“This is what a 13-year old girl looks like”: A feminist analysis of To Catch a Predator

Abstract

Through archival research and an intersectional thematic analysis, this paper examines three key episodes of early-2000s sensation To Catch a Predator and situates them within crime media and journalism literature. The paper analyzes themes of journalistic integrity and the subjugation of women and girls by a television program that claimed to use the former to stop the latter. Based on the analysis, To Catch a Predator engages in forensic journalism as demonstrated by the treatment of women and girls as bait, claims of ownership over women and girls’ bodies, lack of nuance in reporting, and the liberties taken in their journalistic practices. Ultimately, this paper shows how To Catch a Predator acts as a spectacle of vigilantism, by creating the child pornography it claims to fight and by glorifying punishment, contributing to the ongoing moral panic around child exploitation.

Keywords

crime media feminism forensic journalism historical methods journalism moral panic To Catch a Predator

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Adler

(2011) To Catch a Predator. Columbia Journal of Gender and Law 21(2): 532–560.

Albrecht

Brydum

(2013) Why don’t you have a seat? ‘To Catch a Predator’ and a new repressive hypothesis. Journal of Communications Media Studies 5(1): 9–25.

Baines

(1998) Effacing rape in early modern representation. ELH 65(1): 69–98.

Benedict

(1992) Virgin or Vamp: How the Press Covers Sex Crimes. Oxford University Press.

Best

(1999) Random Violence: How We Talk About New Crimes and New Victims. University of California Press.

Bleakley

(2021) Panic, pizza and mainstreaming the alt-right: A social media analysis of Pizzagate and the rise of the QAnon conspiracy. Current Sociology. Epub ahead of print 29 July 2021. DOI: 10.1177/00113921211034896.

Bock

(2021) Seeing Justice: Witnessing, Crime, and Punishment in Visual Media. Oxford University Press.

Breen

Easteal

Holland

, et al. (2017) Exploring Australian journalism discursive practices in reporting rape: The pitiful predator and the silent victim. Discourse & Communication 11(3): 241–258.

Brooker

(2008) Charlie Brooker’s screen burn. The Guardian, 31 May. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2008/may/31/features16.theguide6 (accessed 18 April 2022).

10.

Brownmiller

(1975) Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape. Bantam Books.

11.

Chammah

(2017) The return of “To Catch a Predator.” Talking to Chris Hansen as he revives his trademark stings. The Marshall Project, 22 January. Available at: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2017/01/22/the-return-of-to-catch-a-predator (accessed 18 January 2021).

12.

Cohen

(1972) Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers. Psychology Press.

13.

Daly

Curtis-Fawley

(2005) Restorative justice for victims of sexual assault. In: Heimer

Kruttschnitt

(eds) Gender and Crime: Patterns in Victimization and Offending. New York University Press, pp.230–265.

14.

Davis

(2016) Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement. Haymarket Books.

15.

Del Rosario

(2022) ‘Undercover underage’ renewed for season 2 by discovery+. Deadline. Available at: https://deadline.com/2022/03/undercover-underage-renewed-season-2-discovery-1234986079/ (accessed 15 April 2022).

16.

Douglas

(2016) Doxing: A conceptual analysis. Ethics and Information Technology 18(3): 199–210.

17.

Edwards

Esposito

(2020) Intersectional Analysis as a Method to Analyze Popular Culture: Clarity in the Matrix. Routledge.

18.

Finkelhor

(2020) Trends in adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in the United States. Child Abuse & Neglect 108: 104641.

19.

Finkelhor

Saito

Jones

(2015) Updated Trends in Child Maltreatment. Crimes Against Children Research Center, University of New Hampshire, p.2013.

20.

Fischel

(2016) Sex and Harm in the Age of Consent. University of Minnesota Press.

21.

Garcia

Arkerson

(2017) Crime, Media, and Reality: Examining Mixed Messages About Crime and Justice in Popular Media. Rowman & Littlefield.

22.

Gerbner

(1972) Violence in television drama: Trends and symbolic functions. Television and Social Behavior 1(1): 28–187.

23.

Hall

Critcher

Jefferson

, et al. (1978) Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State and Law and Order. Palgrave Macmillan.

24.

Hamilton

(2016) Democracy’s Detectives: The Economics of Investigative Journalism. Harvard University Press.

25.

Hansen

(2006a) To Catch a Predator VI: Fortson, Georgia - Part 1. To Catch a Predator. 8. MSNBC.

26.

Hansen

(2006b) To Catch a Predator VII: Fortson, Georgia - Part 2. To Catch a Predator. 9. MSNBC.

27.

Hansen

(2007) To Catch a Predator: Protecting your kids from online enemies already in your home. Penguin Publishing Group.

28.

Hansen

(2015) I am Chris Hansen. You may know me from ‘To Catch a Predator’ or ‘Wild Wild Web.’ AMA. Available at: https://amatranscripts.com/ama/chris_hansen_2015-04-22.html (accessed 18 January 2021).

29.

Hayes

Abbott

Cook

(2016) It’s her fault: Student acceptance of rape myths on two college campuses. Violence Against Women 22(13): 1540–1555.

30.

Hughes

(2017) American monsters: Tabloid media and the Satanic panic, 1970–2000. Journal of American Studies 51(3): 691–719.

31.

Iyengar

(1994) Is Anyone Responsible?: How Television Frames Political Issues. University of Chicago Press.

32.

Jewkes

Linnemann

(2017) Media and Crime in the U.S. SAGE Publications.

33.

Katz

(1987) What makes crime `news’?. Media, Culture & Society 9(1): 47–75.

34.

Kosoff

(2018) “Just an ass-backward tech company”: How Twitter lost the Internet war. Vanity Fair, 19 February. Available at: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/02/how-twitter-lost-the-internet-war/amp?__twitter_impression=true (accessed 18 January 2021).

