Media evidence and forensic journalism

Abstract

This essay engages with the question of surveillance and evidence by considering the use of media forensics in journalistic storytelling. The use of video evidence and other data derived from surveillance systems to assemble investigative news results in a documentary form of what Thomas Levin (2002) calls surveillant narration—a tendency in cinema to treat surveillance thematically while at the same time incorporating it into the structure of the narration itself. If using surveillance as the structure of journalistic narration seems like a natural fit, it is for its aesthetic effect as much as its evidentiary value. Forensic journalism is emerging as one site where media forensics becomes formalized as a product of popular consumption and sense-making, taking its place alongside forensic-themed reality television and fictional crime dramas like CSI, as much as real forensic investigations and legal proceedings.