Breaking the Offender - The Representation of Criminals in TV Series

Abstract: Mass media play an important role in shaping public perceptions about differentthematics, including crime and justice. The consumption of mediatic contents indifferent forms, such as newspapers, television news and crime dramas, can affectthe way people perceive and interpret concepts as deviance and punishments, theattitude towards the criminal system and the level of concern for becoming a victim.In the last years, Streaming Videos On Demand platforms have made easier theaccess and the consumptions of contents as crime dramas; the changes in themodality of fruition have been followed by changes in the representation ofcharacters, with the introduction and the increasing diffusion of morally ambiguousfigures. This opens new possibilities of research, particularly regarding the modesof representation of criminals as antiheroes. The purpose of the article is then toinvestigate how the figure of the offender is constructed as antihero in four OriginalNetflix Productions (You, Narcos, Ozark, La Casa de Papel). A Critical DiscourseAnalysis of two narrative themes is conducted combining Marxist andPostmodernist interpretative approaches.