Madeleine McCann, the British girl who vanished as a three-year-old from her family’s holiday apartment in Portugal in 2007, was back in the news recently as yet another person claimed to be her. It’s a phenomenon fuelled by social media - in 2020 a TikTok trend emerged in which women uploaded images to compare themselves to Madeleine.
The latest claim was quickly debunked by police, but it raises an interesting question: why do some cases stick in the public consciousness? What generates the ongoing engagement and interest?
Put this into the context that two people under the age of 18 go missing every hour in Australia. That’s 48 every single day.
