Serial Podcast and Storytelling in the Digital Age

This volume analyzes the Serial podcast, situating it in the trajectory of other popular crime narratives and contemporary cultural theory. Contributors focus on topics such as the ethics of the use of fiction techniques in investigative journalism, the epistemological overlay of postmodern indeterminacy, and the audience's prolific activity in social media, examining the competing narrative strategies of the narrators, characters, and the audience. Other topics considered include the multiplication of narratives and the longing for closure, how our minds work as we experience true crime narratives, and what critical race theory can teach us about the program's strategies.

List of contents

Introduction: The Unending Story

[Ellen McCracken]

1. The Ethics of Serialized True Crime: Fictionality in Serial Season One

[Erica Haugtvedt]

2. Sounds Authentic: The Acoustic Construction of Serial’s Storyworld

[Jillian DeMair]

3. Narrative Levels, Theory of Mind, and Sociopathy in True-Crime Narrative—Or, How Is Serial Different from Your Average Dateline Episode?

[David Letzler]

4. The Serial Commodity: Rhetoric, Recombination, and Indeterminacy in the Digital Age

[Ellen McCracken]

5. "What We Know": Convicting Narratives in NPR’s Serial

[Sandra Kumamoto Stanley]

6. The Impossible Ethics of Serial: Sarah Koenig, Foucault, Lacan

[Ryan Engley]

7. Serial’s Aspirational Aesthetics and Racial Erasure

[Charli Valdez]

About the author

Ellen McCracken is Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the Program in Comparative Literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA.

Summary

This volume analyzes the Serial podcast, situating it in the trajectory of other popular crime narratives and contemporary cultural theory.

Product details

• Authors: Ellen McCracken, Ellen (University of California Mccracken
• Assisted by: Ellen McCracken (Editor), McCracken Ellen (Editor)
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.12.2019
• EAN: 9780367887179
• ISBN: 978-0-367-88717-9
• No. of pages: 118
• Series: Routledge Focus on Digital Media and Culture
• Subjects: Guides; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; Social sciences, law, business > Social sciences (general); Media Studies, Popular Culture, LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Journalism, LITERARY CRITICISM / Semiotics & Theory, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Media Studies, PERFORMING ARTS / Radio / History & Criticism, PERFORMING ARTS / Storytelling, Reportage, journalism or collected columns, COMPUTERS / Design, Graphics & Media / General, Graphical and digital media applications