Playing their own private detectives: digital witnessing, forensic fandom and true crime narratives

Jones, Bethan and El Madawi, Stephanie 2025. Playing their own private detectives: digital witnessing, forensic fandom and true crime narratives. Gies, Lieve, ed. Trial by Media: Participatory Justice in a Networked World, Palgrave Studies in Crime, Media and Culture (PSCMC), Springer Nature, pp. 163-187. (10.1007/978-3-031-80593-6_7)

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Abstract

On 27 January 2023 a missing person alert was raised for Nicola Bulley, a woman who disappeared after dropping her daughters off at school. Lancashire Constabulary issued an appeal for anyone who may have seen Nicola or had any information about her disappearance, but within days social media was rife with videos and posts speculating not only about Nicola’s disappearance but her home life and her relationship with her partner. This chapter examines the intersections between forensic fandomand digital witnessing. Jason Mittell identified forensic fandom as a ‘mode of television engagement encouraging research, collaboration, analysis, and interpretation’ (Mittell, J. (2009a). ‘Sites of Participation: Wiki Fandom and the Case of Lostpedia.’ Transformative Works and Cultures 3. http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/118/117.) requiring viewers to ‘dig deeper, probing beneath the surface to understand the complexity of a story and its telling’ (Mittell, J. (25 February 2009b). To Spread or To Drill? Just TV. https://justtv.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/to-spread-or-to-drill/.). Although initially referring to narrative storytelling such as Lost or Battlestar Galactica, forensic fandom clearly has applications to true crime fans who use social media platforms to highlight, share and interrogate moments within the larger crime and its context to establish the motive, circumstances and ultimately perpetrator. We argue that social media users co-opted Lancashire police’s appeal for information as a form of proxy digital witnessing. TikTokusers positioned Nicola as a protagonist within a true crime story, using data they ‘uncovered’ to craft a narrative in which they also played central parts, ultimately interfering with the resolution of the case and parasitic perpetuating a true crime narrative which doesn’t actually exist.

Item Type:	Book Section
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Journalism, Media and Culture
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Publisher:	Springer Nature
ISBN:	978-3-031-80592-9
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	23 April 2025
Last Modified:	11 Jun 2025 08:45
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/177860

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