Representation of Perpetrator Agency in True Crime Podcasts: a Discourse Analysis
Nyrhinen, Sassa (2024)
Nyrhinen, Sassa
2024
Englannin kielen ja kirjallisuuden maisteriohjelma - Master's Programme in English Language and Literature
Informaatioteknologian ja viestinnän tiedekunta - Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2024-05-10
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202404193888
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202404193888
Tiivistelmä
The purpose of this thesis was to study how true crime podcasts represent perpetrator agency linguistically. The aim was to gather information on how the podcast hosts represent perpetrators as either having high or low agency in the episodes that were studied. The importance of this study comes from a need to challenge the way how different groups are represented in the media, which is an essential topic of research in the field of discourse analysis. Crime and criminals are conventionally represented as deviant from society and requiring retribution. The agency representation was studied by examining what kind of linguistic constructions appeared in the data that might obscure agency, and if agency was more frequently explicit or obscured.
The data consisted of six episodes from six different true crime podcasts. The audio data was transcribed into text, and then annotated for the instances that represented some kind of perpetrator action. The representations of action were then further coded into different categories that carried features of different agency representations.
The examination of the linguistic constructions was carried out mostly by qualitative analysis. I also presented frequencies of the constructions that occurred in the data, as well as an initial corpus analysis on the verbs murder and kill. The qualitative analysis included a construction of a codebook, which consisted of two main categories – explicit agency and obscured agency – and their subcategories. The subcategories of obscured agency represented different syntactic constructions that have been previously stated to obscure agency linguistically. The subcategories of obscured agency representation were Nominalisation, Other Nominal Forms, Objectification, Passivated Social Actor, and passivisation. The subcategories of explicit agency were No Obscuring Agency and Reported Speech. The No Obscuring Agency category was also examined for the use of transitive and intransitive verb use.
The findings of the study were the following: the perpetrator action in the data was mostly represented as explicitly agentive. Most of the phrases representing perpetrator agency were active clauses that had no constructions that obscured agency. These phrases used mostly transitive verbs instead of intransitive verbs, which can assign the social actor of the text higher agency and influence on their environment. The speech of perpetrators was also represented notably often in the text, which can also make them seem highly agentive, as their speech is handled as evidence of the crime happenings.
The data included instances of obscuring agency, albeit in notably lower numbers than the explicit agency representations. In the instances where agency was obscured. the surrounding context often explained the use. Agency was mostly obscured in the beginnings of the episodes to perhaps build suspense, to bring forward the victim of the crime, or it was used when quoting the speech of defence attorneys in court. Some constructions might have worked to conceal some other social actors that had agency over the perpetrator, for example the police or the justice system.
In conclusion, the true crime podcasts seemed to represent perpetrators as highly agentive social actors who are fully responsible for the crimes they have committed. The hosts rarely attempted to obscure the agency of the perpetrators without some narrative goal to explain the use, or when they were not quoting defence teams’ speeches. These podcasts participate in the conventional crime discourse, which often treats criminals as deviant, and require harsh punishment for crimes without considering the societal factors that might lead to crime. This discourse analysis of true crime podcast language adds information on how crime is often construed in the media and allows the challenging of the conventional crime discourse.
The data consisted of six episodes from six different true crime podcasts. The audio data was transcribed into text, and then annotated for the instances that represented some kind of perpetrator action. The representations of action were then further coded into different categories that carried features of different agency representations.
The examination of the linguistic constructions was carried out mostly by qualitative analysis. I also presented frequencies of the constructions that occurred in the data, as well as an initial corpus analysis on the verbs murder and kill. The qualitative analysis included a construction of a codebook, which consisted of two main categories – explicit agency and obscured agency – and their subcategories. The subcategories of obscured agency represented different syntactic constructions that have been previously stated to obscure agency linguistically. The subcategories of obscured agency representation were Nominalisation, Other Nominal Forms, Objectification, Passivated Social Actor, and passivisation. The subcategories of explicit agency were No Obscuring Agency and Reported Speech. The No Obscuring Agency category was also examined for the use of transitive and intransitive verb use.
The findings of the study were the following: the perpetrator action in the data was mostly represented as explicitly agentive. Most of the phrases representing perpetrator agency were active clauses that had no constructions that obscured agency. These phrases used mostly transitive verbs instead of intransitive verbs, which can assign the social actor of the text higher agency and influence on their environment. The speech of perpetrators was also represented notably often in the text, which can also make them seem highly agentive, as their speech is handled as evidence of the crime happenings.
The data included instances of obscuring agency, albeit in notably lower numbers than the explicit agency representations. In the instances where agency was obscured. the surrounding context often explained the use. Agency was mostly obscured in the beginnings of the episodes to perhaps build suspense, to bring forward the victim of the crime, or it was used when quoting the speech of defence attorneys in court. Some constructions might have worked to conceal some other social actors that had agency over the perpetrator, for example the police or the justice system.
In conclusion, the true crime podcasts seemed to represent perpetrators as highly agentive social actors who are fully responsible for the crimes they have committed. The hosts rarely attempted to obscure the agency of the perpetrators without some narrative goal to explain the use, or when they were not quoting defence teams’ speeches. These podcasts participate in the conventional crime discourse, which often treats criminals as deviant, and require harsh punishment for crimes without considering the societal factors that might lead to crime. This discourse analysis of true crime podcast language adds information on how crime is often construed in the media and allows the challenging of the conventional crime discourse.