There are many avenues to explore in Australian true-crime podcasts, especially when incorporating the crimes themselves. This can include the media representation of the crime, the podcasts narrative and even the podcasts impact on the case. Crime podcasts hold the power to choose how they tell the complete story of the case, as the majority of the time the listeners have never heard of the case or its details as the story is often underpublicized and in need of public attention. The experience of listening to a new case is very unique, and many aspects of the podcast work together to form listeners’ opinions and thoughts around crimes.
Detailing, researching and exploring this experience of listening to a new case would be interesting for media ethnography. By incorporating personal experiences, online listeners’ reactions, media representation and even changes in the case, in order to understand the impact true-crime podcasts have. A new Australian true-crime podcast “The Night Driver” is about to be released, which has been surrounded with buzz as it is hosted by Hedley Thomas who also hosted the very popular and impactful “Teacher’s Pet”. Considering the timing of this release, it seems like a good opportunity to explore the impact of a true-crime podcast as the episodes are being released. A prospective audience for this would be fellow listeners of true-crime, in order to reflect on their personal experience with these particular podcasts and how podcasts shape their understanding of a case. This topic for media ethnography is a good opportunity to demonstrate how I am able to combine personal observation methods with research on a podcast’s surrounding impact.
Research Plan
My research plan will operate as an inductive analysis, as my niche does not yet have a hypothesis directing the research. I have used “Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation” and “An Autoethnography on Learning about Autoethnography” in order to direct the approach to my media niche plan.
“Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation” detailed that observers should be open to early impressions, as well as deciding what events to concentrate on prior to the observation. This has led me to plan to conduct prior research surrounding the Night Driver podcast including the media’s discussion of the case prior to the release of the podcast (may require the use of the Way Back Machine) in order to compare the effects true-crime podcasts have on media representation. By also deciding to observe the weekly release of episodes I will be able to focus on specific events. This resource also split observation tasks into separate categories which includes physical setting (podcast sites, news sites, discussion sites), participants (host, guests, journalists, listeners), activities and interactions (news stories released, discussion sites), conversations (structure of podcast episodes, interaction between host and guests, listeners reactions), subtle factors (editing of podcast, media releases) and your own behavior.
When exploring autoethnography, “An Autoethnography on Learning about Autoethnography” was useful in identifying six steps of heuristic inquiry, which has helped to shape how I will conduct my research plan. Initial engagement, immersion, incubation, illumination, explication, and creative synthesis will be used to explore Australian true-crime podcasts and the release of the Night Driver. By identifying a topic I am interested in and planning I have already entered the first step of initial engagement. Immersion will allow me to conduct my initial research on the case prior to the podcast release, which will all be documented on my laptop with screenshots of previous media coverage. Incubation will occur when the Night Driver begins to release its weekly episodes as I will be able to begin my observation process (as previously stated) which will include note taking of the episode itself and further research of online reactions such as paraphrasing online comments, theories and suggestions about the latest episode. Explication will occur when I have collected sufficient field notes and experiences that allow me to begin to form analyses and connections, which may surround the theoretical paradigm of media representation and impact. Creative synthesis will occur when I begin to create a digital artefact surrounding my media niche.
Research Schedule
These schedules indicate the times in which I would like to conduct different research tasks. Though this schedule may need to be reworked along the way, but this gives me a good outline of where I would like to be.
* B indicates the break weeks.
| Tasks | Start Day | Duration (Days) |
| Conduct prior research | 24/08/20 | 14 |
| Taking notes on episodes | 07/09/20 | 35 |
| Observing media response | 14/09/20 | 28 |
| Observe changes in case | 12/10/20 | 14 |
| Begin explication | 12/10/20 | 7 |
| Finalise theoretical paradigm | 26/10/20 | 19 |
Resources:
Merriam, Sharan B. and Tisdell, Elizabeth J. (2016) Being a Careful Observer, in Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation, Jossey-Bass: San Fransisco.
Wall, Sarah (2006) An Autoethnography on Learning about Autoethnography, International Journal of Qualitative Methods 5 (2).
Bees and Bells 