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Mugshots and Motherhood: The Media Semiotics of Vilification in Child Abduction Cases

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International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The Shannon Matthews case was perhaps unique in British criminal history. For a period of several days, a young girl of 9 years of age was missing from home. During this period there was an unprecedented amount of both police and media attention devoted to the case, including TV appeals for her safe return and offers of financial rewards for information leading to her recovery. Ultimately, it emerged that the mother of the child had conspired with the child’s uncle, who had kidnapped her and kept her captive throughout the period of supposed disappearance. This article uses a corpus of newspaper articles gathered from both the period of the search and subsequently the trial of both the mother and the uncle, which resulted in convictions for both. It examines the representations of all of the actors in this scenario, both visual and verbal, in an attempt to elucidate the ideologies inherent in the case and the ways in which the victim and perpetrators were portrayed throughout the dramatic period of her disappearance.

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Notes

  1. See ‘Shannon Matthews Timeline’, BBC News, June 16, 2010 at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7733586.stm.

  2. I focus on the visual semiotics of the Shannon Matthews case in an additional article, in preparation.

  3. A senior lawyer in the UK legal system.

  4. There is major psychological and criminological significance, impossible to pursue here, in the fact that the method of choice in many cases of maternal infanticide is drowning, along with suffocation.

  5. Madeline McCann is a three-year-old girl who went missing from a holiday resort in Praia da Luz in Portugal in May 2007. At the time of writing (July 2010), she has not yet been found. It is sincerely hoped that by the time this article is published, she will have been reunited with her parents.

  6. A full list of all article headlines may be found in “Appendix 1”.

  7. A slovenly character (unemployed, chain-smoking, overweight and heavily drinking living on benefits) in a comedy series by Harry Enfield.

  8. A low-cost supermarket, often used to categorise working class families.

  9. Adapted from the definition of 'Kitchen sink realism’ in Wikipedia at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_sink_realism.

  10. The Daily Mail describes Shameless as “a brilliantly scripted 'comedy' set in underclass Britain. Feckless fathers, drug abuse, teenage pregnancies—name any contemporary social will and Shameless shows it” (the Daily Mail, Allison Pearson: Shameless Britain isn't a comedy—it's a tragedy).

  11. The OED defines ‘chav’ as: “a young person, often without a high level of education, who follows a particular fashion…Chavs usually wear designer labels, and if they’re girls, very short skirts and stilettos” and awarded the term ‘Buzzword of the Year’ in 2004 (BBC News, at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3755564.stm).

  12. The winner of one of Simon Cowell's UK ‘reality TV’ talent competitions—The X Factor.

  13. It should be remembered that although Matthews was convicted of involvement in her daughter’s kidnap, there is no suggestion that Kate McCann is involved in her daughter's disappearance.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Language and Communication Research, Cardiff University, Cardiff, CF10 3EU, UK

    Janet Cotterill

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  1. Janet Cotterill
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Correspondence to Janet Cotterill.

Additional information

Documentary—‘Tears, Lies and Videotape’, broadcast on Channel ITV1, United Kingdom 18th May 2009.

Appendices

Appendix 1

See Table 1.

Table 1 Newspaper sources
Full size table

Appendix 2: Media Images of Kate McCann with ‘Cuddle Cat’ and Karen Matthews with Shannon’s Teddy Bear

figure a

Kate McCann with Madeleine’s ‘Cuddle Cat’

figure b

Karen Matthews with Shannon’s teddy bear at the police appeal

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Cotterill, J. Mugshots and Motherhood: The Media Semiotics of Vilification in Child Abduction Cases. Int J Semiot Law 24, 447–470 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-010-9199-0

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