[Commlist] CFP: #TrueCrime: Digital Culture, Ethics and True Crime Audiences

Call for papers


Chapter proposals for edited collection #TrueCrime: Digital Culture, 
Ethics and True Crime Audiences


Proposals due by Thursday 1st February 2024.

The hashtag #truecrime currently has 50.7 billion views on TikTok and 
1.3 million posts on Instagram. Reddit’s ‘True Crime Forum’ boasts over 
2.6 million ‘detectives’, and the most-watched true crime videos on 
YouTube achieve in the region of 30 million views. Elsewhere, true crime 
fans flock to X (formerly known as Twitter), Tumblr and Facebook to join 
growing communities of like-minded enthusiasts. This level of social 
media activity—which ranges from acts of liking, sharing and commenting 
to posting original content such as reaction videos, true crime-themed 
makeup tutorials and scathing critiques of the genre's more troubling 
aspects—is of little surprise. As Tanya Horeck (2019, 130) suggests, 
true crime plays upon viewers’ affective responses in order to heighten 
their interest in and consumption of stories. Audiences’ increasing 
sense of participation and their conviction that they can play a vital 
role in effecting meaningful social change is, Horeck notes, 
characteristic of true crime outputs shaped by online media networks in 
the digital era.

Much scholarship has focused on long-form modes of storytelling in the 
professionalised sectors of the true crime industry. Fewer, however, 
have considered the user-generated productions that circulate on 
platforms such as TikTok, YouTube and X. In the mainstream media, the 
ethical pitfalls of the low-threshold styles of content creation that 
typify social media true crime have made headlines due to the activities 
of digital sleuths, many of whom are also aspiring true crime 
influencers (Kircher and Hampton, 2021). One of the best-known examples 
of such problematic armchair detecting occurred with the social media 
frenzy surrounding the disappearance of #vanlife micro-influencer Gabby 
Petito in 2021, with TikTokers poring over Petito’s social media 
accounts, focusing on minuscule details and perpetuating endless 
speculation as to her whereabouts and her fate. Bethan Jones notes that 
the actions of these social media users blurred ‘the lines between 
websleuthing and fandom, and the increasing treatment of the [Petito] 
case as a fictional narrative puts true crime fandom on the cusp of 
appropriate and inappropriate behavior’ (2023, 176). Yet, as we have 
argued elsewhere (Hobbs and Hoffman, 2022, forthcoming), social media 
also has the potential to offer true crime consumers and producers 
alternative avenues of expression that are both individually empowering 
and potentially genre-changing. The same low thresholds that allow for 
conjecture and conspiracy also afford audiences space for critique and 
analysis. The accessibility of social media apps has provided new voices 
with room for expression and recognition, and, to that end, there has 
been a substantial increase in visibility for true crime content 
creators who are themselves survivors of crime and/or who are from 
historically marginalised groups underrepresented in the wider true 
crime genre. The range of user-generated materials available also 
affords consumers access to content that aligns with their personal, 
political and cultural preferences in ways unimaginable before the 
advent of digital media.

Editors Simon Hobbs (University of Portsmouth, UK) and Megan Hoffman 
(Independent Scholar) invite submissions for a peer-reviewed edited 
collection to be proposed for Palgrave’s ‘Fan Studies’ series. We are 
looking for chapters of 6000-8000 words on true crime’s presence on any 
major social networking website, and we particularly welcome pieces that 
focus on the ethical implications of such outputs.

Possible subjects may include, but are not limited to:


  *

    The ethics of true crime content on social media

  *

    Regulation and censorship of true crime content on social media

  *

    Social media true crime narratives in a post-#MeToo culture

  *

    Social media sleuthing

  *

    The true crime influencer as internet personality

  *

    True crime fan communities and consumption practices on social media

  *

    The role of true crime fan production on social media

  *

    The use of social media by crime victims and survivors

  *

    Social media as a space to share true crime stories from
    marginalised voices

  *

    True crime-related activism on social media

  *

    Social media as a platform for criticising true crime genre conventions

  *

    True crime genre hybrids on social media (‘true crime and…’)

  *

    Gender and social media true crime

  *

    Race and social media true crime

  *

    Doom scrolling and true crime

  *

    The role of subcultural capital, likes and shares in social media
    true crime

  *

    The representation of social media use in other true crime narratives


Deadlines


Please send proposals of up to 500 words, plus a short biography of no 
more than 100 words including your name, affiliation and professional 
email address, to *(truecrimeaudiences /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(truecrimeaudiences /at/ gmail.com)>* by Thursday 1st February 2024. 
Authors will be notified of the outcome by Thursday 29th February 2024. 
Full chapters will be 6000-8000 words in length.


References


Hobbs, Simon, and Megan Hoffman. Forthcoming. “It’s Not All R@p!s+$, 
M!rd3r3r$ and Ki!!3r$: True Crime Activism on TikTok.” In True Crime and 
Women: Writers, Readers, and Representations, edited by Lili Pâquet and 
Rosemary Williamson. Abingdon, England; New York, NY: Routledge.

Hobbs, Simon, and Megan Hoffman. 2022. “‘True Crime and . . .’: The 
Hybridisation of True Crime Narratives on YouTube.” Crime Fiction 
Studies 3, no.1: 26-41. https://doi.org/10.3366/cfs.2022.0058 
<https://doi.org/10.3366/cfs.2022.0058>.

Horeck, Tanya. 2019. Justice on Demand: True Crime in the Digital 
Streaming Era. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.

Jones, Bethan. 2023. “Forensic Fandom: True Crime, Citizen Investigation 
and Social Media.” In True Crime in American Media, edited by George S. 
Larke-Walsh, 163-79. Abingdon, England; New York, NY: Routledge.

Kircher, Madison Malone, and Rachelle Hampton. 2021. “Did True Crime 
Influencers Really Help Solve The Death Of Gabby Petito?.” Slate, 
September 22, 2021. 
https://slate.com/culture/2021/09/gabby-petito-tiktok-interview-icymi.html 
<https://slate.com/culture/2021/09/gabby-petito-tiktok-interview-icymi.html>.


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