True crime: Tales for women living in high-crime and low-crime areas

The true crime genre has gone from a ‘guilty pleasure’ to a cultural phenomenon. And while these stories often recount horrific happenings of women suffering from violent crimes, studies show that women overwhelmingly consume more true crime media than men. This is paradoxical, given that research also shows that women fear violent crimes more than men do, despite the latter being more likely to become victims. But while research focused on the paradox of women’s attraction to the genre exists, there is a gap of knowledge on how fundamentally different levels of risk of victimization influence women’s engagement and discourses in relation to the true crime genre. This research therefore explores how women from high-crime areas in Mexico and low-crime areas in the Netherlands make sense of their consumption of true crime media, as well as how their lived experiences shape their narratives. To achieve this, two focus group interviews with Dutch women and two with Mexican women between the ages of 24 to 36 years old were conducted and then analyzed through thematic narrative analysis in order to analyze group identity while preserving individual stories. Results show that while the narratives from women from both groups presented similarities in the way they interacted with the context, engaging in sensationalistic and voyeuristic discourses, the differing levels of crime within their countries did provide some demarcated differences in terms of how the degree to which these stories increased their fear and how they coped with the negative emotions generated by their consumption. It can therefore be concluded that the social context of the women, particularly the level of crime in their county, does have an impact on how they engage with true crime content. As well, while heavy exposure to stories of crime does have an influence in their perceptions of risk, and in their moral panic reactions, the degree to which they perceive themselves likely to be victimized is influenced by how often they are exposed to local crime reports.