Annotated Bibliography

Durham, Alexis M., H. Preston Elrod, Patrick T. Kinkade. “Images of Crime and Justice: Murder

and the True Crime Genre,” Journal of Criminal Justice, Vol. 23, No. 2, 1995, pp. 143-

152. https://doi.org/10.1016/0047-2352(95)00002-8

The purpose of this article by Alexis Durham et. al. was to analyze true-crime

documentaries and determine how accurately they represented the crimes they were

showing. They concluded through textual analysis that various true-crime books and

films distorted the truth of homicides that actual took place in America. The article warns

that this misrepresentation of crime in America could alter the audience’s perception of

homicide and its prevalence in society. In an effort to include all sides of the argue for

and against true-crime film, I want to include these authors’ research to build the side

against true-crime. I hope to continue the academic conversation of this article and

develop more research into the subject, which the authors point out is limited.

Egan, Kathryn Smoot. “The Ethics of Entertainment Television: Applying Paul Ricoeur’s Spiral

of Mimesis for Authenticity as a Moral Standard,” Journal of Popular Film and

Television, Vol. 31, No. 4, 30 Apr. 2013, pp. 158-166.

https://doi.org/10.1080/01956051.2004.10662049

Kathryn Smoot Egan, a professor of communications at Brigham Young University,

wrote this article to critique the morality and authenticity of various television programs

using Paul Ricoeur’s philosophy. She begins her article by explaining the influence

television producers have in altering the “reality” of their audience. Egan includes several

pieces from the creators of South Park, as well as Dick Wolf, producer of New York

Undercover. In a snippet of an interview Egan includes in her article, Wolf comments

 that the reason for the sudden increase in woman characters was to prevent the show from

being cancelled (163). She uses pieces like these to make the argument that more

superficial values, like ratings and revenue, matter more to producers than authenticity.

Using Egan’s article, I plan to criticize the creators of the shows I analyze and how their

films lack authenticity for the sake of entertainment. Though I may not include her actual

research, I would like to build on the conclusions she made about the entertainment

industry. Specifically, I want to use her critique on the values of the media when creating

these types of shows as an argument against true-crime media.

Fathallah, Judith. “Reading Serial Killer Fanfiction: What’s Fannish About it?” The Past,

Present, and Future of Fanfiction, Vol. 11, No. 3, May 2022 p. 65.

https://doi.org/10.3390/h11030065

Fathallah, a research associate at the Lancaster University Management School, wrote

this article to argue that “fanfictions” written about serial killers, like Ted Bundy, are

more about the culture of killers as celebrities, and less about the killers themselves. In

her research, she analyzed various fan fictions from websites like AO3, Tumblr, and

Wattpad. From these, she took different comments, both positive and negative and

discussed the difference in opinion from both sides of the community. While the purpose

of Fathallah’s article is to comment on the drive to create fan fiction out of serial killers,

she adds pieces that comment on the morality of writing stories based on real murders. I

plan to use parts of those comments in my research paper to highlight the disagreement

among members of the community surrounding these films to apply different

perspectives to my argument. I specifically plan to use Fathallah’s argument that rather

than creating empathy for Ted Bundy, a story she analyzed helped to put people in the
 shoes of his long-time girlfriend, bringing awareness to how she was manipulated and

abused. This gives me a more positive view surrounding this type of media.

Haggerty, Kevin D. “Modern Serial Killers,” Crime, Media, Culture, Vol. 5, No. 2, 2009, pp.

168-187. https://doi.org/10.1177/1741659009335714

Kevin Haggerty, a professor of sociology and criminology at the University of Alberta,

Canada, makes several arguments in his article, however the one I want to focus on is his

first one. Haggerty first argues that serial killers are a modern concept brought by mass

media, capitalism, and celebrity culture. Haggerty makes the claim that rather than report

the facts, the media is in the “celebrity-making business” (174). Because of this, he

argues that the media works to make serial killers famous. He uses the cases of Ted

Bundy and John Wayne Gacy to solidify his point, pointing out how they sought media-

attention and thrived off it. This article helps me in my own paper to argue the

consequences media exposure has on society’s perception of serial killers. I plan to use

Haggerty’s argument to point out the flaws in creating entertainment centered around

serial killers, specifically how it normalizes the concept and feeds into a culture that sees

serial killers as celebrity figures.

Jarvis, Brian. “Monsters Inc.: Serial killers and consumer culture,” Crime, Media, Culture, Vol.

3, No. 3, 2007, pp. 326–344. https://doi.org/10.1177/1741659007082469

Brian Jarvis, a senior lecturer in American literature and film at Loughborough

University, UK, wrote his article centered around the connection between consumer

culture and serial killers and why consumers are drawn to violence. Jarvis’s introduction,

which holds the most relevancy to me, begins with a brief history of the media’s coverage
 of serial killers, as well as some context into society’s “obsession” with serial killer

entertainment. He analyzes several serial killer texts, including Silence of the Lambs, to

argue consumerism’s connection with violence. While I don’t plan on using Jarvis’s

actual research, his comments on society’s views on serial killers throughout the past can

help add context to the beginning of my research paper. In particular, Jarvis points out the

vast number of both fiction-based and non-fiction films and series about different serial

killers and how that number has increased in recent years.

Jentzen, Jeffrey M. “Micro Disasters: The Case of Serial Killer Jeffrey Dahmer,” Academic

Forensic Pathology, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2017, pp. 444-452. https://doi.org/10.23907/2017.037

Jeffrey Jentzen, MD PhD, from the University of Michigan’s Department of Pathology,

studied the case of Jeffrey Dahmer in order to argue whether his crimes could be

classified as a "micro-disaster." In his article, he relays the facts of the case, including

photos of the crime scene. After breaking down the factors that went into Dahmer’s case,

Jentzen analyzed the reaction to the murders from both the media and law enforcement.

