This Thesis Has Been Submitted in Fulfilment of the Requirements for a Postgraduate Degree (E.G

This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. The Political Communication of Crime Gemma Flynn PhD The University of Edinburgh 2015 DECLARATION I declare that this thesis is of my own composition, based on my own work, with acknowledgement of other sources, and has not been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification. Gemma Flynn 4th November 2015 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to sincerely thank my supervisors Dr Richard Jones and Professor Richard Sparks for the encouragement and support they gave me throughout this process. Their significant insight and commitment to conceptual ambition have been instrumental in this research and have ensured that this process has been a highly rewarding experience. The project was funded by an Economic and Social Research Council 1 + 3 scholarship and I am extremely grateful for this financial support, without which I could not have conducted this research. I am indebted to the staff and students of the Law School at the University of Edinburgh, particularly those within the Criminology department, who meaningfully enriched the research experience by valuing and maintaining a vibrant academic community. In particular I would like to thank Christine Haddow. Finally, I would like to thank my friends and family for their constant support throughout this process, most of all Lynne Flynn. ABSTRACT This thesis seeks to develop our understanding of the contemporary crime communication landscape. While this landscape is considered in its constituent parts, including specific features of current British politics, the evolving media sphere and the voice of the public, this thesis argues for a conceptualization of this realm that grasps its fluid and dynamic character. Original research is conducted through case studies of the 2010 UK General Election, the Phone Hacking Scandal and the 2011 Riots. Discourse analysis is employed in order to enhance our awareness of supralinguistic behaviour and of the play of power in the construction of crime narratives. This is contrasted with influential current accounts of ‘populism’ which, it is argued here, tend to be unduly deterministic and to err towards the dystopian. The research suggests that structural shifts in the media landscape, specifically the recent ubiquity of new media coinciding with an undermining of the singular tabloid narrative, have enabled a redistribution of power in the symbolic construction of crime which can make it harder for political actors to capture the crime question for populist purposes. Furthermore, this shift has empowered the public voice and has infused political debate with a chaotic plurality of views. Nevertheless, the symbolic weight of crime issues remains prominent in this landscape and Randall Collins’ Interaction Ritual Chains (2004) is employed to add a microsociological picture of the escalation from small scale narrative to broad righteous anger. This requires an adaptation of this model to address interactions that occur outside the context of physical co-presence. Such perspectives on the plurality of mediated communication today both broaden and update our grasp of the political communication of crime and in so doing argue for a degree of optimism concerning the scope for democratic debate about criminal justice issues. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction…………………………………………………………………………1 Original Contribution……………………………………………………………….3 Thesis Overview...………………………………………………………………….4 Chapter 1: Beyond Dystopia in the Criminology of Political Communication…….8 Chapter 2: A Theoretical Account of Symbolic Force in the Communication of Crime………………………………………………………………………………25 Chapter 3: The Media as Interaction Ritual Chains ………………………………50 Chapter 4: Methodology…………………………………………………………..88 Chapter 5: The UK General Election 2010………………………………………146 Chapter 6: The Phone Hacking Scandal…………………………………………185 Chapter 7: The Riots……………………………………………………………..216 Chapter 8: Conclusion……………………………………………………………253 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………...272 Political language - and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists - is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase - some jackboot, Achilles' heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse - into the dustbin, where it belongs. George Orwell, Politics and the English Language (1946) The interaction between social media and conventional media today means that what used to be a building wave of opinion, which if you intervened in the right way it would then ebb again, now reaches tsunami force within hours sometimes, days certainly and can capsize a government, it can literally wash a government away. Tony Blair, Leveson Inquiry 28th May 2012 INTRODUCTION Simply put, the primary interest of this thesis is the construction of crime narratives and as such, the central aim of this project has been to capture the crime communication landscape in a manner which provides a meaningful, original contribution to knowledge in this area. I have consistently felt that to best serve this subject matter would require an acceptance of the dynamic nature of this realm and as such, have prioritised fluidity in the research design here. A natural tendency in considering ‘The Political Communication of Crime’ would be to focus wholeheartedly on political speech, on the everyday behind-the-scenes pressures infused into the construction of criminal justice in politics. However, as has been commonly accepted since before Orwell bemoaned the deceptions of political speech in 1946, this is a realm within which it is difficult to derive certainty of intent, other than electoral success. A research project on this subject which focussed only on political cultures would have been limited in scope and undermined by the inevitable upheaval of this world which occurs every five years. More crucially here, I have asserted since the outset that the role of the media and the public ought to be given equal billing in a project of this nature. This facilitates a view of this realm which takes into account more enduring social structures and connects discussions of the meaning of crime in society to criminal justice outputs. As we will see, the political communication of crime today has evolved from our traditional view of the politician sermonizing from the podium to a vibrant, chaotic conversation in which manipulative narratives are derailed and the intentions of governments are capsized, are washed away by the wave of opinion. As such, the focus in this project is on these constituent elements as integral to the political communication of crime and I hope that I have approached the research and the theoretical discussion in a manner which best provides a sense of their evolving role and the impact that this will have on the future construction of ‘crime’. An interest in this area and a sense that further research was required was prompted not only by the criminological literature which I will discuss in detail, but by a consideration of the field more generally. In reading broadly in criminology, I increasingly became aware of rich bodies of research that seemed to experience a 1 frustrating disconnect from practice. Indeed, we take for granted the solidification of truths self-evident only to those privy to the criminological canon, such as the negative impact of imprisonment which sits in direct opposition to the political maintenance of soaring prison populations in the UK and the still potent public desire for the retributive role of imprisonment. Beyond criminal justice policy, the lack of correlation between rising fear of crime and falling crime rates presented another divergence, a problem for criminology. These compelling examples, the lack of connection between research and policy and between fear and reality suggested that the contested meaning of crime in society was actively defining it away from reality and loading it with meaning which seemed not to prioritise rational policy decision-making which could ultimately reduce criminal activity. It seemed evident that if we wish to address these kinds of issues, if we wish to better understand the role of ‘crime’ in society, that a more detailed, forcefully modern view of the construction of crime narratives could better facilitate the negotiation of this landscape. Beginning with this premise provided another argument in favour of broadening focus to the public and the media, as it seemed clear that a view

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