| Jones, Bethan 2026. School shooter fanfiction as true crime content: making the case for fan creations as legitimate modes of production, consumption and understanding. Hobbs, Simon and Hoffman, Megan, eds. #TrueCrime: Digital Culture, Ethics and True Crime Audiences, Palgrave Fan Studies, Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 93-116. (10.1007/978-3-031-99390-9_6) |
Abstract
Early work in fan studies deliberately focused on the positive aspects of fandom to counter the negative stereotypes circulating in the media. Over time, however, the field has recognised that fannish spaces can also be sites of hatred, toxicity and other, darker, emotions. Recent work is beginning to tackle these issues and while academics are examining the role of podcasts, documentaries, docudramas and social media in producing, consuming and understanding true crime, fan creations are underexplored. This chapter undertakes a content analysis of true crime fanfiction posted to Archive of Our Own and argues that it can function as a form of resistance to dominant cultural narratives while sitting alongside the cultural productions expounding those narratives. I argue that fans write fanfiction about school shooters and mass killers as a way to recontextualise and understand their motives and behaviours, blurring the lines between fact and fiction in order to gain a deeper knowledge of why these events happen and how they may be avoided in future. In this respect, I argue that fanfiction is as much a legitimate cultural production as podcasts or true crime documentaries and despite its ‘amateur’ status deserves to be given the same theoretical consideration as other modes of producing and engaging with true crime content.
| Item Type: | Book Section |
|---|---|
| Date Type: | Publication |
| Status: | Published |
| Schools: | Schools > Journalism, Media and Culture |
| Publisher: | Palgrave Macmillan |
| ISBN: | 9783031993893 |
| Last Modified: | 13 Jan 2026 10:15 |
| URI: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/183826 |
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