Critical Discourse Studies

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Personalising crime and crime-fighting in factual

television: an analysis of social actors and
transitivity in language and images

David Machin & Andrea Mayr

To cite this article: David Machin & Andrea Mayr (2013) Personalising crime and crime-fighting
in factual television: an analysis of social actors and transitivity in language and images, Critical
Discourse Studies, 10:4, 356-372, DOI: 10.1080/17405904.2013.813771

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2013.813771

Published online: 30 Jul 2013.

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Critical Discourse Studies, 2013
Vol. 10, No. 4, 356– 372, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2013.813771

Personalising crime and crime-fighting in factual television: an analysis of

social actors and transitivity in language and images
David Machina∗ and Andrea Mayrb
a
Department of Media and Communication, Orebro University, Fakultetsgatan 1, Örebro 702 81, Sweden;
b
School of English, Queen’s University Belfast, 2 University Square, Belfast BT7 1NN, Northern Ireland,
UK

This article addresses the lack of work on media and crime in Critical Discourse Analysis
(CDA), using an example of a factual television crime report. The existing research in
media studies and criminology points to the way that the media misrepresents crime by
distorting public understandings and backgrounding structural issues, such as poverty,
which are related to crime thereby legitimising a criminal justice system that serves the
interests of the powerful in society. Using social actor and transitivity analysis, this article
shows how multimodal CDA can make an important contribution as it reveals the more
subtle linguistic strategies and visual representations by which this process is
accomplished, showing how each plays a part in the recontextualisation of social practice.
This programme backgrounds which crimes are committed but foregrounds mental states
and the neutrality of policing.
Keywords: multimodality; television; crime; police; critical discourse analysis

1. Introduction
While there has been extensive research on media representations of crime and crime-fighting in
Media and Cultural Studies and in Criminology this has been a neglected area in Critical
Discourse Analysis (CDA). This article takes one small step towards addressing this, using a
case study from a wider corpus of material from the ‘factional’ crime show on British television,
Crimewatch, a television format which originated in Germany and versions of which can be found
on prime time television in many countries around the world. We begin the article by looking at
some of the key findings of existing research which point to the way that the media misrepresents
crime by distorting public understandings and backgrounding structural issues, such as poverty,
which are related to crime. The media thereby legitimise the criminal justice system, helping to
naturalise certain discourses of crime that serve the interests of the powerful in society.
What we demonstrate in the rest of the article is the way that multimodal CDA (MCDA) can
contribute to this existing literature through its close attention to the finer details of texts, specifi-
cally through social actor and transitivity analysis of language and images. While previous
analyses have shown what is taking place, we can show how this is accomplished by focusing
on slightly different roles played by the visual and the linguistic as social practices become
ideologically recontextualised.

2. Research into media representations of crime and crime-fighting

Researchers working at the intersection of Criminology and Media/Cultural studies have been
conclusive in the view that media ideologically distort the reality of crime (Chibnall, 1977;

∗
Corresponding author. Email: portvale100@gmail.com

# 2013 Taylor & Francis

 Critical Discourse Studies 357

Cohen, 1972; Hall, Critcher, Jefferson, Clarke, & Robert, 1978; Jewkes, 2004; Sparks, 1992;
Young, 1971). In the first place media representations exaggerate the threat of crime and
promote policing and punishment as the main solution, as opposed to addressing structural
issues such as poverty, unemployment and marginalisation that tend to foster crime (Seddon,
2006; Young, 2003).
Describing the prison population of the UK, Garside (2007) points out:
They are largely men from poor or working class backgrounds. They will tend to be in their late teens
or early 20s. A notable proportion will have drug and alcohol problems. Many will be living with
significant mental health problems. Poor literacy abilities and intermittent employment histories
will be common. While the majority will be white, a disproportionate minority will be black or
from other minority ethnic groups.
Research in the USA has also shown the clear connections between prison and social disadvan-
tage where many states spend more on prisons than on education (Western & Petitt, 2010). It is
clear that the criminal justice system in the UK and the USA largely exists to deal with poor,
uneducated, working class young men and other disempowered sections of the population.
Beckett and Sasson (2000) show the devastating effects of this politics of crime and punishment
on impoverished communities.
The news media disproportionately feature the most serious and violent crimes and in doing
so focus on crime as the product of individual choice and ‘free-floating evil’, diverting attention
from any links to social structure or culture (Reiner, 2007). The emphasis tends to be on sex
crimes and on strangers and ‘evil others’ who carry them out (Valier, 2004; Wardle, 2007).
This distorts public understanding of the actual nature of sex offending which is mostly perpe-
trated by trusted people who are known to the victim and the victim’s families (Kitzinger, 2004).
Because of conventions of news sourcing from official institutions such as the police and
courts, the media present viewpoints on crime and criminal justice policy which are geared
towards official definitions (Chibnall, 1977; Fishman, 1980; Hall et al., 1978). Crime reports,
therefore, are not generated by journalists spending time in the impoverished environments
where crime tends to originate or is experienced, but through materials gathered routinely and
quickly by those agencies who operate within the realms of the punitive system. The news there-
fore is filled with random instances of crime disconnected from social contexts. Manning (2007),
for instance, using the example of media reporting on drugs, showed how misleading news can
be when compared to criminological research in the area.
This process of crime news sourcing also means that corporate crimes tend not to be covered,
as these are largely not dealt with by the police and courts but by non-justice-related government
departments. A range of authors examining statistical levels of corporate crime and institutional
fraud, theft, injury to persons and death (Minkes & Minkes, 2008; Slapper & Tombs, 1999;
Tombs & Whyte, 2007) show that conventional crimes pale into insignificance compared to
these types of crime. Even where such offences are reported by the media they may come to
be defined as ‘illegal’ rather than ‘criminal’ (Geis, 1972). Levi (2006) notes that the news
media tend to prefer corporate crime stories that can be linked to the wrongdoing of one
person and to the hypocrisy or incompetence of the ‘establishment’, rather than discussing
them in terms of criminality or the criminogenic nature of capitalism.
Researchers have also addressed the representation of policing in the media. Some have dis-
cussed the way the police can gain support for criminal investigations (Innes, 1999), as well as
cultivate public support and promote a favourable image of itself by professionalising its media
management strategies over the years (Reiner, 2007; Mawby, 2002; Schlesinger & Tumber,
1994). The conclusion of Reiner (2010) is that the mainstream news media are organisationally
and structurally oriented towards exaggerating police effectiveness, rarely questioning the legiti-
macy of the wider institution.
358 D. Machin and A. Mayr

