Frankie Raine’s dissertation looked at how perceptions of crime in the nineteenth-century were influenced by sensationalist literary and media representations, contrasting the depiction of men involved in the mid-Victorian garrotting panic, with those of female prostitutes accused of theft. She found that the impact of literary and journalistic depictions on public understanding was mixed, intersecting in a more complex way with on pre-existing gender and class expectations. Below, she describes her research process, and gives some tips for future dissertation students. Frankie’s supervisor was Professor Brad Beaven. The abundance of media sources detailing crimes and the criminals convicted of carrying them out has long been a cause of amusement and […]