Update: please see the below Call for Papers for
updates on the Murder and True Crime in the Media conference, including
further details of our keynote presenters, and our conference website. This
conference is now free to attend and selected proceeding will be
published in an edited collection. The closing date for abstracts
is Friday 14th February (please email abstracts to maria.mellins@stmarys.ac.uk)
CFP: Murder and True Crime in the Media
Proposals
are invited for an interdisciplinary conference at St Mary’s University,
Twickenham on Friday 29th May 2020.
Book
your free place on our conference website:
https://www.stmarys.ac.uk/events/2020/05/true-crime-in-the-mediahttps://www.stmarys.ac.uk/events/2020/05/true-crime-in-the-media
New Confirmed Keynotes
Dr
Sarah Moore's research
is concerned with gender and risk, she has published work on media
representation of date rape and student beliefs concerning drug-facilitated sexual assault. Sarah is
the author of Crime and the Media (2014, Palgrave
Macmillan)
Dr Jane Monckton-Smith has published on interpersonal violence, stalking, coercive control, domestic abuse and homicide prevention. Jane is also the author of the Homicide Timeline - the 8 stages.
About
the Conference
Modern audiences demonstrate
an appetite for true crime,
and particularly stories that involve murder. Whilst public fascination
for true crime is not new, the genre has long dominated our
entertainment industries, from biopics, whodunnits, to gangster
films; interest in true crime is certainly renewed.
One reason for the resurgence of popularity
for true crime is Industrial. There is a recent influx
of new content available. Making a Murderer can be viewed
through the lens of Netflix and binge-watching, Sarah
Koenig’s Serial is closely linked to an increase
in podcast listeners. Extremely Wicked, Shocking Evil, and Vile and Mindhunter both
demonstrate the draw for well-known stars (such as Zac Efron) and
personnel (David Fincher) to this genre.
Where
there is scheduling, there is also a market. The people that ‘demand’ on
demand. Therefore, alongside these industrial contexts, there
are a number of wider factors involved in the surge of
murder content. Violent crimes, particularly murder, have ideal narrative
structures with a ready-made story arc, ‘social order is disrupted by a deviant
act, the guilty are sought and generally identified, and, finally, justice is
done or thwarted’ (Auden in Moore, 2014: 177). They are enigma narratives that
compel audiences to binge-watch the investigation so that they may finally
achieve satisfaction in the form of closure. Some narratives are
exoneration tales, using documentary as trial
spaces that jurify the public (Bruzzi, 2016),
others provide us with an opportunity to experience fear in a safe environment. David Altheide’s (2002) work
on fear and the news and Ulrich Beck’s (1992) on Risk Society demonstrates how
a perceived lack of control over our lives has led to a preoccupation with
safety and risk.
Through the consideration of murder in the press,
documentaries, films and novels, this
conference will interrogate the different representations
of true crime and how these can contribute
to important debates in contemporary culture and
society. For instance, can analysis into victims shed light on
the way that social groups are
constructed in the media, and
whether there is a process
of selection occurring? How can the study of
murder cases provide further insight into coercive control? How
might the representations of crimes vary, from knife crime,
organised crime, to
the glamorisation or even celebrification of some serial
killers? What are the ethical considerations
when producing murder content and how do platforms such as podcasts
and YouTube, pose issues of regulation?
Papers are invited from a broad range of disciplines
including Media, Film, Criminology, Sociology, Law. Some focal points
include (but are not limited to)
· The victims and/or survivors of
murder
· Serial killers and/or mass
murderers in the media
· Organised crime
and human trafficking
· Murder in the news
· Policing and the murder
investigation
· Domestic violence
· Coercive control
· True Crime trials – the use of
documentary and podcasts as an alternative ‘trial space’ to either exonerate
the falsely accused or announce culprits (and negotiations
in-between)
· The platforms and technologies
of true crime - Netflix, podcasts, YouTube, crime
binge-watching (extending to issues of regulation)
· The ethical considerations involved in
murder themed productivity
· Negotiating risk and fear
in true crime
· Cultivation theory
Abstracts
Please
submit a maximum 500-word abstract by Friday 14th February 2020 to Dr Maria
Mellins, maria.mellins@stmarys.ac.uk
St
Mary’s University, Waldegrave Road, Strawberry Hill, Twickenham. TW1 4SX.
For directions to St Mary’s and further information, please see our website.
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