Abstract
Criminology is undergoing a process of innovation and experimentation with the rise of social media. Although police have traditionally been the locus of legal enforcement, ordinary citizens are increasingly afforded opportunities to participate in crowdsourced investigations. In this article, we explore the emerging field of crowdsourcing criminology and its relationship to newsmaking criminology, public criminology, and the reshaping of news as infotainment (popular criminology). Drawing on a case study of a missing person named Emma Fillipoff, and our experience of involvement in the development of a television (TV) documentary dedicated to help finding Emma, we examine the process of crowdsourcing in practice and how it may oscillate between infotainment and public criminology inspired by academic evidence. Crowdsourcing criminology represents both a theoretical and an applied shift in our research focus and paves the way for a host of new projects that strive to reveal the strategies and techniques that define and characterize crowdsourced investigations.
Highlights
Criminologists are beginning to examine the internet in new and innovative ways, as well as analyze how traditional theories might be adopted to understand criminal interactions that take place in the online world
By examining the information that did not make it into the finished TV documentary, we provide a backstage glimpse into the tensions that exist between infotainment and newsmaking criminology
The shift during the production of the documentary from a crowdsourcing approach guided by newsmaking criminology to an infotainment approach resulted in the general public no longer being offered a meaningful opportunity to participate in Emma’s case
Summary
Criminologists are beginning to examine the internet in new and innovative ways, as well as analyze how traditional theories might be adopted to understand criminal interactions that take place in the online world. Online networks and digital technologies are providing members of the general public opportunities for civilian policing engagement whereby citizens participate in online crowdsourced investigations of crime cases (Huey et al, 2013; Powell et al, 2018; Trottier, 2014; Yardley et al, 2018). Crowdsourcing criminology represents a field of scholarship that examines the ways in which online communities and other sources of media provide ordinary citizens opportunities to participate in crowdsourced investigations. It involves the exploration and analysis of the strategies and techniques that define and characterize crowdsourcing in everyday practice. Drawing on Turner’s (2013) examination of the different styles of public criminology, we suggest that individuals undertaking crowdsourcing criminology projects should consider engaging in “informed and constructive deliberations (with each other and with the wider public)” and be open-minded about “the ‘value’ of different ways of representing, constructing, and knowing reality” (p. 163).
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