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[Commlist] Call for Papers - True Crime conference
Fri May 14 15:09:15 GMT 2021
Call for Papers:
Investigating True Crime & the Media.
*A conference hosted by /Journalism@Newcastle/ and /Ethical Space/, /the
International Journal of Communication Ethics/. *
*23 June 2022 – Deadline for abstracts 29 October 2021*
**
**
*True crime*has a long and popular history in journalism, literature,
drama, radio, film and television – and now the podcast. /A warning for
fair women (1599), /the anonymous dramatisation of the 1573 murder of
London merchant George Sanders by his wife’s lover, was the
curtain-raiser for many more playwrights to adapt true murder narratives
in the decades and centuries that followed (Rohrer 2019). True crime
podcasts today clock up tens of millions of downloads (Punnett 2018) and
research suggests that the audience is overwhelmingly made up of
women(Boling and Hull 2018).Perhaps because of this, it is often
dismissed as ‘a genre of cheap paperbacks with little literary merit and
highly sensational, pornographic content (Rowen 2017).
But such perspectives are challenged by research which identifies a
focus on advocating for justice where the formal justice system has
failed (Rowen 2017). True crime podcasts represent women in ways that
‘use the affordances of mass media to draw support from the public,
effectively inviting the audience to perform as an alternate jury’ and
engendering change in judicial processes (Pâquet 2020). The sub-genre of
criminal biography uses the voice of the accused to challenge
institutional truth-claims (Buozis 2017) and journalistic investigations
repeatedly expose miscarriages of justice (Larke-Walsh 2021). Kelli
Boling (2019) argues thattrue crime podcasts are impacting the criminal
justice system in unprecedented ways and could challenge both criminal
justice and media reform. But proponents also areaccused of complicity
in the propagation and popularisation of narratives of female-directed
violence and the visualisation of mutilated female bodies(Greer 2017).
Erica Haugtvedt (2017) interrogates the range of ethical tensions which
emerge when, for example, the conventions of fiction are applied to
reportage, people become characters and factual narratives are developed
as plots. And a focus on particular types of criminal activity address
critical social issues of our day such as femicide (Mahadeen 2017); the
persecution of racial (Oliver 2003) and LGBTQ+ communities (Polchin
2019); human trafficking (Gregoriou 2018) and crimes against the planet
(Ruddell 2017). Case Punnett (2018) charts the theoretical landscape
that we might draw on – but much of the topography remains to be mapped.
*/Journalism@Newcastle/*– the journalism department at Newcastle
University, UK – and */Ethical Space/* invite papers for a global
conference: *Investigating True Crime & The Media*. Submissions are
welcome which explore its rise in popularity in recent years, shifting
perceptions and receptions, changing platforms, new understandings. To
be held at Newcastle University and online, June 23, 2022. Authors are
also invited to submit their papers to peer review to feature in a
subsequent winter 2022 special double edition of /Ethical Space/.
Submissions are open to researchers, PhD students, and practitioners
working in the field, and parity of esteem will be afforded to both
theoretically-driven and practice-related papers.
We particularly welcome submissions from diverse voices and nations and
regions beyond Western perspectives. The aims of the conference and
double issue are to explore current and emerging concepts, developments
and potential future trajectories of true crime narratives and
production from a global perspective.
Potential topics include, but are not limited to:
* Feminist perspectives (production, consumption, reception)
* Theorising the field
* Queer theory and true crime
* True crime in Africa, Asia, South America and the Pacific
* European perspectives and the Nordic Noir
* The rise of the true crime podcast and dedicated channels and platforms
* Ethical tensions
* Campaigning and investigative journalism
* Literary true crime – critical reception and unease
* Media reporting
* Representations of victimhood
* The accused and control of the narrative
* The writer’s mission
* Fictionalisation and negotiations of truth
* The commodification of fear
* Institutional failure and the quest for social justice
* True crime and a warming planet
* Commercial imperatives and the public interest
* The political economy of true crime
*Deadlines: *
Please submit abstracts of 500 words plus a 50-word biography to
(Barbara.henderson /at/ newcastle.ac.uk)
<mailto:(Barbara.henderson /at/ newcastle.ac.uk)>by Friday 29 October 2021.
Authors will be notified of the outcome by 19 January 2022.
PowerPoint presentations are acceptable for the conference on 23
June 2022, but full papers (5,000 words including references) for
publication in /Ethical Space/ Winter 2022 should be submitted by 31
August 2022.
*Works cited:*
Boling, K. S. and Hull, K. (2018) Undisclosed information – /Serial/
is my favorite murder: Examining motivations in the true crime
podcast audience, /Journal of Radio & Audio Media/, Vol. 25/, /No. 1
pp 92-108
Boling, K. S. (2019) True crime podcasting: Journalism, justice or
entertainment?, /Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast &
Audio Media/, Vol. 17, No. 2 pp 161-178
Buozis, M. (2017) Giving voice to the accused: Serial and the
critical potential of true crime, /Communication and
Critical/Cultural Studies/, Vol. 14, No. 3 pp 254-270
Greer, A. (2017) Murder, she spoke: The female voice’s ethics of
evocation and spatialisation in the true crime podcast, /Sound
Studies/, Vol. 3, No. 2 pp 152-164
Gregoriou, C. (2018) /Representations of transnational human
trafficking: Present-day news media, true crime, and fiction/,
Springer Nature
Hauhgtvedt, E. (2017) The ethics of serialized true
crime,//McCracken, Ellen (ed.)/The serial podcast and storytelling
in the digital age/, London, Taylor & Francis pp 7-24
Larke-Walsh, G. S. (2021) Injustice narratives in a post-truth
society: emotional discourses and social purpose in Southwest of
Salem: The story of the San Antonio Four, /Studies in Documentary
Film/, Vol. 15, No. 1 pp 89-104
Mahadeen, E. (2017) ‘The martyr of dawn’: Femicide in Jordanian
media, /Crime, Media, Culture/, Vol. 13, No.//1 pp 41-54
Oliver, M. B. (2003) African American men as ‘criminal and
dangerous’: Implications of media portrayals of crime on the
‘criminalization’ of African American men, /Journal of African
American Studies/, Vol. 7 pp-18
Pâquet, L. (2020) Seeking justice elsewhere: Informal and formal
justice in the true crime podcasts /Trace/ and /The Teacher’s Pet/,
/Crime, Media, Culture/
Polchin, J. (2019) /Indecent advances: A hidden history of true
crime and prejudice before Stonewall/, London, Icon Books
Punnett, I. C. (2018) /Toward a theory of true crime narratives: A
textual analysis,/ London, Routledge
Rohrer, M. (2019) 'Lamentable and true': Remediations of true crime
in domestic tragedies. /Early Modern Literary Studies/, Vol. 20, No.
3 pp 1-17. Available online at
https://extra.shu.ac.uk/emls/journal/index.php/emls/article/view/439/360
<https://extra.shu.ac.uk/emls/journal/index.php/emls/article/view/439/360>
Rowen, L. (2017) /True crime as a literature of advocacy/,
Bellarmine University, Kentucky
Ruddell, R. (2017) /Oil, gas, and crime: The dark side of the
boomtown/, Springer
.
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