Meaning-Making Through Narrative: Extending Narrative Analysis for Criminological Examination of Documentary Film

In this paper, I demonstrate how an understanding of narrative and the tools of narrative analysis can help criminologists unpack the techniques of meaning-making employed in media representations, including documentary films about imprisonment. Since media help to shape, though do not determine, public perceptions of crime and criminal justice, it is useful for criminologists to examine not just media content (i.e. what is said), but also how media constructions advance arguments that are presented as self-evidently true. Narrative structure offers one way for journalists to organize content in a persuasive and emotionally appealing manner and to embed arguments and interpretations within the story of what happened such that they appear to flow naturally and logically from the events themselves. Through a detailed examination of narrative structure, criminologists can better understand how the arguments and interpretations of mediated constructions are communicated and made to appear logical and persuasive. In what follows, Labov’s socio-linguistic narrative approach is adapted to illustrate the role that narrative structure can play in argumentation and, in this case, to facilitate analysis of two Canadian investigative documentaries about the widely publicized mistreatment and carceral death of a female prisoner, Ashley Smith.