This fi fth volume of CMC comes along at a particularly precarious time in global history. The current crisis of global capitalism is of course a crisis of human meaning and sustainability as well; more is at stake, always, than markets. As global capitalism shudders under the weight of its accumulated contradictions, other dimensions of human life are shaken as well: local cultures, familial arrangements, immigrant opportunities, even the provision of daily sustenance. And if Marx and Merton were even half right, these tremors will rattle the social order in ways that produce new strains on legitimate achievement, new tensions between social classes, new experiences of perceived deprivation and material want, and so new sorts of crime and predation. Mix all this with the global mediasphere ‐ with a live-on-demand mediascape that confounds causes and consequences, images and their effects ‐ and it’s easy to imagine the madness that may lie ahead. Yet a shuddering social order can shake loose new hopes and possibilities as well. As seen in the recent US presidential election, a well-timed social crisis can help produce results unimaginable decades before, perhaps even days before. The media saturation of daily life can convert every moment of progressive resistance into a made-fortelevision commodity; but a citizenry armed with video cameras and mobile phones can also invent the sort of instantaneous communication that makes meaningful political resistance a viable alternative. A world where commodity consumption no longer defi nes everyday life can punch a hole in citizens’ acquired sense of self, but the possibilities emergent in that world can also begin to fi that hole, perhaps, with a new sort of economic and cultural self-suffi ciency. Now is no time for despair, or for drawing back from the task of critical, culturally engaged analysis. Dangerous times demand at least a modicum of intellectual courage. It is in this cultural context, and in this spirit, that we move into CMC’s fi fth year of exploring media, crime, culture, and politics. Media and politics have, of course, for decades been inseparable; yet with the 2008 US presidential election the use of new and alternative media as tools for political campaigning was taken to a new level. Clearly understanding that ‘traditional’ or ‘conventional’ media forms ‐ print and broadcast news, billboard and television advertising ‐ no longer suffi ce to capture the attention,