Police drama and more recently police reality shows, have been an important site of the rep-
resentation of policing. Reiner (1994) identified a number of changing themes in the way the
police have been represented on television over time. Early dramas in the 1960s, such as
Dixon of Dock Green, represented the police as community carers in a low-crime consensual
society. This shifted in the 1970s to an image of the police as having slightly more failings
with the arrival of the uncompromising macho cop, as in The Sweeney, who was required to
stamp out ruthless villains. Rule bending was required and permitted if it produced the
desired result. In the 1980s crime became presented as more complex and ambivalent, inter-
related with social problems as seen in The Bill. The police themselves became represented
as more morally ambiguous. The twenty-first century has seen a return to moral authority in
crime investigation in the form of ‘forensic science’ programmes such as CSI (Crime Scene
Investigation). Across this timescale there has also been the constant presence of the shrewd
yet eccentric detective investigating the crimes committed by ‘ordinary’, more middle-class
people through the observation of clues, as in Columbo and Poirot.
As fictional representations have become more morally complex it has been the infotainment
or reality TV programme that has taken on the role of representing the moral certitude and police
effectiveness formerly provided by police dramas, such as Police Camera Action; COPS; Amer-
ica’s Most Wanted and Crimewatch (Beckett & Sasson, 2000; Leishman & Mason, 2003). In
these, the viewer is encouraged to see police work as a heroic fight of good versus evil or as
a way of cleaning the streets of ‘low life’ (Valverde, 2006). For the most part, this has also
been how the news media have continued to represent crime and policing (Jewkes, 2004).
The overall conclusion that can be drawn from this research is that the media often hamper,
and even completely distort, accurate public understanding of crime (see Manning, 2007). From
the point of view of CDA, with its commitment to revealing the more disguised ideologies that
maintain social injustices, it is clear that the media disseminate discourses of crime that maintain
and naturalise the interests of the powerful sectors in a society, where the poor, the disadvan-
taged and the vulnerable are criminalised, where the main structural reasons or dangers to
their welfare are glossed over and where crimes of a sexual nature appear to be over-reported.

2.1 Crimewatch
Crimewatch has been running on BBC1 on a monthly basis since 1984, a time when the political
focus on law and order and public concern about victims’ rights came to the fore (Dobash &
Dobash, 1998; Schlesinger & Tumber, 1993). The programme, as do its various international ver-
sions, such as Aktenzeichen XY. . . .ungeloest and America’s Most Wanted, dramatically recon-
structs real, unsolved crimes with the help of the police, so that viewers can assist with detection.
In each edition, the programme presents three to four reconstructions of serious crimes
appealing to the general public for information about suspects and criminals and giving
updates on previous cases where the police have made progress, praising public vigilance and
citizenship when viewers have called with information.
The Programme presents ‘authentic’ reconstructions of crimes, although critics have accused
it of blurring the line between fact and fiction (Schlesinger & Tumber, 1993) through dramatisa-
tion and other devices commonly used in crime fiction (Sparks, 1992), often using scenes of gra-
tuitous violence and provoking public fear of crime (Leishman & Mason, 2003) by focusing on
extreme cases of crime that are in fact quite rare (Innes, 1999).
In this article, we show that MCDA can make an important contribution and addition to such
observations through a more systematic functional approach to language and images. This can
help us to draw out the semiotic means by which certain discourse of crime are legitimised and
naturalised across society.
 Critical Discourse Studies 359

