What’s the deal with ‘websleuthing’? News media representations of amateur detectives in networked spaces

Yardley, Elizabeth and Lynes, Adam and Wilson, David and Kelly, Emma (2016) What’s the deal with ‘websleuthing’? News media representations of amateur detectives in networked spaces. Crime, Media, Culture, 14. pp. 81-109. ISSN 1741-6590

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Abstract

This article explores websleuthing, a phenomenon widely discussed and debated in popular culture but little-researched by criminologists. Drawing upon a review of existing literature and analysis of news media representations, we argue that websleuthing is much more diverse than previously thought. Encompassing a wide range of motives, manifestations, activities, networked spaces and cases, websleuthing has a variety of impacts upon victims, secondary victims, suspects,
criminal justice organisations and websleuths themselves. We conclude that websleuthing is the embodiment of true crime infotainment in a ‘wound culture’ (Seltzer, 2007, 2008) and as such, is deserving of more criminological scrutiny than has been the case to date.

Item Type:	Article
Identification Number:	10.1177/1741659016674045
Dates:	Date Event 2 September 2016 Accepted 1 November 2016 Published Online
Subjects:	CAH15 - social sciences > CAH15-01 - sociology, social policy and anthropology > CAH15-01-02 - sociology CAH15 - social sciences > CAH15-01 - sociology, social policy and anthropology > CAH15-01-03 - social policy CAH15 - social sciences > CAH15-01 - sociology, social policy and anthropology > CAH15-01-04 - anthropology CAH15 - social sciences > CAH15-01 - sociology, social policy and anthropology > CAH15-01-01 - social sciences (non-specific)
Divisions:	Faculty of Business, Law and Social Sciences > College of Law, Social and Criminal Justice
Depositing User:	Adam Lynes
Date Deposited:	28 Mar 2018 08:52
Last Modified:	11 Jun 2024 12:50
URI:	https://www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/id/eprint/5750

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