Indigeneity as transgression: Caitlin Elliott, You Will Be Punished: Media Depictions of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, MA Disserttion, Wilfrid Laurier University, 2016
Abstract: The following thesis focuses on media depictions of Canada’s missing and murdered Indigenous women, a list that carries upwards of 1,200 names. The news coverage of these stories is reminiscent of television crime dramas in their depictions of
minority victims of crime, specifically in regard to victim blaming. In order to examine
this relationship, the present study compares coverage of missing and murdered
Indigenous women in Canadian news articles to depictions of victims, particularly
minority female victims, within crime procedural television shows. An ethnographic
content analysis (ECA) was conducted in order to parse out common themes between
news articles featuring missing and murdered Indigenous women (N = 50) and television
crime drama episodes (N = 65) from Law & Order: SVU (N = 37), CSI: Crime Scene
Investigation (N = 17), and Criminal Minds (N = 13). The overarching message portrayed
within these forms of media is the importance of conforming to social mores. Both forms
of media act as morality plays depicting the harm that will come to women if they
transgress society’s definition of ‘appropriate’ behaviour. These morality plays are aimed
at white women in order to protect their virtue and stifle female sexual agency. These
morality plays act as a way to enforce and engrain hegemony within society.
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