Häxjakt, smutskastning och mord : en djupare inblick i True Crime gemenskaperna på Reddit och Websleuths

Sammanfattning: This thesis explores the communities surrounding true crime. This is explored in a qualitative manner, by studying four different communities surrounding criminal cases, as well as two interviews with people who consider themselves a part of the communities. The observations have been carried out on the forums: Reddit and Websleuths, as well as a chat-server on Discord. The aim of the thesis is to not only see how these communities work on these two forums, but also to find out how the community members interact with each other and what drives the members to engage in the community and with each other. The thesis showed that the communities differ alot between forums, and it is therefore hard to brand them as a single community. The Websleuth community appears more tightly knit, however it is also perceived by outsiders as more hostile. In comparison Reddit is more easily interactable and allows members to freely roam from subreddit to subreddit. The initial motivating aspect of members engagement seemed to be a need to contribute to the solving of an unsolved case, but also the satisfaction of justice being served. In the thesis it also became clear that many members relationships extends outside the online-communities and create “real life” friendships.