crime drama, in part due to its widespread popularity, is framed as an important tool that allows for the construction of shared space, in which mediated cultural encounters and collective memory can take place.

Language, European identity and stereotypical diversity in trans-European crime dramas

Interrogating two transnational television dramas – Crossing Lines (2013, 2014, , the first season) and The Team (2015, , the second season) – and employing critical, textual and production perspectives, this article investigates representations of national and European identity in the series. In this article, I argue that the series on the one hand picture a diverse Europe uniting when challenges arise, embodying the dominant European narrative of ‘unity in diversity’ and, seen from a certain point of view, facilitate a mediated cultural encounter. On the other hand, the diversity depicted is based on the use of a wide range of well-known cultural stereotypes that may be familiar to the audience, and which may facilitate smooth storytelling, but that does little to broaden the actual cultural knowledge and understanding of the viewer, resulting in stereotypical diversity. The series have different strategies regarding representations of nation states, cultures and languages. The implications of these strategies are analysed. Common ground is often found in ‘American’ crime drama genre tropes associated with a team of often-antagonistic specialists who are put together to solve a problem, including such iconic US series as The A-Team (), the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation franchise (2000–15) and Scorpion (2014, 2015, 2016, ). The contribution ultimately finds that meaningful mediated cultural encounters are a challenge to transnational television drama, and that when it comes to television, ‘European’ and ‘transnational’ means little without ‘national’.

Czy Szekspira da się „przerobić” na kryminał? O niektórych nowych, „uwspółcześniających” filmowych adaptacjach dzieł wielkiego dramaturga

The paper discusses selected screen adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays: Hamlet (dir. M. Almereyda, 2000), Coriolanus (dir. R. Fiennes 2011), Macbeth (dir. G. Wright, 2006), Cymbeline (dir. M. Almereyda, 2014), Macbeth (an episode of the BBC series Shakespeare Re-Told, 2005) as well as episodes 3 and 4 from Yevhenіy Zviezdakov’s series Diekoracyi ubijstwa (2015). The common feature of these screen adaptations is moving the plot to modern times and emphasising those elements which resemble typical components of crime dramas. The paper points to the difficulties the directors had to overcome to make such “upgrading” makeovers viable.

What you need to know about over‐the‐top advertising

If you're like me, you might miss the days of rushing home to catch the latest episode of your favorite hilarious sitcom or nail‐biting crime drama. Maybe you even feel nostalgic for true cliff‐hangers, when you had to wait an entire week — or even a break between TV seasons — for an outcome, resolution, or solution.

“He was Drugged up on Something...” Portrayals of Drugs and Violence on Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) as System Justification

We conducted a content analysis of the first two and last two seasons of the popular crime drama Crime Scene Investigation ( CSI), to determine the extent to which depictions of the intersection of substance use and violence were consistent with research. Using the lens of system justification theory, we find that CSI focuses on aspects of crime that preserve the status quo, specifically it overemphasizes the negative impact of illicit substances as opposed to legal substances (such as alcohol), and it emphasizes the psychopharmacological role of drugs in violent crime compared to systemic violence related to the illegality of drug markets, even though research demonstrates that systemic violence makes up a large proportion of substance-related homicides. Despite significant changes in drug policy that occurred during the time that CSI was on the air, we find these portrayals are largely unchanged between episodes that were broadcast between 2000–2002 versus those that aired 2014–2015.

The Relationship Between Crime-Related Television Viewing and Perceptions of the Death Penalty: Results of a Large Cross-Sectional Survey Study.