In his conclusion, Jentzen argued that because of the complexity of the crime scene as

well as the media allegations, the case of Jeffrey Dahmer classified itself as a micro-

disaster. Jentzen’s objective standpoint makes it especially relevant to my research paper.

I plan to use his case study as a way to compare how different communities write about

the same topic. I can compare how an academic writer would write about Dahmer’s case

to how a television producer would portray the same case and compare the accuracy.

McClellan, Janet. “Case Study: Ted Bundy, an Offender-Based Comparison of Murder

Typologies,” Journal of Security Education, Vol. 2, Num, 1, 14 Oct 2008, pp. 19-37.

https://doi.org/10.1300/J460v02n01_03
 Janet McClellan, a PhD candidate at North Central University, Arizona, conducted a case

study on Ted Bundy to compare his actions to the sexual homicide offender

classifications. In her study, McClellan analyzed Ted Bundy’s biographical information,

his victims, and his crime scenes. She then connected the significant facts of the case to

the theory of homicide classification by Keppel and Walter. The most relevant aspect of

McClellan’s article is her delivery of the information, rather than her actual research. In

every aspect of Ted Bundy’s case, McClellan delivers the facts with no bias. She includes

charts and lists of the victims and crime scenes without ever giving her own opinion or

dramatizing the case. I plan to use her article as a basis of how academic studies on serial

killers are communicated in comparison to the media’s delivery of the same case. I plan

to compare McClellan’s case study on Ted Bundy to the depiction of him in the

entertainment industry as a critique of his portrayal and to evaluate the accuracy of his

representation.

McCabe, Rachel. “Conversations With a Killer: the Ted Bundy Tapes and Affective Responses

to the True Crime Documentary,” Studies in Documentary Film, Vol. 16, No. 1, Feb

2021. pp. 38-54. https://doi.org/10.1080/17503280.2021.1874236

The purpose of Rachel McCabe’s article is to discuss the varying responses to the

documentary “Conversations With a Killer: the Ted Bundy Tapes” and how to they relate

to the positive and negative side of effects of true-crime documentaries. McCabe,

Assistant Professor and Director of Writing at La Salle University, first discusses the

release of the film from Netflix and its appeal to the modern audience. The most relevant

piece is the positive effect that McCabe argued the documentary had following the

#MeToo movement (40). She argues that the film brought awareness to the danger of
 white male privilege. McCabe also discussed the emotional tools that true-crime

documentaries use to attract viewers. McCabe’s argument centers around the idea that

“Conversations With a Killer” is an example of a true-crime documentary done right. Her

positive outlook is one that I want to include in my paper, specifically her views on the

social impact the documentary had. In contrast to a dramatic story of a serial killer,

“Conversations With a Killer” is thought to be a more accurate depiction of Ted Bundy,

which I want to include.

Morton, Phoebe. “Stylistic Choices in True Crime Documentaries: the Duty of Responsibility

Between Filmmaker and Audience,” Media Practice and Education, Vol. 22, No. 3, May

2021, pp. 239-252. https://doi.org/10.1080/25741136.2021.1925814

Phoebe Morton’s article argues the responsibility filmmaker’s have of transparency

around the stylistic choices of their films. Morton, who is studying Law and American

Studies as an undergraduate at the University of Sussex, analyzed different true-crime

documentaries to take note of their use of dialogue and emotion in attracting audiences.

She first argued that the use of photographic evidence in documentaries can be

misleading to audiences, giving them a false sense of the creators’ expertise (240). I plan

to use this particular argument to build upon the media’s ability to alter the truth through

their viewers. On the other hand, Morton also points out that by being transparent about

the making of documentary, filmmakers avoid manipulating the audience. She concludes

that documentaries that are transparent can be “just as influential in making changes in

the criminal justice system” without harming its audience (250). Morton’s belief in true-

crime documentaries’ ability to be a helpful tool in education is a different take that I

 want to include in my paper. I plan to use Morton’s ideas and apply them to the

documentary I analyze to determine if it meets her standard of transparency.

Oleson, J.C., and Tamara MacKinnon. “Seeing Saw Through the Criminological Lens: Popular

Representations of Crime and Punishment,” Criminology, Criminal Justice, Law and

Society, Vol. 16, No. 1, April 2015, pp. 35-50.

https://doi.org/10.1080/17503280.2021.1874236

The purpose of Olesen and MacKinnon’s article is to argue how the media skews the

public’s view of crime, serial killers, and psychopaths. They analyzed the seven movies

within the Saw franchise and determined what these films got right and wrong about

serial killers. Olesen and MacKinnon argue in the beginning of the article that these

forms of media misrepresent the reality of these types of crimes. They warn that these

films can give the audience an “inaccurate representation of crime” and lead to decreased

empathy towards victims (37). I found this section of their article to be the most relevant

to my research paper. While Oleson and MacKinnon analyzed a fictional franchise, as

opposed to a nonfiction, they come out with similar conclusions that I might make.

Through their research, they concluded that on one hand, the Saw franchise distorts the

idea of a serial killer. On the other hand, it also exposes readers to the elements of crime

and “conceptions of justice” (42). I plan to include both sides of their argument in my

paper to highlight the positives and negatives of this kind of media, specifically their

conclusions about what the audience can learn. With the addition of this article, I can

provide more than one view in the community.