[Commlist] Call for Papers - True Crime conference

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

    .

---------------
The COMMLIST
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier. Please use it responsibly and wisely.
--
To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit http://commlist.org/
--
Before sending a posting request, please always read the guidelines at http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
URL: http://nicocarpentier.net
---------------