2nd Blog

Introduction

In my research project I am looking into how female serial killers are portrayed in the media. More specifically, I am looking at their portrayal in documentaries. I am using content analysis to analyze the themes that are present within 15 different documentaries to identify which are the most present. At the beginning, I identified 6 common themes that were present in portrayal of female criminals in other forms of media. This included the "Mad, bad, or sad" trope which all play into the idea that women are not capable of committing these crimes. "Mad" refers to the portrayal of the women as being mentally ill and not being in control of the crimes they commit. "Bad" refers to the idea that women who do this are purely evil and have no remore. "Sad" refers to the idea that women were completely impacted by their environment and that is why they commited the crime. All of these are meant to not give the women the autonomy that they committed the crime purely on their own. The next that I identified is the "sexually manipulative" stereotype which is where the women is shown as seducive where she lores in her victims. The next is "calculated" where the women is seen to be premeditative where she has everything planned out for when she will kill. The last is "context" where I simply look to see if they give background to the killer. After Identifying these, I moved onto data collection. Here, I have been taking note of every quote that represents one of these themes within a google document with a time stamp and a note of who said it and what their relation to the crime is.

Progress So Far

So far, I have completed data analysis on 10 out of 15 documentaries. I have identified the presence of all 6 stereotypes along with additional themes throughout my analysis so far. While most documentaries had 2-3 themes, I was able to find all 6 over the course of the 10 documentaries. So far, it has been easy to identify which quotes belong to which theme for a majority of them. In addition, I have been taking notes on visual portrayal of the female serial killers and have found a variety of different portrayals. Being over halfway through the data collection period, I am on track to complete my data collection before the end of the collection period. Overall, I will likely have statistical significance for the presence of multiple of these themes within true crime documentaries.

Challenges and Problem Solving

The first road block I faced was the details for how I will collect the quotes for my data. I originally planned on just taking note of the quotes within the specific theme on the table but realized I needed more specific data. Therefore, I shifted to including both specific time stamping in seconds and including the name of the speaker and their relationship to the crime. This will enable me to more specific in my data analysis later on to identify what is more statistically significant. While I am still deciding on how I will specifically analyze the data to identify significance, this change will make it much easier if I want to analyze the timing of each theme and if I want to analyze who is saying each theme. Another issue I ran into during the research process was selection of documentaries. Upon further research, I found that some originally selected documetaries covered murderers rather than the set definition of serial killers. Therefore, I shifted to collecting data specifically on that type of killer. Of all of the documentaries I I originally identified, exactly 15 of them contained true serial killers so I am still able to have the same sample size to analyze. This has allowed me to ensure my parameters are exactly met.

Collected Data Highlights

Significant findings have been the presence of extra themes in my data. A common theme in the extras has been the emphasis on the idea that the female serial killers didn't look like they could commit the crime. They often nickname them according to this idea as well. This is interesting because it often matches how they are visually portraying the female serial killers as well. It was also interesting because many of the documentaries discuss the rarity of having a female killer. In addition the "bad" stereotype has appeared often in the documentaries where they depict the killers as evil or ruthless. I found it interesting as well that context for the killers was included even though the sources I found stated that they had no context for the female killers. Overall many of the themes that I expected to be present are there, and there are many extra themes as well. I am noticing many patterns in the data I have collected so far.

Data Collection Table on google docs:

Documentary List on Google docs:

Reflection

So far, I have learned a lot about the research process. I have seen that running into roadblocks is part of the process and it is important to find ways around them and keep moving forward. Whilst it hasn't been a perfect route, I have been able to find interesting results that will help me make a conclusion at the end of the research process. I will still be able to have valuable data and results if I continue to move forward. I have also seen that I can get unexpected results that give me a new perspective on the portrayal of female serial killers. These results will be important in my data analysis because they can give unique and interesting information. Overall, I have learned that I can overcome challenges as a researcher and continue to push forward in my data collection.

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