The CSI Effect: Television, Crime, and Governance

by Michele Byers (Editor), Val Marie Johnson (Editor)

Overview

CSI has been heralded in many spheres of public discourse as a televisual revolution, its effects on the public unprecedented. The CSI Effect: Television, Crime, and Governance demonstrates that CSI's appeal cannot be disentangled from either its production as a televisual text or the broader discourses and practices that circulate within our social landscape. This interdisciplinary collection bridges the gap between the study of media, particularly popular culture media, and the study of crime. The contributors consider the points of intersection between these very different realms of scholarship and in so doing foster the development of a new set of theoretical languages in which the mediated spectacle of crime and criminalization can be carefully considered. This timely and groundbreaking volume is bound to intrigue both scholars and CSI enthusiasts alike.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780739139271
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	08/16/2009
Series:	Critical Studies in Television
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	310
Sales rank:	807,300
File size:	832 KB

About the Author

Michele Byers is associate professor of sociology and criminology at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Val Marie Johnson is associate professor of sociology and criminology at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 CSI as Neoliberalism: An Introduction
Chapter 2 TheCSI Effect: Producing Justice, Science, and Television Drama
Chapter 3
Chapter 1: TheCSI Effect: Science Fiction?
Chapter 4
Chapter 2: The Science and Careers ofCSI
Chapter 5
Chapter 3: CSI andLaw and Order: Dueling Representations of Science and the Law in the Criminal Justice System
Chapter 6
Chapter 4: Generic Difference and Hybridisation in CSI
Chapter 7 Bodies of Evidence
Chapter 8
Chapter 5: The Body as Abject and Object in CSI
Chapter 9
Chapter 6: The City of Our Times: Space, Identity and the Body in CSI: Miami
Chapter 10
Chapter 7: Crime Scene Investigation as Applied Environmental History
Chapter 11 Late Modern Subjects
Chapter 12
Chapter 8: Not the Usual Suspects: The Obfuscation of Political Economy and Race in CSI
Chapter 13
Chapter 9: Troping Mr. Johnson: Reading Phallic Mastery and Anxiety on Season One of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Chapter 14
Chapter 10: Forensic Music: Channeling the Dead on Post-9/11 TV

Editorial Reviews

What the 'CSI shot'—the CBS drama's signature microphotographic probe beneath the skin and into the body—did for television forensics, Michele Byers' and Val Marie Johnson's excellent collection does for television studies. This multi-voiced subcutaneous investigation into the world's most popular small screen franchise discovers significant and new political, sociological, and aesthetic evidence concerning why Anthony Zuicker's creation remains at the end of the first decade of the 21st Century anything but a corpse.

David Lavery

The CSI Effect: Television, Crime, and Governance will make a significant contribution to our understanding of CSI as well as the contemporary social conditions that make its effects possible.

Jack Z. Bratich

The CSI Effect: Television, Crime, and Governance will make a significant contribution to our understanding of CSI as well as the contemporary social conditions that make its effects possible.--Jack Z. Bratich, Rutgers, The State University Of New Jersey

What the 'CSI shot'--the CBS drama's signature microphotographic probe beneath the skin and into the body--did for television forensics, Michele Byers' and Val Marie Johnson's excellent collection does for television studies. This multi-voiced subcutaneous investigation into the world's most popular small screen franchise discovers significant and new political, sociological, and aesthetic evidence concerning why Anthony Zuicker's creation remains at the end of the first decade of the 21st Century anything but a corpse.--David Lavery, editor of The Essential Cult Television Reader and founding editor of the journal Critical Studies in Television

From the Publisher