Crime and the Visual Media in Brazil Page 1 of 24 PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, CRIMINOLOGY AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE (criminology.oxfordre.com). (c) Oxford University Press USA, 2016. All Rights Reserved. Personal use only; commercial use is strictly prohibited. Please see applicable Privacy Policy and Legal Notice (for details see Privacy Policy). Subscriber: Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora (UFJF); date: 16 October 2017 Summary and Keywords The presence of crime in the visual media is a phenomenon shared throughout the world. In Brazil there is also a great level of consumption of it. The Brazilian production of media about crimes is deeply rooted in the social context that has emerged from intense social, political, and economic transformations that have taken place in the country since the second half of the 20th century. The depiction of crime in Brazilian visual media is based on three different genres: (1) television series, (2) films, and (3) police journalism. They deal with critical issues about the rule of law in Brazilian society such as violence, inequality, police corruption, failures of the criminal justice system, and the demands for public policies to improve it. Despite this common ground, the genres reveal different political and ideological views about the rule of law in Brazil. Productions centered on the plane of fiction (television and film) are more critical about the criminal justice system in Brazil, especially in relation to the performance of its police forces. Brazilian police journalism is the opposite. The style reinforces a view of the problem of crime founded from the viewpoint of problematic people rather than problematic structures. Finally, the media coverage of crime is an important field to help understand the different views in the public agenda about the criminal justice system’s reform in Brazil. Keywords: Brazil, violence, crime and media, television series, Brazilian cinema, police journalism Crime and Media Crime as an object of interest of the media is a reality common to many countries and cultures. Its occurrence is manifested through various cultural products, such as literature, theater, radio, newspapers, cinema, and television. Among them, the visual media are those with the greatest impact and presence in everyday life. Much of the televised news refers to crimes that have taken place or are happening. Given the importance of the media in everyday life, their contents reflect not only the message of Crime and the Visual Media in Brazil Vicente Riccio Subject: Crime, Media, and Popular Culture Online Publication Date: Jul 2017 DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190264079.013.27 Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Criminology