3. Methods
The version of MCDA (Machin & Mayr, 2012) we use in this article is a form of CDA that
includes analysis of non-linguistic communicative features of texts where appropriate. As
with linguistics-based CDA we select the kinds of analytical tools that are most appropriate
for our task, which in this case is to examine the participants, actions and relations that are rep-
resented as comprising crime and policing. Some of the observations draw on more established
traditions of visual analysis, such as Barthes (1973).
In this article, we use specifically social actor analysis (Van Leeuwen, 1995, 1996), and tran-
sitivity analysis (Van Leeuwen, 1999), both of which can be applied linguistically as well as
visually (Machin & Mayr, 2012; Mayr & Machin, 2012; Machin & Van Leeuwen, 2007). We
explain these forms of analysis in the relevant sections. We place this analysis in the context
of the notion of the ‘recontextualisation of social practice’ (Van Leeuwen & Wodak, 1999).
This is useful as it draws particular attention to the sequences of activity, or ‘scripts’ that can
be understood as the ‘doing’ of discourses. Van Leeuwen and Wodak argue that it is through
discourse that social actors constitute knowledge, roles and identities. These discourses represent
a kind of knowledge or ‘script’ about what goes on in a particular social practice, who is involved
in it and what kinds of values they hold. This can be particularly important for MCDA as it
allows us to direct our attention to the way that not only language, but also other semiotic
resources can play a role in shaping representations and their recontextualisations. It helps us
to be mindful as to the meanings that language and images can bring. It also allows us to
think about the kinds of script, including who is involved and what kinds of ideas they hold,
as regards the representation of crime in Crimewatch and how this is recontextualised at different
levels from the actual nature of crime in accounts provided by sociologists and criminologists.
They are not represented by actually giving a clear account of events, neither by logical argu-
ment, nor by a reasonable assessment of information, but through a process of abstraction,
addition, substitution and deletion.
We had recorded 53 episodes of Crimewatch aired from 2007 to 2010 and had begun to notice
patterns of substitution, addition and deletion, in terms of the way that certain kinds of represen-
tational strategies and choices in verb processes were working ideologically. We chose the episode
aired on 26 January 2011 on BBC1 which was typical of the discursive strategies we observed. We
point to the way this links to examples of the wider corpus where relevant.

4. A multimodal critical analysis of Crimewatch

First, we introduce the case we have chosen. We then carry out an analysis of representational
strategies and of transitivity, in each case first dealing with language and then with the images.
The clip we have chosen concerns the search for and apprehension and conviction of a sex offen-
der (‘Glen Tranter’). At the beginning of the clip we are told that the police turned to Crime-
watch for help as they were unable to track Tranter after he had jumped bail and fled to
Spain, despite huge efforts to find him. This had led him to be featured previously on the Pro-
gramme’s ‘Most Wanted’ list (BBC1, 29 March 2010) which appeals to its viewers to call in
with information. Here, a mug-shot of Tranter was shown and viewers were told about him
being a paedophile, a ‘nasty piece of work’, a ‘predator’ and of the need to apprehend him
before he might reoffend.
We are then told the story of the events through reconstructions. At the start of the re-enacted
sequence we see Tranter (played by an actor) being locked in a Victorian-style jail cell
with amplified clanking sounds and are told the story of ‘How you helped catch Glen
Tranter’. We are shown how police were investigating allegations against Tranter who was inter-
viewed at the police station. We are introduced to the detectives in charge of the investigation
360 D. Machin and A. Mayr

(in the form both of the actual detectives and the actors who play them in the reenactments).
Tranter is then shown to panic, packing his bags and going on the run. We then see and hear
about the police trying to locate and apprehend him, with information on procedures, and are
shown CCTV (closed circuit television) footage of traffic and people pointing at maps and com-
puter screens.
We are told that when the police were unable to track Tranter they contacted Crimewatch;
they then found he was in Spain. According to the way the events are presented, a British ex-pat,
Michelle Mckenzie, who happened to watch the ‘Most Wanted List’ in Spain, recognised
Tranter as the man who worked locally as a taxi driver and whom she often saw making
pick-ups from the bar where she worked. After phoning Tranter on the pretext that she
needed a taxi, she overpowered him in the bar, a scene which we see reenacted. He was arrested
by the Spanish police who, however, had to release him after 24 hours. It is hinted that the British
police worked hard to extend the warrant and have him deported. We are then told that by that
time Tranter knew the ‘the game was up’, so he handed himself in. He was flown back to the UK,
charged and sentenced to six years imprisonment. We see authentic arrest footage with the real
Tranter being led off the plane in the UK and being put in a prison van. The clip ends with the
same footage seen at the beginning, where the actor playing Tranter is locked in his Victorian
cell, the two real-life detectives praise the efforts of Crimewatch and Michelle Mckenzie
states that she was glad she could assist the police.

4.1 Linguistic representation of social actors

The communicator has a range of choices available to them for deciding how they wish to rep-
resent individuals and groups, who in CDA are often termed ‘social actors’ or ‘participants’. In
CDA, this realm of semiotic choices is referred to as ‘representational strategies’ (Fowler, 1991;
Van Dijk, 1988). These choices allow us to place people in the social world and highlight certain
aspects of their identity which we wish to draw attention to, or background others we may want
to conceal. Each choice can have the effect of connoting sets of ideas, values and attitudes that
are not necessarily overtly stated. And the ‘scripts’ that comprise the social goings-on of
discourses can provide additions, substitutions and deletions of actual participants.
Van Leeuwen (1996) presents an inventory of the ways that we can classify people that
allows a more systematic analysis of the social actors in a text. We draw on these below. In
Table 1 of the social actors in a text, we list the ways the different participants are represented
in the Crimewatch clip. In terms of the representation of social actors, for Van Leeuwen (1996) it
is useful to ask whether the participants are represented in ways that individualise or collectivise
them or represent them as a generic category of person. We can also ask whether they are rep-
resented in terms of what they are (nomination) or what they do (functionalisation).
To begin with, we can see that Tranter is represented as a generic ‘monsterised’ offender
through the use of terms such as ‘dangerous predator’ and ‘nasty piece of work’. These lexical
choices are produced by the Crimewatch presenter and, in support of the comments made by
Schlesinger and Tumber (1993), suggest that the material is presented with the same kind of
crime language found in tabloid news. Strikingly, the narration and the police themselves use a
very different set of representational strategies. The police do not use any such tabloid-style
language; they refer to Tranter as the less personalised and functionalised ‘the offender’, for
example. They certainly do not match Crimewatch’s own use of terms, such as ‘nasty piece
of work’ although they do refer to him as ‘a strange individual’, who therefore is not like
‘us’, but again this is measured language. However, they also use extensive personalisation
and nomination. He is repeatedly called ‘Glen Tranter’ rather than more generically ‘the offen-
der’ or ‘the suspect’. He is also treated, almost respectfully through the use of the honorifics
 Critical Discourse Studies 361

Table 1. Social actors in Crimewatch clip.