Background: According to cultivation theory, distorted representations of social reality on television can lead to distorted perceptions of reality among viewers. For example, the death penalty has been abolished in most Western countries a long time ago, but is often portrayed or mentioned in US crime shows, which are very popular outside the United States. Previous research suggests that the amount of television viewing can be associated with erroneous perceptions of the use of the death penalty—even when the death penalty is not used in the respective country. Unfortunately, available evidence on this association is inconclusive.Methods: In a cross-sectional web-based survey, we used quota-based sampling techniques to recruit 1,002 individuals representative of the Austrian population in terms of gender, age, education, and region of residence. We asked about their weekly amount of television viewing and use of US crime dramas and measured their beliefs on the use of the death penalty in Austria.Results: Although television viewing in general was not associated with erroneous perceptions of the death penalty (i.e., no overall across-the-board cultivation effect), data analysis provided supporting evidence for the idea of a genre-specific cultivation effect: The more US crime shows participants watched, the more likely they were to mistakenly believe that the death penalty is used in Austria. This association held true even after controlling for the gender, age, and education of participants.Conclusion: The finding that watching US crime shows, which are based on social reality in the United States, is associated with Austrian viewers' confusion with regards to perceptions of the death penalty is consistent with the genre-specific cultivation hypothesis. Some viewers may be guided more by mediated reality than by actual social reality.

Role of Crime Dramas in Making Opinions about Criminal Justice System of Pakistan

The objective of this research is to study the impact of crime dramatized television programs on citizens' perceptions of the criminal justice system of Pakistan. The impact of crime-related television programs on criminal justice issues, including perceptions of police,clearance rates, crime, and fear of victimization, is focused. This study illustrated how and to what degree these crime dramas change the perception of common people of different ages, sexes, experiences and educational backgrounds. The Cultivation Theory (Gerbner, 1960) guided the study. This quantitative research is based on a cross sectional survey and data is collected employing the instrument of a valid questionnaire. The random sampling technique has been applied to reach out to the respondents to investigate about their crime programs watching habits as well as their opinions and views on different aspects of the justice system, including police effectiveness and fear of victimization. The data was collected from students of three departments of the University of the Punjab i.e. Law, Criminology,Communication Studies. The data will be analyzed with the help of SPSS.

‘Aesthetic Proximity’ and Transnational TV Series

This article focuses on the short lived Turkish police procedural TV series, Cinayet (The Murder, Akbel Film and Adam Film, 2014) which is a scripted format adaptation of the celebrated Danish crime drama Forbrydelsen (DR, 2007-2012). By making a comparative textual analysis of the series, the article intends to emphasize the significance of ‘aesthetic proximity’ as a concept in discussing the global flow of television content and to reveal the challenges of adapting a scripted format which is stylistically different than the local stylistic conventions.

What you need to know about over‐the‐top advertising

If you're like me, you might miss the days of rushing home to catch the latest episode of your favorite hilarious sitcom or nail‐biting crime drama. Maybe you even feel nostalgic for true cliff‐hangers, when you had to wait an entire week — or even a break between TV seasons — for an outcome, resolution, or solution.

Hierarchies of Masculinities: An Analysis of the Characters in the Indian Web Series, Paatal Lok

Media and society are interdependent entities that are suspended seamlessly in a state of blissful co-existence where one feeds the other and vice versa. More so, when it comes to gender issues, wherein, media’s narrative is shaped by societal norms and society imbibes a large part of its gender conversations from media. Media’s representation of the masculine has largely been dictated by inherent patriarchal norms and the classic hegemonic patterns dominant in media narratives. However, as R.W. Connell recognised, there exists a diverse range of masculinities and its own hierarchical structure which is also represented through media content. Over-the-top (OTT) platforms are gaining ground in India’s crowded media scene because of factors like accessibility, affordability and variety of content. Indian content on OTT platforms are targeted at the young, urban, upwardly-mobile Indian middle class and are largely slick productions with hard-hitting, original storylines and closer-to-reality characterizations. Paatal Lok is one such very popular crime drama that has a primarily masculine narrative. This study uses R.W. Connell’s three structures of gender relations: labour, power and cathexis to understand the representation of masculinities in Indian OTT media across class structures by identifying the hierarchies of masculinities in the Indian web series, Paatal Lok. The study uses qualitative techniques in the form of discourse analysis to gain further insight into the representation of different gradations of masculinities in contemporary Indian media.

