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Susy Menis

The deceased-accused and the victim as a commodity

The deceased-accused and the victim as a commodity: Jimmy Savile as a case study to examine the role of real-crime documentary in reproducing violence as entertainment. In Critiquing Crime in the Media. 21st Century Cases. Ed Sarah Moore and Maria Mellins (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021)


Taking a real-crime documentary concerning Jimmy Savile in the UK as a case study, the chapter attempts to make sense of a rather complex social relationship between the media, the public, the victims and the deceased-accused. The discussion questions the social usefulness of aggressive media driven by market targets; it submits that the commercialisation of the victims by these crime documentaries encourage social righteousness and did little to support sex crime victims.

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