Tranter The police The public Michelle Mackenzie
Suspect Police × 3 People × 2 Michelle Mackenzie
Predator Detectives × 4 The Public Michelle × 2
Dangerous sexual Predator We × 9 Children × 3
Nasty piece of work I×3 Staff
Glen Tranter × 10 DC Irving Holiday Makers
Tranter × 8 Darren Expats
Glen Local Police Spanish Authorities
He × 6 Lancashire Police You
Mr Tranter Team
Him × 5 Dave Groombridge × 2
Man × 2 Darren Irving × 2
Originally from West Yorkshire
A strange individual

‘Mr Tranter’ and once through the use of the highly humanising ‘Glen’ in the re-enacted inter-
view scene.
These representational choices serve to dramatise and personalise the story and also play
one part in the substitution of the actual concrete offender and his motives for a generic
‘type’. We also see the addition of motives for the police, which aligns them with a sense
of protection, care and team-work. As we will see as we develop our analysis, one important
part of the police self-presentation on Crimewatch is of themselves as both ‘objective’ and
dedicated public guardians and ‘ordinary’ people. This supports the broader observations
of Reiner (2010) that media naturalise and legitimise the police as an institution. The
police are not only necessary for and effective at dealing with evil-doers, but are also
measured and ‘trustworthy’. Legitimising the official solution to crime, i.e. the police, here
in turn plays an important part in naturalising the definitions of crime and criminals that
are presented. The police force is not inhumane and harsh, but a measured institution with
approachable staff.
In terms of representational strategies, the police are mainly functionalised in the narration
through their occupation as ‘police’ and ‘detectives’. Importantly, the police are also collecti-
vised as a ‘team’ and the pronoun ‘we’ is the most frequent representation strategy, used nine
times. Central to police self-representation in the item is a tightly operating, efficient team.
But also, importantly, they are personalised and individualised as they are introduced both verb-
ally and textually twice, once where the actor who plays the officer in the re-enactment appears
and once where the actual officer is seen. Later the senior detective refers to his younger col-
league as ‘Darren’.
The public are represented as ‘people’ and ‘you’ who have caught Tranter. ‘Children’ are
mentioned three times as evidence of the danger posed by Tranter, even though we are not
told exactly what crime he is accused of. Michelle Mackenzie is nominated and personalised
through telling her story of how she assisted the police.
Linguistically, we can now start to think about this in more detail at the level of recontex-
tualisation. First, we know from research in media studies that crime in Crimewatch is not
about patterns of crime and their causes, but about dangerous personalities. The research into
media representations of child abuse notes that this is one of the key patterns, which results
in a highly misleading picture of perpetrators, (Jewkes, 2011; Kitzinger, 2004; Wardle, 2007).
Kitzinger (2004, p. 125) points out that
362 D. Machin and A. Mayr

journalists often promote stock images of child abusers, perpetuating unhelpful stereotypes which
highlight the threat from ‘psychotic’ strangers and obscure the more common form of abuse; by
known, trusted and ‘well-adjusted’ adults.
So far the script is developing as one where just such a stranger, who is odd and clearly not like
‘us’ is being sought out by well-balanced and thoughtful police officers who speak on behalf of
busy teams that protect children. And the interests and definitions offered by Crimewatch and
by the police are presented as one and the same as that of the public of which ‘you’ are a part.
It is of note that one reason the perpetrators of corporate crime are not labelled ‘criminals’ is
that rather than being loners or ‘strange individuals’ they tend to embody many of the values
that are presently cherished in society, such as financial shrewdness and ambition (Tombs &
Whyte, 2007).

4.2 Visual representation of social actors

For the visual representation of social actors we can ask the same kind of questions in terms of
what representational choices have been made that place people in the social world and high-
light certain aspects of their identity while backgrounding others. Visually, it is again useful to
ask whether the participants are represented in ways that individualise or collectivise them. So
are they shown alone or as a group are are they represented in close shot or from a distance? Are
they represented as specific individuals or as generic types through clothing, posture or as a
typical ethnic type? Are they represented in terms of what they are in an image or in terms
of what they do? We can also ask how the viewer is aligned with the participant. Do we see
them face on, from the side and are we therefore invited to look onto them as a more disengaged
observer, or do we look on to what they see from a position just behind them so that we are
aligned with their view of the world? Do they look at us, engaging with us, or look off-
frame? Do we look up at them in respect or down at them, where we are symbolically given
the position of power?
Visual representations of Tranter show him frequently individualised in close-up or extreme
close-up (as in Figure 1) as he is arrested, interrogated, as he packs his bags and is smirking as
the Spanish Police are unable to hold him. His mug-shot, representing him as a generic criminal,
also appears throughout the report, sometimes pinned to the wall in the police station when the
team of detectives are busily working on the case in the foreground and also when Michelle
Mckenzie gives her account.

Figure 1. Extreme close-up of Tranter (from Crimewatch, BBC1, 29 March 2010).

