The press and Ashley Smith : power, knowledge, and the production of truth about a death in custody

Abstract

This research project examines the production of power and knowledge within print media representations of the Ashley Smith case. Smith was a teenager from New Brunswick who killed herself in a Canadian federal prison under the direct observation of seven prison guards. I analyze five regional newspapers and one national newspaper to provide an analysis of how the case was constructed in the news over a five-year period. I incorporate Michele Foucault’s concepts of discourse, power, and resistance, along with Stanley Cohen’s theories on “states of denial”, to explain how knowledge about the case was manufactured, interpreted, and circulated by the press to create three “regimes of truth” about Smith’s death in custody over time: accidental death, preventable death, and unnecessary death. I argue that the government deployed a vocabulary of denial of which the media became increasingly skeptical. Their strategies to evade accountability contributed to continuities and discontinuities in the sourcing and framing of the news, where accounts from above could more easily become discredited and challenged by accounts from below. Ultimately I demonstrate how and to what effects the media was able to define Smith’s death, and provide a deeper understanding of the relationship between news discourse, news sources, and the exercise of power and resistance.