Detective Fiction and the Rise of Forensic Science

In criminal law, the term “CSI Effect” commonly refers to the perceived impact the CSI television show has on juror expectation and unexpected jury verdicts. This article coins a new phrase, “CSI Infection,” by focusing on the significant legal impact that the fear of “CSI Infected Jurors” has made upon the criminal justice system. The CSI Infection is the ubiquitous “It” factor that scholars cannot conclusively prove nor effectively explain away; however, practitioners overwhelmingly confirm the CSI Effect’s impact on criminal jury trials. The CSI Effect’s existence, the CSI Effect’s true or perceived impact on acquittals and convictions, and how to define the CSI Effect, permeates criminal trials. For example, litigators base their motions on the CSI Effect and build their trial strategies around the CSI Effect, transforming the legal arguments of trial lawyers on both sides of a case. Specifically, voir dire questions, jury instructions, as well as opening statements and closing arguments have been modified and correspondingly challenged on appeal – all because of the CSI Effect. Moreover, the phenomenon has forced trial courts to address the evidentiary, procedural, and constitutional issues raised by prosecutors and defense attorneys who fear the perceived dangers that CSI Infected Jurors have upon the ultimate fairness of the jury trial process. Because of the controversy concerning the CSI Effect, judges now issue rulings directed at the perceived impact of the CSI Effect within cases and give special jury instructions regarding the potential role the CSI Effect plays in jurors’ decision making. This CSI Infection, undoubtedly, is creating a juridical migraine for trial courts about issues that were previously ordinary, yet have become increasingly thorny and multifarious considerations of procedure and constitutionality. There is no panacea to either eradicate the fears of the CSI Effect or completely alleviate its influence. Notwithstanding the CSI Effect’s presence or absence, mandatory due process requirements remain. This Article explores the cases, the experiences of litigators, the commentary of jurors, and most significantly, the trial and appellate court rulings on important constitutional and procedural issues. Scrutinizing these legal questions both “before the verdict” and “beyond the verdict” are essential to ensure that justice and fairness prevail over any improper prejudice or bias that may have infiltrated the American criminal justice system.

Before the Verdict and Beyond the Verdict: The 'CSI Infection' within Modern Criminal Jury Trials

Neuro-realism is a widely cited concept describing a textual phenomenon in popular science news wherein brain research uncritically validates or invalidates the “realness” of particular beliefs or ...

Three Forms of Neurorealism: Explaining the Persistence of the “Uncritically Real” in Popular Neuroscience News:

In 2001, the year David Lyon coined the term ‘surveillance society’, the study of surveillance was in its infancy. Visual and audio surveillance were well-established and digital and biometric surveillance were on the rise. Today, stories about digital surveillance and data-mining are often in the popular press. Despite the increased concern with digital surveillance and protecting one’s data online, visual surveillance continues to be an area of concern. Although surveillance has often be linked to reality television and even drama, it has never been examined in comedy programmes. This thesis argues that like other popular genres, comedy programmes reveal cultural attitudes about visual surveillance. This thesis examines four British comedy programmes, Scot Squad, People Just Do Nothing, Mrs Brown’s Boys and Miranda that, through their use of various surveillance aesthetics and themes, work through issues in living in a surveillance society. Examining the interplay between comedy and surveillance through textual analysis reveals that rather than just accepting the surveillance society and the visual surveillance that is a part of that, comedy allows for a space for resistance. Through parody, Scot Squad and People Just Do Nothing offer an imitation of non-fiction formats such as the reality crime genre and the docusoap that highlight the problems and limits of surveillance whilst also normalising surveillance procedures. Mrs Brown’s Boys and Miranda also work through issues of surveillance with their direct address, attempting to control the mechanisms of surveillance. This thesis argues that comedy provides a space for resistance to the surveillance society and, as such, adds evidence to the idea that comedy has potential as radical opposition to power.

Approaches to surveillance in contemporary British television comedy

Authentication devices transform cheap paper into legitimate documents. They are the sensory, informational, and computational features that make up valuable papers like banknotes and passports, an...

The Intrinsic Value of Valuable Paper: On the Infrastructural Work of Authentication Devices:

Contents: Samuel Weber: From Reflection to Repetition: Medium, Reflexivity and the Economy of the Self - Ina Blom: Mediating Sociality: A Contested Question of Contemporary Art - Mary Ann Doane: Has Time Become Space? - Eivind Rossaak: The Moving Image in the Museum: Real-Time, Technology and the Spectator's Cut - Susanne Ostby Saether: "Are you talking to me?" Spectatorship in Post-Cinema Art - Liv Hausken: Doing Media Aesthetics: The Case of Alice Miceli's 88 from 14.000 - Arild Fetveit: Medium-Specific Noise - Dieter Daniels/Sandra Naumann: Shifting Aesthetics of Image-Sound Relations in the Interaction between Art, Technology, and Perception - D. N. Rodowick: A Compass in a Moving World (on genres and genealogies of film theory).

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Thinking media aesthetics : media studies, film studies and the arts

This essay investigates forensic fiction as a trend in televised crime fiction and argues that this trend or subgenre is particularly interesting if we are to understand how surveillance is portrayed in contemporary society. The essay looks particularly into an extremely popular example of forensic fiction, namely CSI and its two spin-offs CSI: NY and CSI: Miami. Through a discussion of the conceptions of knowledge, crime and power, which seem to come forth in the three CSI series, the present article argues that the particular blend of technological optimism, positivism and moralism that can be witnessed in forensic fiction in general, and in CSI in particular, is important to understanding how popular culture lends a certain normalization of surveillance to everyday life.

Liv Hausken

Papers

Thinking media aesthetics : media studies, film studies and the arts

Forensic Fiction and the Normalization of Surveillance

The Archival Promise of the Biometric Passport

My take on media aesthetics

Tekstteoretiske utfordringer i den medievitenskapelige disiplin