Forensic medicine in the “forensic media market”: Between information and sensation

Abstract

The “general public” is very interested in forensic medicine and as a result the discipline gets into the focus of the media market. Forensic scientists are increasingly providing insights into the reality of the discipline, e.g., in self-produced films on social media. This development (the “mediatization of German forensic medicine”) is a research subject in other disciplines. According to this, forensic medicine has a high “media capital”, which results from both the public interest in insights into the discipline itself and in its case work (true crime). The use of this capital with a commercialization of forensic case work that often includes images of deceased persons, raises questions about the limits of what is legally and ethically permissible. Legal questions relate in particular to the admissibility of using information or images obtained as part of an expert’s work for a presentation in (mass) media. From an ethical point of view, the commercial exploitation of the fascination of violence, the risk of an emotional overload of the audience when using images, and the degradation of deceased to “objects” are criticized, among other points. As the success of a format increases with the degree of sensational presentation, there is a risk of a slippery slope away from information to sensation. A primarily sensation-driven presentation is classified as problematic. The use of the media capital of forensic medicine has implications for the external perception of the discipline. Therefore, the mediatization of forensic medicine should not only be a topic of research and discussed within other disciplines, but also be the subject of a discourse within the discipline.