 Critical Discourse Studies 363

Figure 2. Tranter locked into cell (from Crimewatch, BBC1, 29 March 2010).

In Figure 2, we see Tranter represented as a generic criminal and functionalised as what he

does; although he is at a distance, this does not depersonalise him completely. It appears that
both linguistically and visually Tranter is highly personalised. Crime in Crimewatch is not
about patterns of crime and its actual causes, but about dangerous personalities. And as the
analysis here continues we see that it is Tranter’s abnormality that is emphasised as opposed
to what it is that he actually did.
A further important point can be made regarding the use of extreme close-ups of Tranter. In adver-
tising or lifestyle magazines these shots can be used to draw the viewer into the thoughts of the person
depicted. As Kress and Van Leeuwen (1996) point out, social distance in images can be interpreted by
the viewer in much the same way as social distance in everyday situations. Extreme close-ups mean
intimacy. However, in this case the intimacy is undesirable and oppressive.
We find the detectives are represented in a close-shot, but not an extreme close-shot, when
individualised and at the point where they are named. We see both of them in thoughtful
moments. One looks out of the window while sipping a hot drink. The other walks towards
the camera looking concerned. The police as a whole are shown mainly in a medium-shot
when they are collectivised as part of the investigating team (Figure 4). Although in these
sequences, we also still see the presence of the named detectives to maintain the personal con-
nection (the grey-haired man standing to the right who is the actor playing the detective is also
shown in Figure 3). And in such sequences we also see the police functionalised as they carry out
investigative activities, often being represented simply by busy hands on a keyboard (as seen top
left in Figure 4) or pointing at a map. These are often represented in a split screen montage,
which is commonly used in film to suggest processual change. This points to multi-transaction-
ality, as we see different actions simultaneously. Clearly, this is important for narrative pace.
Visually, we do not see the same range of the national police force as linguistically. The empha-
sis is therefore on a smaller team, usually anchored by one of the personalised detectives, who,
even in the split scenes are seen in the background or in one frame. While linguistically the
search may shift across depersonalised organisations and units, visually it remains personalised.
Visually then, as linguistically, we find the police collectivised and working as a team. Yet
they are also approachable as they are seen individually carrying out minor acts, such as sipping
tea and appearing worried, which serves to humanise them.
It is of note that detectives are not represented in such extreme close-ups as Tranter. This is
consistent with them remaining slightly removed, professional and respectful. Showing them in
364 D. Machin and A. Mayr

Figure 3. Close-shot of senior detective (actor) (from Crimewatch, BBC1, 29 March 2010).

extreme close-ups would have created a sense of excessive emotional intensity inappropriate for
the balanced professional detective. Linguistically therefore they may be personalised as in
where one of the detectives is simply ‘Dave’, but visually they remain slightly more distant.
Neither the public nor any of Tranter’s victims are represented visually, although they are
referred to linguistically. Here then we find visual deletion. There is a sense that it is not so
much the specific victims that are important but rather the broader public threat that Tranter con-
stitutes. While linguistically the public are mentioned, visual salience is given to the ‘evil’ lone
offender and police procedure. This is not necessarily the case in all our Crimewatch samples,
where there is often an extensive focus on the innocence of the victim in contrast to the evil of
the criminal, as is consistent with research into media representations of victims of crime crimi-
nological (Wardle, 2007). But the fact that we are never really informed about what Tranter has
done, nor exactly to whom points to the way that what is taking place in all these TV reports is a
personalisation of crime. The context and the actual facts of the crime are all much less relevant
than pointing to the way that criminals are unlike the general public.
Michelle Mackenzie, on the other hand, is represented visually in extreme close-up when we
first see her (Figure 5), creating an emotional intimacy and intensity, and in a close-shot when

Figure 4. Busy police procedure and team work (from Crimewatch, BBC1, 29 March 2010).
 Critical Discourse Studies 365

Figure 5. Close-shot of Mackenzie (from Crimewatch, BBC1, 29 March 2010).

she recounts her experience. In one sense, she substitutes the public as a whole. The whole of the
scene where she overpowers Tranter is shown in a medium close-shot. In the split screen, where
she is shown to recognise Tranter on Crimewatch we see her face in the left-hand screen. The
viewer is therefore aligned with her point of view in the right-hand screen, as we see what
she sees on the screen over her shoulder. This is another visual technique whereby the viewer
can be aligned with the viewpoint of a participant.
In sum, the participants in the ‘script’ are comprised linguistically of the ‘evil’ monster/stran-
ger; the humane, yet highly professional, police who work as a team; the public heroine; the
public and victims/children. Visually, we see neither the public nor the children, although Mack-
enzie is used to symbolise the values and attitudes of the public and the consensual nature of
crime-fighting. The actual details of the crime and its connection with broader patterns of
crime and culture are absent as personalities play their part in the drama of good versus evil.
Police work comprises team work, clarity of purpose and a personalised approach represented
by two thoughtful, dedicated and concerned police officers.