Modern Historical Film: Genre and Dramaturgic Features

The aim of the article is to explore of genre and dramaturgic features of a modern historical film.
 The research methodology is based on the systematic use of materials from the scientific branches of art and cultural science, cinema theory and history, psychology, etc. The empirical basis of the study included a series of historical films of the XXI century, a detailed analysis of genre and dramaturgic features was carried out.
 The results. Historical drama is the leading genre of a film based on real events, which grinds the past, turning it into a mirror image of the present. Thus, the theme of the film, its newsworthiness has the equal importance along with the genre, which ensures the integrity of the material, director’s and cameraman’s methods and techniques and the style, which forms the aesthetic expressiveness of the film.
 Films based on real events, which premiered in the XXI century, were chosen as the empirical basis of the study. As the core of the plot were chosen issues of human rights violations, social discrimination and injustice. These problems have their origins in ancient times and have long been the main obstacles for the establishment of democratic values in society.
 We found that modern historical drama has significant morphological differences from the XX century drama: lack of epicism, abandonment of the tragic component in favor of a happy ending, the transition from melodramatics to hybridization of drama with more dynamic genres: action, road movie, western. At the same time, we see that modern historical drama has signs of genre elasticity and syncretism, which allows forming new multi­genre constructions that have not yet entered scientific circulation in the domestic press (action drama, crime drama, western drama, kidnap drama, etc.).
 The dramatic features of modern historical films are closely related to the genre construction of the films. The genre of autobiography determines the priority of using the “plot of growing up” and “plot of the experience”, when the main characters grow up psychologically and fight for their rights: life, freedom, personal inviolability. The hero — is dominated archetype, a person who serves others, sacrifices himself or puts himself in constant danger for the sake of others.
 The issue of social inequality in the historical context, when realities separate the viewer from the depicted events for a significant period of time, is reflected in the historical film more often and has a proper response from the viewer. At the same time, the modern issue of human rights, which demonstrates the principle of “democracy for the elect” is not so popular among modern fans of historical cinema.
 Novelty. The scientific novelty of the article is to identify the modern morphology of historical film, the actualization of the relationship between the genre, the magnitude of the theme of historical film, its dramatic solution and the value expectations of the audience.
 The practical significance. The main theses and results of the research may be useful for practicing screenwriters of historical films. The recommendations in this article contribute to the creation of a commercially successful and psychologically powerful film product. In addition, the article can be used for academic disciplines in film schools in Ukraine and abroad.

Children and Adolescents’ Third-Person Perception Regarding Depictions of Violence in Different TV Genres

Research in third-person perception (TPP) is well-established. The current study contributes to the literature by examining differences in the perceptual bias attributable to different television genres: Teen Dramas, Crime Dramas, and Super Hero/Fantasy Shows. A field survey of middle school and high school students (N = 1,255) documented third- person perception regarding depictions of abuse on television watched by children and adolescents, as well as a unique third- person effect: Intended bystander intervention when witnessing peer bullying in real life.

Reality Crime Programs in Turkish Television: The Notorious Case of Palu Family on Müge

The crime drama has always been popular on radio and television. Following this popular programming type, these programs found its way into reality crime programs. The reality crime programs emerged in U.S television in the late 1980s as the combination of news, crime dramas, and even horror genre. The reality crime programs placed themselves mainly in two formats in the television world. There is a vignette format where actors reenact actual crimes, and another one is the live-action format. It is the 1990s for Turkey to introduce reality television to the audience. One of the popular programs that were first broadcasted on ATV in 2008 hosted by Müge Anlı is the Müge Anlı ile Tatlı Sert. After we discuss the popularity of the reality crime television and the cases from American television, MATS is discussed as a certain criminal case from Turkey. This case is publicly recognized as Palu Family. This article argues how the case of the Palu Family became a televised public psychosis in MATS which is a hybrid reality crime program. With this regard, we will study family violence, sexual abuse, and homicide that have become publicly available to the audience. Keywords: reality TV, reality crime programs, infotainment, crime, Turkish television, Müge Anlı

Quality TV, Turkish Television History, and the Transformation of Sıfır Bir

ABSTRACT: Turkish television has undergone a transformation in recent decades due to the rising global popularity of Turkish series; the proliferation of viewership; and the introduction of cable, digital, online, and OTT (over-the-top) platforms. The result has been increasingly higher-quality TV content. This article traces the history of Turkish television with a look at how the Turkish television-series market has evolved into one which produces globally marketed content and how the discourses on quality TV informed such developments. The article also demarcates the history of television in Turkey into three different phases by underlining major changes and by proposing a novel periodization. Then, the contemporary rendering of “quality” is illustrated through a six-season-long, hit crime drama series, Sıfır Bir: Bir Zamanlar Adana’da (Zero One: Once Upon a Time in Adana, 2016–2019). The article argues that while the first two seasons of the series illustrate an independent, low-budget Web production based on a true story, after a transitional third season, the final three seasons feature an institutionalized “quality” drama on a national OTT platform at the expense of its earlier authenticity and naturalism.

