The Dark Mafia: Organized Crime in the Age of the Internet
The ongoing story of the Mafia, and organized crime generally, continues to have great appeal both as phenomenon of interest to criminology and as a pop culture narrative. It has evolved along with technology—that is, from being glamorized by TV programs and movies in the pre-Internet era, to being seen as an everyday virtual establishment on Internet sites, whose story is now told not by Hollywood writers by in a fragmented fashion by social media memes. The Mafia’s mode of operations and its social imagery have changed drastically, especially after the Silk Road case. It has become a sort of urban legend in the minds of people, rather than the mythical entity of the past. But, as in the past, the Mafia and other organized criminal gangs continue to manifest a dynamic synergy between the image they have of themselves, the image that people have of them, and the effects of these images on their operations. Today, criminal culture is an adaptive culture, evolving in synch with the ever-expanding digital technologies, and using these not only to update its popular image, but also the ways in which it conducts its secretive operations. The course examines fundamental aspects such as globalization and new technologies, exploring new scenarios such as the deep and dark web, cryptocurrencies and communication through social networks and other instant messaging applications.