#TrueCrime: Digital Culture, Ethics and True Crime Audiences

This book offers the first book-length study of user-generated, social media-based true crime content. The book considers the large and varied true crime community, outlining their at times contradictory needs and desires, from those who wish to partake in acts of sleuthing and fannish behaviours, to those who seek spaces to articulate marginalised opinions and challenge ethically problematic practices. The collection is divided into three sections: "The Ethics of Watching and Doing," which concerns the ethical pitfalls of true crime content on social media; "Participatory Culture," which deals with the acts of participatory culture that define not only contemporary true crime fandom but also nearly all digitally-based fan activities; and "True Crime Communities," which considers the enthusiasts who both consume true crime and seek out others online to share their interests. This book will appeal to those researching the true crime genre, fan practices, contemporary social media usage and the ethics of screened representation.

Dr Simon Hobbs is a Senior Lecturer in Visual Culture at the University of Portsmouth, UK. His research areas include true crime, extreme art cinema, fandom, and material culture. He is the author of Cultivating Extreme Art Cinema: Text, Paratext and Home Video Culture (2018). Dr Megan Hoffman is an independent scholar. Her research interests include crime fiction, true crime, popular culture and gender studies. She is the author of Gender and Representation in British 'Golden Age' Crime Fiction: Women Writing Women (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).