Workshop of the AG Fernsehen of the GfM and the media studies Regensburg
University of Regensburg
Room: BioPark 1 | BIP 1.0.09 (Navigation: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/29122845#map=18/48.996220/12.097911 (externer Link, öffnet neues Fenster) (external link, opens in a new window)
28.- 29 May 2026
Organisation: Jana Zündel(zuendel(at)tfm.uni-frankfurt.de) (opens your email program); Kim Carina Hebben(kim.hebben(at)tu-dortmund.de) (opens your email program); Christine Piepiorka(christine.piepiorka(at)gmx.de) (opens your email program) and Herbert Schwaab(herbert.schwaab(at)ur.de) (opens your email program)
Description of the
True Crime is a cultural form with close ties to the history, technology and aesthetics of television. It perfectly embodies the surveillance nature of the medium. True Crime not only activates viewers by calling on them to fight crime in formats such as Aktenzeichen XY Ungelöst since the 1960s, but also turns them into media actors themselves with camcorder and later smartphone recordings. Images from surveillance cameras and other documentary material such as photos of evidence, interrogation recordings, court transmissions and re-enactments of crimes are inscribed directly into the televisual forms. In this way, they contribute to the popularisation of punitive fantasies as part of a new crime culture - especially in the USA, which is characterised by law and order ideologies. However, true crime not only provides hybrid images and narratives of television, but can also be understood, as Deborah Jermyn notes in her study on Crimewatch UK (2007), as a medium for processing a fear of crime and violence felt primarily by women. At the same time, true crime is part of a wound culture described by Mark Seltzer (2007), which refers to profound injuries, irritation and fears in society.
The 2026 annual workshop of the AG Fernsehen, "True Crime, Television and Media", will deal with the diverse connections between crime, mediatised crime investigation and television. In recent years in particular, these have experienced a new boom in elaborate true crime formats from streaming platforms such as Netflix, while retaining their ties to classic television formats and aesthetics. Viewers' activities now take the form of "web sleuthing", creating a fan culture fascinated by forensics (Rothöhler 2021) that needs to be critically analysed. The expansion of these audience-side media practices and the 'genre' of true crime to include podcasts, which are based on television narrative styles (e.g. the first successful podcast Serial by Sarah Koenig from 2014) and became popular in the 2010s, points to complex transmedia interdependencies between television, online platforms and social media, which Tanja Horeck (2019) has identified as an effective producer of affects and the circulation of content . True crime may have always been a rather marginal and problematic culture, but with its popularity on television and streaming portals and the complex interplay with podcasts and other platforms of digital culture, it is increasingly moving to the centre of our media culture.
Programme
28. and 29. Mai 2026
THURSDAY, 28 MAY 2026
13:00-13:30 Welcome
Organisational matters
Christine Piepiorka, Kim Hebben and Jana Zundel (spokespersons for the television working group)
Impulse: Monitoring and punishment... on YouTube and TikTok
Herbert Schwaab (Regensburg)
13:30-14:00 Criminology and True Crime
Reality Check: True Crime
Tabea Ding et al. (University of Regensburg, Chair of Criminal Law and Criminology)
14:15 - 14:30 Break
14:30 - 15:30 Panel I: Forensics of crime and social issues
Bloodstain analysis vs. true crime podcast: Forensic Media Practices in DEXTER and DEXTER - NEW BLOOD
Melanie Mika (Tubingen)
Reassessment, Reinterpretation, New Rendering. Social (re-)contextualisations in fictional true crime series
Jan Weckwerth (Gottingen)
15:30 - 15:45 Break
15:45 - 17:15 Panel II: Crime and knowledge effects
Between enlightenment and voyeurism. Ripperology and the problematic productivity of true crime
Chiara-Marie Hauser (Vienna)
Monitoring Uncertainty. On the epistemic structure of true crime
Raphaela Tkotzyk (Dortmund)
Between Enlightenment and Sensationalism: On the Society Function of True Crime TV Formats
Constanze Schliwa (Hamburg)
17:15 - 18:00 Tatort changeover
18:00 - 19:30 cinema screening
THIS SHOW IS NOT A GAME - THE UNHEIMLICHE WORLD OF EDUARD ZIMMERMANN (Regina Schilling, D 2024)
Film Gallery Regensburg
20:00 Dinner together
FRIDAY, 29/05/2026
9:00 - 10:00 Panel III: Web Sleuthing and Viewer Investigation
From Viewers to Investigators: Audience Participation in Turkish True Crime Talk Shows
Zeynep Tuna (Frankfurt/Berlin)
Hurtful Images - On Media Transitions, Archivalness and True Crimes Legitimisation Structures
Julia Wilms (Koln)
10:00 - 10:15 Break
10:15 - 11:00 Workshop on the DfG project: "Web Sleuthing. Media practices of criminally investigating amateurs"
Web Sleuthing and televisual aesthetics. Forensic artefacts, serial forms and activated viewers in true crime
Anne Ganzert (Marburg)
11:00 - 11:15 Break
11:15 - 12:15 Panel IV: Suspicions and conspiracy narratives
Cascades of suspicion. Never-ending case studies in digital true crime formats
Jan Harms (Dusseldorf)
True crime and political commentary on YouTube
Fabian Kling (Mainz)
12:15 - 12:30 Break
12:30 - 13:30 Panel V: True Crime in odd places
Crime scenes. True guilt in fictional crime
Gal Hertz (Jerusalem)
"Who is the Masked Man?" - On the connection between professional wrestling and true crime
Oliver Kroner (Dusseldorf)
13:30 - 14:00 Final discussion