4.3 Representation of social action in language in Crimewatch

Transitivity analysis can reveal what is represented as the doings of a social practice, but it also
sets up relations between participants. Here, we are interested in what people are represented as
doing (Van Leeuwen, 1996). This again is one important way that we can draw out the ideologies
that are implicit in representations. Van Leeuwen draws on Halliday’s (1994) six categories of
verb processes (material, behavioural, verbal, mental, relational and existential), which can be
used to give participants different kinds of agency and character. They can be used to show
who does things through material processes and who has things done to them, often indicating
the kinds of reactions they have to these things. They can be used to represent people carrying
out actions that lead to no outcome through behavioural processes and they can represent states
through existential processes. They can also be used to give us access to the thoughts of some
people through mental processes or show others as speaking through verbal processes.
Verb processes most associated with agency are material processes. These are verbs where
there is usually some kind of material outcome. With regard to Tranter, we find that he ‘com-
mitted offences against children’. What is interesting here is that we are not told exactly what
his offences are nor the exact ages of his victims. We are not told what relationships he had
366 D. Machin and A. Mayr

Figure 6. View given of Mackenzies’ reaction and simultaneously her point of view (from Crimewatch,
BBC1, 29 March 2010).

with these women. This is deleted from the representation both linguistically and visually. The
significance of this is that exactly what he has done and to whom is not of importance. Also,
Crimewatch is more interested, linguistically, in what he might do in the future, which is used
to create a sense of the menace he constitutes. This is represented through lowered modality
in terms of ‘may’ and ‘could’:
may pose a risk
could re-offend
As Kitzinger (2004) points out, it is misleading to present the public with the view of a sexual
predator at large amongst us, when in actual fact sex offences have statistically been shown to be
for the most part carried out by people known to the victim.
What we do find in the Crimewatch clip are many more verb processes that point to Tranter’s
character and mental condition, what we may describe as an ‘overlexicalisation’:
Was not fazed
Was calm
Was relaxed
Was defensive
Knew the game was up
Thought he was above the law
Treated the police with contempt
Thought he was an Untouchable
Here, we find the relational verb processes ‘he was not fazed; was defensive/calm/relaxed’, and
mental verb processes, ‘knew the game was up’; ‘thought he was above the law’; ‘treated the
police with contempt’; and ‘thought he was an Untouchable’, used as evidence of his criminal
mind. ‘Calm’ and ‘relaxed’ appear as inappropriate for someone in such a position. We are
told of his arrogance, for example, when one of the detectives says that ‘he thought he was
an Untouchable’, although what this means is not explained, but is seen as evidence of his crim-
inal mind and fundamentally abhorrent nature. This is a usual feature of the way that the Crime-
watch presenters and the police describe criminals, by which they provide a moral assessment of
their character. As a regular discourse we find that rather than pointing to the connection of crime
to disadvantage, lack of education, and social exclusion or rather than placing crimes of a sexual
nature into a sociological context, crime is described in terms of the arrogance and contempt of
 Critical Discourse Studies 367

the criminal for the standards and values that ‘we’ stand for. While in the case of sex crime
poverty may not be itself an issue, arrogance and disregard are commonly presented as part
of the profile of offenders. In this sense, all offenders become subsumed under the same criminal
mentality.
Verb processes are used to overtly state that Tranter was certainly not a normal individual:
Is a strange individual
Left a big impression on people
It is clear we are being told how atypical the offender is and how easily identifiable he is as a
criminal. What is clear is that this is not so much about what this offender did but about his
mental state and the kind of person he is. On the one hand, this supports research in media
studies on the personalisation of crime (e.g. Jewkes, 2004). But what we are able to show
here is exactly how this is achieved through language.
We also find many ‘non-transactive’ material processes (Van Leeuwen, 2008), which are
used to give a sense of Tranter’s movements. These processes represent actions which have
no material outcome (e.g. the man walked).
Disappeared
Didn’t hang about
Seizing his chance
Went on the run
Fled Lancashire
Fled the country
Spending months on the run
Could flee
These verb processes are an important part of the narrative. Again, as research in media studies
points out, what is reported as crime must have some kind of dramatic component (Chibnall,
1977; Jewkes, 2011). And here we see clearly that much of the drama of the narrative is
created by the representation of Tranter going on the run. This is important for the corresponding
careful co-ordinated efforts of the police that we come on to next.
The verb processes used to represent the police are of two kinds. For the most part the actions
of the police are represented through material processes. It is they who are the agents in this
report. The clip begins with a more tabloid-style language through the Crimewatch voice-over:
Conduct a manhunt
Snare
But then there is a systematic list of procedural type verb processes:
Routine investigation
Brought into custody
Interview
Charge
Bail
Build a case
Try and locate
Circulate information
Work with insurance company
Concentrated their efforts
Contacted local police
Exhausted all their leads
Coordinated months of extensive enquiries
Most of these are transactive material verb processes which throw up clues and evidence.
Clearly, the police work on this investigation is busy, thorough and constant. Perhaps most
importantly, the account is given as being part of a typical police procedure. This is not the
368 D. Machin and A. Mayr

