Crime and media: The world of ‘reality show’ as a moral frame of reference

Abstract

Crime and transgression has become an important factor which is portrayed by the media outlets. The genre called crime reality show situated within the genre of reality show in the media in recent years has a special place in popular cultural world of meaning. Those who are accepted as protagonists, confessors, interrogators, victims and vigilantes are among the major actors in crime reality shows which function as constructing various different cultural and sociological frames of reference. The purpose of this article is to answer to the following questions: What does the crime reality show narrative tell us about contemporary Turkish culture? What are the implications of such a genre in terms of producing a televisual morality? What are the dynamics between socially irresponsible imagination and the idea of moral panic constructed via sensibility guided reasoning? In this paper, we argue that the crime reality show genre in Turkish television employs communicative strategies which are based on mediatization of morality as well as a new trend called prudentialism.