In today's media landscape, the consumer has a wide variety of choices. One salient genre that has grown in popularity over the past decade is true crime. A genre that previous research has shown is popular with the female audiences. As the media can play a very important role in women's lives, both consciously and subconsciously, this is a phenomenon worth investigating. By analyzing the primary audience and trying to understand how they themselves perceive, use and discuss true crime, we can create a clearer picture of how true crime meets different kinds of needs of the female individual. As true crime is a genre that depicts real crimes and in many cases serious crimes committed against women, it is an interesting element in a mediatized world where new research is flourishing to create an understanding of how both common and unusual phenomena are constantly appearing on streaming services, social media, in podcast formats and other media-based forums. Using a qualitative methodological approach, we conducted a user study based on the empirical findings of six in-depth interviews with women who themselves have a keen interest in true crime. The analysis is also based on a deep dive into previous research on the phenomenon of women's interest in true crime, morbid curiosity and a theoretical framework consisting mainly of uses and gratification but also underpinned by morbid curiosity. For the analysis, a thematic analysis scheme was used in order to explore whether there are more factors that create the interest of the female true crime audience than what has been shown in previous research. The participating female true crime users described how they use true crime as a mental preparation and survival strategy. It also became clear how these women use true crime as a form of therapy to process their own experiences they either had to go through themselves or things that have happened around them. What also became clear was the complexity regarding the morbid curiosity and fascination for the perpetrator and the crime was paralleled by a reverence and compassion for the victim while they identified with the story on different levels. This user study aims to provide a broader understanding of true crime audiences as a phenomenon in the media world, partly to understand the purpose of users, but also to be able to reflect these factors in order to raise awareness among media producers of various kinds in order to meet the needs of the market.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-119003 |
| Date | January 2023 |
| Creators | Billmark, Julia, Björk, Johanna |
| Publisher | Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för medier och journalistik (MJ) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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