This chapter explores criminological insights into homicide and its representation in mainstream media. It is important to explore these realities and representations as they help form the contextual landscape of the cases that are considered in this book. It is tempting to think of perpetrators like Derek Medina, Randy Janzen and Amanda Taylor as aberrations who are fundamentally different from the rest of us. It is also tempting to make sense of their social media posts in relation to the crimes they committed as simply another manifestation of their transgression, one more thing that marks them out as deviant, criminal and ‘other’. However, these individuals have lived out their lives in the same world as us. Prior to committing homicide, they have obtained information about this type of crime and consumed it in the same way that the rest of us do – through mediated representations. Prior to committing homicide, their knowledge of this type of crime is highly likely to have been shaped by listening to the same news stories, watching the same dramas, documentaries and films, reading the same novels and true crime books and engaging with the same social media platforms as the rest of us. They did not live in a vacuum. Before they were killers – and indeed afterwards – they were ‘prosumers’ (Ritzer and Jurgenson, 2010) of mediated representations of homicide, as we all are. Therefore an appreciation of the nature of this context is essential if we are to develop a deeper insights into what they did with media around the homicides they committed. This chapter will begin by exploring criminological insights into homicide, addressing questions of definition, scale and nature. Thereafter, the author will identify the key themes and perspectives that emerge around the intersection of homicide and media to explore how criminologists have made sense of homicide in media in terms of what emerges as important as well as what is missing from such analyses.

Homicide

In its very broadest sense, homicide refers to the unlawful taking of a life, to which a range of penalties applies based on the extent of culpability and intention. Legal penalties vary from one jurisdiction to the next.