Crime TV: Technologies of Detection

Learning Outcomes

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• You will be able to participate in and contribute to scholarly debates about crime television
• You will be able to engage critically with different types of televisual crime detection narratives
• You will be able to independently research and conduct in-depth analysis of television programmes, considering their wider socio-historical contexts and cultural reception
• You will be able to apply and critique different theoretical approaches to the relationship between crime detection and television, in order to perform your own analysis of relevant television programmes

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• You will be able to research appropriate resources independently
• You will be able to organise your time effectively
• You will be able to select, organise and deploy ideas and information in order to formulate cogent arguments and express them effectively.
• You will be able to conduct critical analysis

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• You will be able to demonstrate appropriate levels of knowledge and critical understanding of crime TV’s genre linkages to literature, radio, cinema, and digital culture
• You will be able to demonstrate appropriate levels of knowledge and critical understanding of scholarly debates on crime television
• You will be able to demonstrate appropriate levels of knowledge and critical understanding of a wide range of televisual crime detection narratives
• You will be able to demonstrate appropriate levels of knowledge and critical understanding of the aesthetic forms, narrative structures, figures, settings and themes that characterises televisual portrayals of crime investigation practices
• You will be able to demonstrate appropriate levels of knowledge and critical understanding of different theoretical approaches to the relationship between crime detection and television

The syllabus will typically cover topics such as:

• The portrayal of different types of crime investigation practices and technologies on contemporary television.
• Different types of crime dramas (such as police procedurals, profiling shows, forensic crime dramas, and long-form serial dramas).
• Different types of factual genres featuring crime investigations (such as news programming, reality shows and true crime documentaries).
• Differences and similarities between British and US programmes.
• Differences and similarities between crime investigation narratives on television and in other media (such as literature, radio, cinema, and digital culture).
• Some genre theory and genre history.
• Crime investigation as a narrative and thematic trope.
• The wider historical and cultural contexts of these narratives.
• Diverse theoretical approaches to the relationship between crime detection and television from a number of scholarly fields (such as film studies, television studies, media and communication studies, gender studies, criminology, and social sciences).

Teaching and learning methods

1) Lectures that will examine and explore different debates and approaches relating to the topic of the week and discuss relevant television programmes in relation to their wider socio-historical contexts.

2) Seminars with group discussions to further develop your critical understanding of the material as well as you rhetorical and analytical skills.

3) Screenings that will typically include material from multiple television programmes to better allow for comparisons between the medium’s diverse crime detection narratives.

4) Opportunities for individual tutorials where the tutor provide feedback on the first assignment and support you in the process of writing the second assignment.

Learning activities include:

• Independent study, research and viewing
• Critical thinking, reading and writing
• Engagement in seminar discussions as both speaker and listener
• Preparation of written assignments.

Resources & Reading list

Textbooks

Sue Turnbull. TV Crime Drama.

Helen Piper. The TV Detective: Voices of Dissent in Contemprary Television.

Contemporary British Television Crime Drama: Cops on the Box.

Jason Mittell. Genre and Television: From Cop Shows to Cartoons in American Culture.

Deborah Jermyn. Crime Watching: Investigating Real Crime TV.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External