%0 Journal Article
%T What¡¯s the deal with ¡®websleuthing¡¯? News media representations of amateur detectives in networked spaces
%A Adam George Thomas Lynes
%A David Wilson
%A Elizabeth Yardley
%A Emma Kelly
%J Crime, Media, Culture
%@ 1741-6604
%D 2018
%R 10.1177/1741659016674045
%X This article explores websleuthing, a phenomenon widely discussed and debated in popular culture but little-researched by criminologists. Drawing upon a review of existing literature and analysis of news media representations, we argue that websleuthing is much more diverse than previously thought. Encompassing a wide range of motives, manifestations, activities, networked spaces and cases, websleuthing has a variety of impacts upon victims, secondary victims, suspects, criminal justice organisations and websleuths themselves. We conclude that websleuthing is the embodiment of true crime infotainment in a ¡®wound culture¡¯ (Seltzer, 2007, 2008) and as such, is deserving of more criminological scrutiny than has been the case to date
%K Amateur sleuths
%K digital vigilantism
%K infotainment
%K networked media
%K websleuthing
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1741659016674045