Fear of Crime? Media Dramatisation of Criminality, its Prevention and Prosecution (C09)

• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: since 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 227068724

This sub-project uses historical case studies to investigate the implications of repertoires used by the mass media to present crime as a security problem. Three particular types are examined more closely: first, the construction of crime as a threat to the security of the individual or society, which tended to mobilise demands for severe punishment. Secondly, the debate on the preconditions of delinquency, which was accompanied by calls for prevention. And thirdly, the presentation of law enforcement as so efficient that the previously evoked security problem finally seemed to have been solved.

• DFG Programme: CRC/Transregios
• Subproject of: TRR 138: Dynamics of Security. Processes of Securitization in historical perspective
• Applicant Institution: Philipps-Universität Marburg
• Project Head: Professorin Dr. Ulrike Weckel