The entire bit lasts eleven seconds, and relies upon its audience to identify and contextualize, in that short amount of time, the rigidly repetitive structure of Dateline NBC's most successful series, "To Catch a Predator" ("TCAP").
In this article, we examine "To Catch a Predator" as an enduring media text that continues to circulate discursively in the milieu of contemporary popular culture.
The format for each episode of "To Catch a Predator" ("TCAP") is remarkably similar: McCollam (2007) offers a succinct recapitulation of "TCAP's" predictable structure:
She states, "The compulsive repetition within the narrative structure of 'To Catch a Predator' only cements a fear and moral panic around Internet sex and childhood victimization" (p.
The success of "To Catch a Predator" relies on precisely this possibility of the encounter made possible by interactivity.
My argument is that To Catch a Predator functioned as a realm of regulatory fantasy that served to restrict, produce, and fracture desire.
To Catch a Predator, a wildly popular network television series, netted would-be child predators in a sting operation and filmed them as they were caught and confronted on camera.
A major force in public policy, To Catch a Predator was also "ratings gold." (25) Indeed, it became a cultural phenomenon, the subject of everything from Saturday Night Live skits to college drinking games.
The lawsuit involved To Catch a Predator's responsibility for the suicide of one of its targets, a prominent Texas district attorney named William Conradt, who had chatted online with a Perverted Justice decoy pretending to be a teenage boy.
Thank you for Deborah Potter's excellent column regarding "To Catch a Predator" (Broadcast Views, August/September).
While I have watched "To Catch a Predator" with interest, I have felt an uneasiness about the concept which I didn't fully realize until I read your story.