type of work that involves internal bureaucracy, individual initiatives, but rather is like a
machine that operates in an ‘exhaustive’ way, ‘concentrating efforts’, etc. Even where the
police are described as being unable to find Tranter, this is represented as being ‘unable to
track’ him. The police work here is about carefully co-ordinated procedures of tracking and
following leads and not about vindictiveness based on personal prejudice.
We found that much of the content of our sample emphasised these kinds of material pro-
cesses, where police, always personalised and acting as a team, carry out thorough and relentless
procedures. Just as the ‘evil’ strangers pose terrifying, random dangers, so the police provide an
‘objective’ and effective solution.
The other notable category of verbs representing police action are mental and relational
processes.
Knew he had connections
Suspected he was working in Slough
Concerned about
Feel nervous
Fear he could offend again
We were delighted
Some of these serve to indicate that the viewer is being given access to the inside details of police
procedure as in ‘we suspected’. But others importantly, by giving access to the internal world of
the police, indicate that they are also highly human. The younger detective tells the viewer that
he ‘feels nervous’ before Crimewatch is aired, whereas the more senior detective states he is
‘concerned’ about Tranter being on the run. So on the one hand the police are objective,
driven, organised and thorough, but on the other they are human and approachable.
Mental processes are also important for how the participants are represented. Those who are
made the subject of mental processes are constructed as the ‘focalisers’ or ‘reflectors’ of action.
We are given an internal view of them, which is a device through which the audience are encour-
aged to have empathy with these persons, serving to humanise them and to make us align with
them. Here, we are encouraged to align with the feelings and concerns of the police.
For Mackenzie, we also find mental processes that give a sense of her internal state pointing
to her certainty. We are told that she ‘instantly recognised Tranter’s face’, ‘knew something had
to be done’ and was ‘so glad’ she had been able to help. Van Leeuwen and Wodak (1999) stress
that reactions are one important addition in the recontextualisation of social practice. Concrete
details about actual processes, events and their outcomes may be replaced by evaluations and
we are given these for all of the participants shown in close-up. In this clip Tranter ‘thinks
he is an Untouchable’, the police are ‘concerned’ and ‘nervous’ and Mackenzie is ‘certain’
and ‘glad’.

4.4 Visual representation of transitivity

In the case of Tranter much of the visual representation communicates his internal states. We
find mental processes of glee as he evades arrest at the interview in the police station, and
close-ups of him wide-eyed as he packs his bags, as he smirks when the police have to
release him and finally as he is apprehended in the bar by Mackenzie. Most important is the
close-shot of his face as he is locked in the jail cell at the start and at the end of the sequence.
Here, we look down on him in terms of angle of interaction, which gives the viewer a sense of
power (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 1996). This is appropriate, as here we are invited to see how we
caught Tranter. In this shot, we see him in contemplation of justice as his arrogance finally meets
retribution. And here the circumstance, also an important part of transitivity analysis, finds
 Critical Discourse Studies 369

Tranter in a nineteenth century-style jail cell, connoting a harsh justice system. Importantly, this
is not represented linguistically.
Visually, we also see Tranter in material processes as he packs his bags and drives off
anxiously in his car, which is linguistically then defined as ‘going on the run’. Such scenes
could of course connote a range of other activities without the linguistic comment.
Here we get faster paced scenes, accompanied by ‘action’ music and split screens for dra-
matic effect, for example, where we see three different shots of Tranter loading his car. We
also find Tranter represented in terms of relational processes. He is shown with a sweaty face
in many scenes and as unsettled as he fidgets in the interview with the police. This supports
the police representational strategies that emphasise that he is a strange, and fundamentally
guilty, individual, even though at this point he had not yet been charged or convicted.
Linguistically, the police were represented as very busy with procedure. We also find this
sense of busy activity and carefully honed teamwork in the visual representation of social
action (see Figure 2). When Tranter goes on the run and the police are shown preparing for
public calls from Crimewatch, we see focused and dedicated people at work. They consult
maps and point at computer screens, although we do not visually see specifically the same
range of activities that are represented linguistically. While the police are taking calls, we
see split screens showing different kinds of action to signify a massive, search to collect
and co-ordinate information. Their actions suggest concentration, dedication, attention to
detail and a sharing of important information. In fact, as noted earlier, the police failed to
apprehend Tranter themselves, and Michelle Mackenzie, who saw Tranter on Crimewatch,
was unable to get through to the switchboard, so the first time the police knew of his arrest
was some time afterwards. Therefore, the police were not involved at any of these times.
But the representation of massive amounts of calls being taken and the police/Crimewatch
co-ordination is an important part of the way that the Programme communicates its public
interest role and the police are able to show themselves as uncompromising in their allocation
of resources and efforts. This is a common feature of our corpus, suggesting that an important
part of these ‘scripts’ of crime in society is the busy and thorough nature of policing. And what
we might note is backgrounded from this view of policing as detection is the important role
played by community police officers who work in impoverished communities to discourage
offending. Yet this model of policing is not publically favoured and is therefore seldom pub-
licised, even though it is known to be a more effective approach. Instead there is a preference
for harsher punishment of offenders.
Visually, the two detectives are also seen carrying out highly mundane activities. For
example, when the first detective is introduced we see him sipping tea and looking out of a
window thoughtfully. Later, we see him awoken in bed at home when he receives the news
of Tranter’s arrest in Spain and we see his astonished reaction. Both scenes help to ‘humanise’
the detectives and also points to their commitment. We also see one of the detectives getting off a
train in London as an indicator of far-reaching detective work being accomplished.
Seeing them doing trivial things has a more important role: it allows the viewer to see their
reactions. Reactions represent actors’ feelings, pleasures, fears, problems, etc. Here, we can
think of reactions in the sense described by Van Leeuwen and Wodak (1999) as an addition
that helps to evaluate the discourses the Crimewatch sequence realises. So these humanised
and committed detectives are shown not as vindictive but as quietly concerned and absorbed.
One looks out of a window, symbolically searching for Tranter. To some extent we can say
that visual close-ups not only individualise but also facilitate the realisation of such reactions.
Visually, we also see the reactions of realisation and horror on Mackenzie’s face as she
watches Tranter appear on Crimewatch (Figure 6). The viewer is able to see her reactions and
is also aligned with her viewing position in a second frame so that we can see the face of
370 D. Machin and A. Mayr

