O Modus Operandi do True crime: Uma análise do Podcast mais popular do Brasil

Resumo (EN)

This thesis investigates true crime and its expressions of narrative codes described by Punnett (2018), focusing on how such conventions manifest in the Brazilian podcast landscape. The Modus Operandi Podcast was selected as representative of the genre, analyzed through theme, narrative structure, and expressive patterns. In examining the broader context of true crime, the study discusses its origins, the transformations the genre has undergone over the decades, and the influences that contributed to the consolidation of a Brazilian variant capable of producing a format such as Modus Operandi Podcast. Beyond identifying the genre’s expressive features, the research considers the specificities of the Brazilian reality, examining how, in addressing “real” crimes, the podcast reveals both forms of violence recurrent in the true crime tradition and structural forms of violence characteristic of Brazil. The analysis thus identifies a genre that tends to foreground gender-based violence as its central theme. At the same time, the podcast format proves to be a fertile space for the formation of listener communities that find in it a symbolic environment of support and protection in the face of such violence. Theme and uses the podcast format as an excellent means of creating communities that, when marginalized, find spaces to protect themselves from such violence and to talk about it with no judgment. The genre gained popularity during and after the Covid-19 pandemic, which explains a search for cathartic feelings after trauma and grief stemming from a solitary moment that was experienced collectively. This partly explains the significant increase in such productions, which are dealt with trauma, violence, and overcoming adversity, as well as grief and discontent with trusted social institutions such as the police, justice system, and the government. The result is an ambiguous genre that seeks to critique gender violence and against oppressed social groups, but ends up excessively exposing the victims, who are real people and are once again used merely as characters in a modern fable, an urban legend.