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We examined the construction of media reporting on the Meiwes 'cannibal' case where two consensual adults gratified fantasies resulting in the death, dismemberment and partial consumption of one. We found the media imposed a traditional but ill-fitting predator-prey frame, contributing to omissions relating to sexuality and death, the utilization of cultural 'Othering' and the presence of the defenses of intellectualization and humor; thus distracting us against anxiety from our own mortality. This study suggests the relationship between the British media and public in crime reporting is not passive but reciprocal: the media creates but also responds to public fantasies/desires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The post-9/11 United States abusive deten-tion and interrogation program brought atten-tion to the critical roles of health professionals generally and of psychologists more particu-larly in the modern administration of torture and other detainee abuse. Over a decade of controversy in the American Psychological Association (APA) and an independent in-vestigation finding APA collusion with the Bush administration's torture and coercive interrogation programs led to 2015 policies restricting the activities of psychologists in national security interrogations and illegal detention sites like Guantanamo. This con-troversy expanded to evaluation of a broader set of issues regarding the ethical roles of psy-chologists in furthering military and intelli-gence operations, or what has become known as Operational Psychology. Controversy over the extent to which Operational Psychology activities are consistent with psychological ethics has expanded since 2015 with critics calling for policies restraining Operational Psychologists from involvement in activities that cause greater than trivial unstipulated harm, lack informed consent, or are absent plausible independent ethical monitoring (due, for instance to security classification). Operational Psychologists have pushed back against any constraints on their actions other than US law and government regulations. This debate also raises a broader issue: are there limitations on the extent to which we, as members of democratic societies, can tolerate the use of psychological science and expertise to manipulate unwitting people?