35.

Kovach

Rosenstiel

(1999) Warp Speed: America in the Age of Mixed Media. Century Foundation Press.

36.

Kovach

Rosenstiel

(2014) The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect, 3rd edn. Crown.

37.

Lavietes

(2022) ‘Groomer,’ ‘pro-pedophile’: Old tropes find new life in anti-LGBTQ movement. Available at: https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/groomer-pedophile-old-tropes-find-new-life-anti-lgbtq-movement-rcna23931 (accessed 15 April 2022).

38.

Leclerc-Madlala

(2002) On the virgin cleansing myth: gendered bodies, AIDS and ethnomedicine. African Journal of AIDS Research 1(2): 87–95.

39.

Levine

Meiners

(2020) The Feminist and the Sex Offender: Confronting Sexual Harm, Ending State Violence. Verso Books.

40.

Lutes

(2002) Into the Madhouse with Nellie Bly: Girl stunt reporting in late nineteenth-century America. American Quarterly 54(2): 217–253.

41.

Mancini

Barnes

Mears

(2013) It varies from state to state: An examination of sex crime laws nationally. Criminal Justice Policy Review 24(2): 166–198.

42.

Marwick

(2008) To Catch a Predator? The MySpace moral panic. First Monday 13(6). DOI: 10.5210/fm.v13i6.2152

43.

Matamoros-Fernández

(2020) ‘El Negro de WhatsApp’ meme, digital blackface, and racism on social media. First Monday 25(1).

44.

Mauro

(2012) I’m Casey, the female decoy from ‘To Catch a Predator’ NJ and KY. AMA! Available at: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/14mm10/im_casey_the_female_decoy_from_to_catch_a/ (accessed 18 January 2021).

45.

McCollam

(2007) The shame game: ‘To Catch a Predator’ is propping up NBC’s Dateline, but at what cost? Columbia Journalism Review, February. Available at: https://www.cjr.org/feature/the_shame_game.php (accessed 18 January 2021).

46.

Näsi

Tanskanen

Kivivuori

, et al. (2021) Crime news consumption and fear of violence: The role of traditional media, social media, and alternative information sources. Crime and Delinquency 67(4): 574–600.

47.

Office of the Governor (2006) CSI Georgia Targets Sexual Predators Intent on Harming Children. Press Release, 18 September. Georgia State Capitol. Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20060924205653/http:/www.gov.state.ga.us/press/2006/press1261.shtml

48.

Oldfield

McDonald

(2022) ‘I Am That Girl’: Media reportage, anonymous victims and symbolic annihilation in the aftermath of sexual assault. Crime Media Culture 18: 223–241.

49.

Pâquet

(2021) Seeking justice elsewhere: Informal and formal justice in the true crime podcasts trace and the Teacher’s Pet. Crime Media Culture 17(3): 421–437.

50.

Parry

(2013) Broadcasting Birth Control: Mass Media and Family Planning. Rutgers University Press.

51.

Pepper

(2004) Dangerous web with stone phillips. To Catch a Predator. 1. MSNBC.

52.

Rae

(2020) Trial by media: Why victims and activists seek a parallel justice forum for war crimes. Crime Media Culture 16(3): 359–374.

53.

Renfro

(2020) Stranger Danger: Family Values, Childhood, and the American Carceral State. Oxford University Press.

54.

Rogers

Stone

(n.d.) Ethics case studies: Who’s the ‘predator’? Available at: https://www.spj.org/ecs8.asp (accessed 17 April 2022).

55.

Salter

(2013) Justice and revenge in online counter-publics: Emerging responses to sexual violence in the age of social media. Crime Media Culture 9(3): 225–242.

56.

Seltzer

(2007) True Crime: Observations on Violence and Modernity. Taylor & Francis.

57.

Soderlund

(2013) Sex Trafficking, Scandal, and the Transformation of Journalism, 1885-1917. University of Chicago Press.

58.

Sreenivas

(2013) Sexuality and modern imperialism. In: Buffington

Luibhéid

Guy

(eds) A Global History of Sexuality: The Modern Era. Wiley Publishing, pp.57–87.

59.

Stabile

(2006) White Victims, Black Villains: Gender, Race, and Crime News in US Culture. Routledge.

60.

Stelter

(2007) ‘To Catch a predator’ is falling prey to advertisers’ sensibilities. The New York Times, 27 August. https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/27/business/media/27predator.html (accessed 17 April 2022).

61.

Thompson

(2004) The Penny Press: The Origins of the Modern News Media, 1833-1861. Vision Press.

62.

Thuma

(2019) All Our Trials: Prisons, Policing, and the Feminist Fight to End Violence. University of Illinois Press.

63.

Tuerkheimer

(2019) Unofficial Reporting in the #MeToo Era Law in the Era of #MeToo, vol. 2019. University of Chicago Legal Forum, pp.273–298.

64.

Valenti

(2009) The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession With Virginity is Hurting Young Women. Basic Books.

65.

Wangenheim

(2009) To Catch a Predator, are we casting our nets too far: Constitutional concerns regarding the civil commitment of sex offenders note. Rutgers Law Review 62(2): 559–598.

66.

Websdale

Alvarez

(1998) Forensic journalism as patriarchal ideology: The newspaper construction of homicide-suicide. In: Bailey

Hale

(eds) Popular Culture, Crime & Justice. Wadsworth Publishing, pp.123–141.

67.

Yagnik

(2012) Construction of negative images of menstruation in Indian TV commercials. Health Care for Women International 33(8): 756–771.

68.

Yousman

(2009) Prime Time Prisons on U.S. TV: Representations of Incarceration. Peter Lang Publishing.