The Importance of Place in The Act (Hulu, 2019–)

Reviewed by: The Importance of Place in The Act (Hulu, 2019–) Charity Gibson Hulu's true crime drama series The Act (2019–) has stirred up much interest since its premiere on March 20, 2019. Hulu plans to extend the series (initially eight episodes), focusing on a different crime account each season. The first season of The Act covers the story of Dee Dee Blanchard (Patricia Arquette) and her daughter Gypsy Rose Blanchard (Joey King.) Dee Dee was stabbed to death by Gypsy's boyfriend Nicholas Godejohn (Calum Worthy) at Gypsy's request. For most of Gypsy's life, her mother had forced her to feign multiple serious illnesses including paralysis and epilepsy. Though she could walk, Gypsy constantly used a wheelchair. Gypsy met her boyfriend online and asked him to kill her mother to escape her infantilized and fabricated life. Having been tried for her crime and found guilty, Gypsy is serving a ten-year prison sentence (so light due to the mistreatment she faced), and Godejohn is serving a life-in-prison sentence. Critical reception to The Act has been mostly positive However, one less-explored angle is how The Act aligns with the category of midwestern media literature and, more specifically, Ozarks media literature. This series relies on literary techniques related to place, such as local color and the Midwestern Gothic, to rationalize the bizarre occurrences surrounding Gypsy and Dee Dee's relationship. Such techniques allow viewers to vicariously experience the catalyst and aftermath of a heinous murder while simultaneously maintaining a comfortable distance. The characters in the series are far from being stock characters and, instead, exhibit specific traits that tie them to place: the Midwest in general and the Ozarks in particular. Some would argue that the Ozarks belong to the Upland South rather than the Midwest.1 Others insist that Missouri is both a midwestern and a southern state, due to its divided affiliations during the Civil War.2 However, the federal government defines Missouri [End Page 111] as a midwestern state.3 Regardless of technical breakdowns, popular conception has equal if not more bearing in common understandings of the state. As Letricia Dixon notes, "The Midwest has become more an idea than a region."4 Therefore, while one could split hairs over whether the Ozarks portion of Missouri is technically within the Midwest or the Upland South, I recognize the Ozarks as a part of the Midwest that has its own specific subculture. Although documentaries of the Blanchard story usually delve into Dee Dee's past in Louisiana, The Act begins once Dee Dee and Gypsy have already relocated to Springfield, Missouri. The Blanchards are not depicted as Southerners, though Dee Dee spent most of her life in Louisiana and Gypsy spent close to half of hers there. Rather, The Act emphasizes the importance of current location and highlights ways in which Dee Dee and Gypsy are Ozarks residents. When Dee Dee takes Gypsy to the hospital, the camera fixates on the words "Springfield Emergency Center." Similarly, the camera highlights "Springfield Mall" during a shopping trip. In both scenarios, something sinister is in the works. In the former, Dee Dee pressures doctors to treat her daughter for a condition she does not have. In the latter, mother and daughter peruse the place where Gypsy will later secretly purchase the weapon used to murder Dee Dee. The association with place is not a positive one, as viewers are directed to connect the appalling acts with Springfield, Missouri, a place firmly situated within the Ozarks. Stereotypes abound about Ozarks people being backward and even dangerous. Anne Turner notes, "The Ozark native has long been stereotyped as a conservative, suspicious, often uneducated, poor, white hillbilly"5 Such beliefs may help viewers, possibly subconsciously, question how mother and daughter could torment each other so. The culminating emphasis on place occurs once Dee Dee is dead and Gypsy is on trial for murder. A close-up of the back of her jumpsuit reveals, again, the location: "Green County" For viewers outside of the Ozarks region, the name will not sound familiar, which may ease the minds of those outside of the area: such a crime happened there because of...