Tranter on her television screen. We see her contemplate for a moment and then get up from her
chair purposefully as she knows what to do. We see her call Tranter’s taxi company to lure him
to her bar. We witness her apprehend him physically and the repulsion and anger on her face as
she does so. What is important in this sequence is not only her actions but also her inner thoughts,
which are unambiguous and filled with a sense of duty and good citizenship. She hesitates only a
moment before rising from her seat. As with the representations of Tranter and the police,
McKenzie is both personalised through close-ups and naming strategies but also through
giving access to her inner mental state.
Circumstances are another important part of transitivity analysis. This is especially interest-
ing with regard to McKenzie, who is shown in a dark room with beams of intense white light.
Kress and Van Leeuwen (1996) argue that such reductions in the articulation of settings play an
important role in shifting representation away from a documentary role towards a symbolic one.
Clearly in this case the viewer does not puzzle over where McKenzie is depicted as sitting. But
the role of colour here, of the shadows and of the intense bright light, adds to the drama as it does
in the representation of Tranter in Figure 1. What is symbolised in Figure 1 is the threat and
menace of darkness and of shadows. This is part of the language of television drama and of
crime fiction (see Jermyn, 2007).

5. Conclusion
The literature on the representation of crime and policing in Media Studies and Criminology
has pointed to the ways that news and entertainment television may serve to foster public mis-
understandings, feed an atmosphere of mistrust and fear and also distract from other kinds of
crime that in fact create more cost and danger to the public. This treatment of a sex offender on
Crimewatch is part of a diversionary tactic, whereby criminals are constructed as fundamen-
tally different to consensual, mainstream society. In this article, we have looked at how we
can usefully think about this as the reontextualisation of a social practice, about how actual
participants, processes, circumstances and other elements of the ‘scripts’ of practices are
abstracted, deleted and substituted. What we have shown is that an analysis of linguistic
choices and visual representations allows us to reveal the subtle details of the recontextualisa-
tion process that creates the ‘scripts’ that justify retributive discourses. In these discourses
criminal types, isolated from the wider consensual society, are constructed as ‘evil’ other,
making it easier for politicians and the media to express punitive sentiments towards them.
The visual plays a significant role in substituting the complexities and possible roots of the
offender’s behaviour, representing him as sweaty, furtive and physically unappealing, some-
thing which could not be reasonably expressed linguistically in this context. Linguistically,
we are told that he is strange and arrogant and feels above the law – a sense that he is mock-
ingly contemptuous of the values and norms that the rest of us adhere to. This, in turn, cannot
be so easily conveyed visually. But together the two modes help to present offenders more in
terms of who they are and the threat they might pose, rather than through the actual crimes they
have committed.
Policing and punishment are represented visually though police staff working in front of
computer screens, pointing at maps and through footage of individual, worried detectives.
The same sense of punishment is conveyed through the darkly lit Victorian prison cell, pointing
to firm justice, but meted out by a thorough and personable system. While we do not actually see
this visually, linguistically we are given a long list of the tracking activities undertaken by the
police, even though this is not matched by a detailed account of the crimes committed by the
offender. We are also given lists of collective personal pronouns and of organisations that
connote a sense of coordination and professionalism.
 Critical Discourse Studies 371

In terms of transitivity, we find evaluation – a key dimension of recontextualisation –

through an emphasis on mental processes which serve to evaluate and to personalise
the discursive moves. These tell us that the offender is ‘arrogant’, that the police are worried
and that the member of the public who apprehends him is clearly committed to this discourse
of a harsh criminal justice system and to its values. So crime is not about the actual sections
of the public who are vulnerable, and sex offending is not something to be considered in
terms of the complexities of the mainly domestic nature of sexual abuse, but fundamentally
as an attack on the consensual values of the public. Common to these factual narratives is
police professionalism with officers operating dispassionately and shrewdly and outwitting
the offender who underestimates them – an important part of the substitution and addition
that takes place in the recontextualisation of crime-fighting, when seen in the light of prisons
being filled with the poorest and most disadvantaged in society.
In no sense would we want to underestimate what it is to become a victim of any sort of
crime, nor to mitigate the crime that in this particular example a sex-offender has committed.
But the manner in which this is represented, using the strategies we have documented in this
article, and the way that such incidents are given such salience over and above the danger
and threat that we face from corporate and institutional crime, serves to naturalise the fight
against crime as a simplified battle against evil in our midst. This turns attention away from
the real structural issues that often underpin crime, and also distracts from the actual sources
of danger in the case of sexual assault.
Given that crime and crime-fighting are closely connected to social inequalities and struc-
tural issues, consensual discourses that on the one hand ‘monsterise’ law-breakers and distance
them from law-abiding society and on the other humanise and professionalise the crime-fighters
will continue to play an important role in defending and justifying capitalism and hampering
more informed understanding of the nature of sexual offending.

Notes on contributors
David Machin is a Professor of Media and Communication at Örebro University. He has published widely
in critical discourse analysis and in multimodality in recent books such as The Language of crime and
deviance, Analysing popular music and The Language of war Monuments and in over 70 journal articles
and book chapters. He is a co-editor of the peer-reviewed journal Social Semiotics.
Andrea Mayr is a Lecturer in Modern English Language and Linguistics in the School of English at
Queen’s University Belfast. She publishes in multimodal critical discourse analysis. Among her books
are Prison discourse, Language and power, and The language of crime and deviance.

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