Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/30222
Title: Seeking Justice Elsewhere: Informal and formal justice in the true crime podcasts Trace and The Teacher's Pet
Contributor(s): Paquet, Lili  (author)orcid 
Publication Date: 2021-12
Early Online Version: 2020-09-14
DOI: 10.1177/1741659020954260
Handle Link: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/30222
Abstract: Following Carol Smart’s argument that feminists have reason to mistrust legal institutions and to seek justice elsewhere, this article suggests that contemporary Australian true crime podcasts offer women and their families alternatives to seek justice beyond formal systems. This article will examine the representation of women in two recent and popular Australian true crime podcasts that followed inconclusive investigations of murder cases. Trace (2017–2018) is a seven-episode true crime podcast by Rachael Brown for the ABC about the 1980 murder of Maria James in her Melbourne bookshop, where she lived with her two sons. The Teacher’s Pet by Hedley Thomas for The Australian is about the disappearance of Lynette Dawson from the northern beaches of Sydney in 1982, leaving behind her two daughters. Thomas explicitly accuses Dawson’s husband, former professional rugby player, Chris Dawson, of murdering her and disposing of her body. Both true crime podcasts represent women in ways that—while not always feminist—use the affordances of mass media to draw support from the public, effectively inviting the audience to perform as an alternate jury. In both cases, this jurified audience has then engendered changes in formal processes.
Publication Type: Journal Article
Source of Publication: Crime, Media, Culture: An International Journal, 17(3), p. 421-437
Publisher: Sage Publications Ltd
Place of Publication: United Kingdom
ISSN: 1741-6604
1741-6590
Fields of Research (FoR) 2008: 190402 Creative Writing (incl. Playwriting)
200102 Communication Technology and Digital Media Studies
200502 Australian Literature (excl. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Literature)
Fields of Research (FoR) 2020: 360202 Digital writing
470502 Australian literature (excl. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander literature)
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2008: 950203 Languages and Literature
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2020: 130103 The creative arts
130203 Literature
Peer Reviewed: Yes
HERDC Category Description: C1 Refereed Article in a Scholarly Journal
Appears in Collections:Journal Article
School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

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