Framing True crime. Forms, Representations, and Transmediality

editors Daniela Cardini, Diletta Cenni , Antonella Mascio and Andrea Bernardelli.

deadline: 15 October 2026

In recent years, true crime has emerged as one of the most pervasive narrative genres in contemporary media culture, circulating across television, streaming platforms, podcasts, and digital spaces (Punnett, 2018). Its current transnational prominence is closely tied to processes of serialization and transmedia expansion, which enable the continuous reconfiguration of criminal narratives across diverse formats, platforms, and audiences (Franks, 2016; Horeck, 2019). Yet, true crime is not solely a contemporary phenomenon; it is rooted in a deeper cultural genealogy that stretches back to early forms of serialized storytelling and longstanding practices of narrating crime and deviance (Biressi, 2001; Murley, 2008; Flanders, 2011).
Despite its cultural significance, true crime remains relatively underexplored and undertheorized. This issue aims to position true crime as a dynamic field of meaning-making, while also contributing to the definition and theorization of the genre through the analysis of its formal, narrative, and discursive configurations across different media and cultural contexts. From this perspective, the issue seeks to welcome contributions that, in addition to analyzing case studies, also propose methodological tools and interpretive models capable of accounting for the complexity of true crime as a serial and transmedia phenomenon.
Building on these premises, the issue explores several central questions, including: How do different media forms — from literature to television, from film to podcasts — contribute to defining true crime? Which methodological approaches and disciplinary perspectives prove most effective for analyzing a hybrid, transmedia, and culturally situated object such as true crime? How can one contribute to a more systematic theorization of the genre? How are the figures of the victim, the perpetrator, and the investigator constructed and negotiated across different cultural contexts, including in relation to representations of gender, family, and celebrity culture? In what ways do global formats come into tension with local narrative practices, giving rise to processes of adaptation, hybridization, and reinterpretation? Finally, how does true crime participate in shaping public discourse on crime, justice, and memory?
The issue pays particular attention (without being limited) to the following themes:
• the narrative and discursive configurations of true crime across different media (literature, television, film, podcasts);
• the methodological approaches and disciplinary perspectives most effective for analyzing a hybrid and transmedia object;
• the processes of defining and theorizing the true crime genre;
• the construction and negotiation of the figures of the victim, the perpetrator, and the investigator, including in relation to gender, family, and celebrity culture;
• the tensions between global formats and local narrative practices, and the processes of adaptation and hybridization;
• the participatory dimensions of contemporary true crime, including fandom practices, digital communities, and amateur investigative activities;
• the role of true crime in shaping public discourse on crime, justice, and memory;
• the ethical issues and legalinstitutional challenges posed by the true crime genre.
By incorporating contributions from different methodological and disciplinary perspectives, the issue aims to provide a more nuanced understanding of true crime as a semiotic and cultural phenomenon.
Submissions are accepted in English and Italian.