Lifestyles & entertainment talon Volume 12 Issue 4
T
rue crime documentaries and series have made a big boom in entertainment. Market research group Civics Science asked people about their experiences with true crime television and documentary series, and according to the data, 62 percent of the respondents were interested in true crime. Sophomore Maggie Ferney is interested in true crime and thinks it’s entertaining to watch. “I think that it’s making a big comeback,” said Ferney. “I also think that people are just a lot more cynical now, so we kind of enjoy learning about it more.” Civic Science also found that in 44% of the respondents who were interested in true crime television, Netflix stood out as the most popular platform for true crime entertainment. According to data and statistics researcher Stephen Follows, 41% of Netflix movies are documentaries. “I do most of my documentary watching on Netflix,” said Ferney. True crime has also been incorporated
into the schools English Language Arts curriculum. In ELA teacher Annie Garcia’s ELA II class, true crime is a part of the curriculum. She thinks it’s relevant to her students. “I
“
It’s been the unit students have been really interested in and really invested in so far this year, which is awesome.
,,
ELA Teacher Annie Garcia
think it’s a really cool addition in our curriculum this year as we do have a new English curriculum,” said Garcia. The goal of the unit was to introduce students to different information and how to discern informational from fictional
resources. “A lot of the resources that we tried to pull were from around this area, and some of my students had connections to those stories, which was really interesting,” said Garcia. “It’s been the unit students have been really interested in and really invested in so far this year, which is awesome.” International Baccalaureate Film Adviser at Central High School in Springfield, Missouri, Josh Cantrell also agreed and said that true crime TV is making a big comeback. “They engage the audience and make them interactive, putting pieces of the crime together themselves,” said Cantrell. He said people have always been exposed to the documentaries and they’ve become modern and relevant. “I think they are a part of our culture, no denying that,” said Cantrell. True crime television has made a big come back, and according to the people and statistics, it’s becoming more relevant in today’s culture. Written by Cassie Ford Photos by Sara AlmaNSOURI Graphics by Jenny Le
True Crime Popularity
Student Involvement with the true crime genre if students watched any true crime in the past month
52.1%
47.9%
from a survey of 167 students
17
How many true crime related shows students watched IN THE PAST MONTH
26.7%
23.3%
7% 16.3%
26.7%
from a survey of 86 students
