Constructing ideal victims? Violence narratives in Finnish crime-appeal programming

Abstract

This article utilizes Nils Christie’s classic concept of the ideal victim and examines the ways in which crime-appeal programming contributes to the construction of social narratives of victims of violence. Its special focus is on techniques and victim-specific attributes that are used in the Finnish crime-appeal programme, Poliisi-TV, to define victims. The data comprise 21 violence vignettes, which are textually and visually analysed from the perspective of dramaturgy. These narratives represent victims of violence as either survivors or victims. The survivors are portrayed as heroic characters who have found inner strength to carry on with their lives after their victimization, while the victims are presented as depressed and traumatized, and their future is pictured as gloomy and unhopeful. The narratives mediate a strong picture of the hetero-normative nuclear family and the victims of violence represented in the programme are middle-aged, middle-class, financially well-off parents. Victims of violence who are outside the parameters of family, such as marginalized alcoholic men and particularly vulnerable victims, are completely missing from the footage. Some major differences among Finnish and Anglo-American media portrayals are pointed out, and internationally comparative crime media research is called for.