They Never Saw It Coming: Frames of Intimate Partner Homicide on Crime Scene Investigation (CSI)

Abstract Purpose While portrayals of intimate partner homicide (IPH) in news media have been extensively studied, research on depictions of IPH in television crime dramas has been largely absent despite the fact that crime-dramas have a wide audience and have been shown to have a significant influence on viewers’ social attitudes. Methods We conduct a thematic content analysis of portrayals of intimate partner homicide across four seasons of the crime-drama Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) and compare these depictions to research on common warning signs and patterns of IPH. Results Similar to research on news media, CSI depicts IPH in ways that neglects socio-cultural and structural factors that could help identify contributing causes and barriers to prevention such as the common history of abuse, the prevalence of firearms, and the higher vulnerability of certain groups (e.g., women, racial minorities, low-SES individuals). However, the fictional nature of CSI allows for unique strategies of framing such as neglecting cultural scripts related to emotions that are frequently used to excuse IPH, specifically men’s emotional attachments. Conclusions This research advances this area of research by employing system justification theory to help explain the use of these frames, a theoretical framework that has largely been neglected in this area. We examine a heretofore understudied media form, crime dramas, and highlight how portrayals of IPH reinforce existing societal systems, obscuring the role of cultural scripts in these offenses, and masking the extent to which certain actions, services and policies, such as shelters or gun control policies, can prevent IPH.