Web Sleuthing. Media Practices of Crime-Related Online Investigations

• Applicant: Dr. Anne Ganzert
• Subject Area: Theatre and Media Studies
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 544267474

The project delves into the intricacies of contemporary digital media practices known as Web Sleuthing, examining the media processes and cultural phenomena associated with it. It specifically centers on the activities of amateurs employing digital media to investigate, follow leads, solve cases, or locate missing individuals. Web Sleuthing serves various purposes of collaboratively solving problems and making the findings and practices accessible to other users and wider audiences. The applicant views web sleuthing as a pervasive media phenomenon, influencing private, public, legal, and political realms. The primary objective is to explore the collective (media) practices employed by users in searching for, disseminating, utilizing, editing, and processing content and information as part of their data work. The Emmy Noether Group aims to develop a comprehensive set of reflective and analytical tools, drawing from exemplary media analyses, innovative internet research, expert interviews and substantial theoretical frameworks. Media practices associated with web sleuthing encompass diverse activities, including data accumulation and visualization, adept social media engagement, exploitation of platform-specific data (e.g., geotagging information in images), AI-supported text and video analysis, image analysis and editing, and the digitization of analog media and large datasets. Specific instances can be observed in the search for missing persons within online forums or other criminological endeavors by users dedicated to solving crimes. The overarching goal of the project is to investigate and enhance our understanding of the digital practices and collective processes inherent in web sleuthing. To achieve this, the research will analyze media artifacts, communities, notable 'sleuths,' and their fictional representations. Three succinct sub-projects will scrutinize how the data work of web sleuthing generates, adapts, comments on, and processes information, examining how these data fragments garner credibility or attention in circulation. This circulation unfolds within platforms and communities and can be traced through conversation analysis and media ethnographic research. Moreover, the project will explore how media artifacts and communities permeate various (pop) cultural forms, with web sleuthing emerging as a contemporary trope in films, series, or games. The re-translations or re-mediatisations of these representations then transform into memes or media artifacts that circulate further. By comprehensively documenting these circular processes within digital cultures, the project contributes a crucial media studies perspective to the discourse on collective investigations, alternative truths, and everyday media practices.

• DFG Programme: Emmy Noether Independent Junior Research Groups