Constructing the Knife Crime Epidemic: A Corpus-Assisted Critical Study of the Media Reporting

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The proposed research will reveal how the British media manipulate language to construct a distorted image of knife-enabled crime which has been shaping stigmatising attitudes towards young people and ethnic minorities, and generating support for punitive criminal justice policies. To identify key framing strategies in a representative dataset of media coverage, the research employs a Corpus-Assisted Critical Discourse Studies approach. Linguistic evidence is examined through the lens of Moral Panic Theory to uncover how the media is influencing public and political discussions on policing and crime legislation, and establishes marginalising associations between crime and vulnerablegroups affected by labelling practices.