Gli effetti sulla realtà di un genere narrativo: il True Crime

The true crime narrative genre by definition has a complex rela-tionship with the way we conceive of reality. True crime constructs at var-ious levels different characterizations of reality and what is considered real, particularly with regard to crime. It is a form of storytelling that acts on the beliefs that readers, listeners, and viewers may have about the world, the presence of evil, and their own principles of ethical evaluation of real-ity. In some cases true crime is performatively effective and acts on reality by strongly altering its perception, leading viewers to think they can act on reality itself. A particular subgenre of true crime has been identified referred to as New True Crime (Rickard 2023) that questions the very way in which criminal fact has been interpreted and judged. These are forms of storytelling that “jurified” the same audience, that seek to make it an active participant in the construction of judgment regarding the propriety of an investigation and conviction. To understand the narrative forms of the New True, the two true crime docu–series, The Staircase (2004) and Making a Murderer (2015), will be considered as exemplary cases of this subgenre.