Power and responsibility: Media, law enforecement, and criminal justice ideology in 'The Amazing Spider-Man'

Citizens' beliefs about the pervasiveness and seriousness of crime as well as their understanding and support of governmental efforts to alleviate social problems are greatly shaped by their exposure to news and popular media. Most important for the study of criminal justice is understanding how criminal justice ideology is perpetuated by the dominant social, economic, and political forces of a given milieu. Like other easily consumable cultural media, comic books, particularly the superhero genre, reflect and shape American cultural tastes. This power to affect cultural consciousness has tremendous implications for public knowledge of crime and the criminal justice system.; As such, the current study focuses on one of the most popular superhero comic books, The Amazing Spider-Man, to explore how this modern mythology has interpreted and communicated criminal justice ideology through its construction of "the Nexus of Power and Responsibility," or the triangulation of the theme of power and responsibility through portrayals of Peter Parker/Spider-Man, the media, and law enforcement. The selection of Spider-Man was based on the popularity this character has enjoyed since his inception in the early 1960s and his subsequent meteoric rise as a licensing phenomenon that has proliferated across all major forms of popular media, including two record-breaking major motion pictures. Considering the character's popularity, the Nexus of Power and Responsibility must have significant effects on audience perceptions of morality, crime, and the efficacy of criminal justice response. This study explores how criminal justice ideology is constructed through the theme of "power and responsibility" as personified by portrayals of Peter Parker/Spider-Man, media representatives, and law enforcement officers. An examination of three "eras" within the history of the Spider-Man mythos reveals the construction of a consistent "slightly counter-hegemonic" criminal justice ideology. In other words, The Amazing Spider-Man legitimizes the due process and law enforcement functions of the criminal justice system, but clearly suggests that such legitimacy largely depends on how responsibly the criminal justice system exercises its power.