Crowdsourcing Criminology: Social Media and Citizen Policing in Missing Person Cases

Criminology is undergoing a process of innovation and experimentation with the rise of social media. Although police have traditionally been the locus of legal enforcement, ordinary citizens are increasingly afforded opportunities to participate in crowdsourced investigations. In this article, we explore the emerging field of crowdsourcing criminology and its relationship to newsmaking criminology, public criminology, and the reshaping of news as infotainment (popular criminology). Drawing on a case study of a missing person named Emma Fillipoff, and our experience of involvement in the development of a television (TV) documentary dedicated to help finding Emma, we examine the process of crowdsourcing in practice and how it may oscillate between infotainment and public criminology inspired by academic evidence. Crowdsourcing criminology represents both a theoretical and an applied shift in our research focus and paves the way for a host of new projects that strive to reveal the strategies and techniques that define and characterize crowdsourced investigations.

Newsmaking criminology in Australia and New Zealand: Results from a mixed methods study of criminologists’ media engagement

‘Newsmaking criminology’, as described by Barak, is the process by which criminologists contribute to the generation of ‘newsworthy’ media content about crime and justice, often through their engagement with broadcast and other news media. While newsmaking criminological practices have been the subject of detailed practitioner testimonials and theoretical treatise, there has been scarce empirical research on newsmaking criminology, particularly in relation to countries outside of the United States and United Kingdom. To illuminate the state of play of newsmaking criminology in Australia and New Zealand, in this paper we analyse findings from 116 survey responses and nine interviews with criminologists working in universities in these two countries, which provide insight into the extent and nature of their news media engagement, and their related perceptions. Our findings indicate that most criminologists working in Australia or New Zealand have made at least one news media appearance in the past two years, and the majority of respondents view news media engagement as a professional ‘duty’. Participants also identified key political, ethical, and logistical issues relevant to their news media engagement, with several expressing a view that radio and television interviewers can influence criminologists to say things that they deem ‘newsworthy’.

‘Why have we funded this research?’: On politics, research and newsmaking criminology

In recent years, the value, or otherwise, of newsmaking criminology has generated considerable debate within academia. On the one hand, critics have argued that such approaches risk devaluing academic enterprise, for instance, privileging style over substance; on the other hand, proponents argue that newsmaking can promote more informed, progressive discourse in societies that are already saturated with crime and justice issues. Taking a different tack, this article argues that newsmaking criminology can provide a vehicle for controversial or ‘difficult’ research findings, and serve to hold authorities to account. Using a case-study approach, the article shows how police executives and government officials sought to undermine a critical report on the use of stop and search in Scotland by deploying a range of ‘neutralization’ techniques; and how, via media coverage, the findings nonetheless gained traction, prompting legal reform. The article also acknowledges the risks and limitations of newsmaking, and argues that fundamental problems remain apropos the production and dissemination of critical policing research in Scotland.