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Framing Actuality: Frame Theory, Graphic Narrative, and (Post)-Documentary

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Frames and Framing in Documentary Comics

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels ((PSCGN))

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Abstract

Connecting the role of the documentarian to a lawyer, this chapter discusses the theories that inform this study. First, the chapter traces the development of frame theory with its foundations in sociology and linguistics, and outlines its application to medial artifacts. Cognitive narratology is applied to account for the functions of frames in the comprehension of narrative texts. Second, the chapter explores documentary as a genre frame. The history and the technological foundation of documentary—for example, the “myth of photographic truth”—are discussed; following, the chapter addresses recent shifts in the perception of medial truth claims, connecting post-truth politics to notions of a “post-documentary” or “post-photographic” era. Third, the graphic narrative book is discussed as a medial frame that posits materiality against the more ephemeral digital media. The particular mediality of comics presents a unique way to materialize witness accounts in the mode of oral history.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Both Joe Sacco (2012, xxiii) and Sarah Glidden (Seligson 2016) address their extensive use of recording devices to gather reference materials while they are in the field.

  2. 2.

    Similar phenomena have also been addressed using concepts such as “schema,” “gestalt,” or “script” (see Bartlett 1932; Schank and Abelson 1977).

  3. 3.

    The concept of a “storyworld” has been predominantly employed in “transmedia” narratology to describe the cumulative mental construct that is evoked through various stories that are spread across different media (see, for instance, Ryan 2014). In this study, the term will be used to describe individual nonfiction stories instead of franchises or series. As such, the aim is not to describe more or less coherent storyworlds that are spread across different representations, but to account for the disparity between the logic of a narrative and the actual world.

  4. 4.

    Likewise, fiction does not simply correspond to “telling lies,” but a fictional storyworld, too, entails a complex system of rules (cf. Ryan 1991, 13).

  5. 5.

    For a more detailed discussion of photography, comics, and their interrelation, see Schmid (2016).

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  1. English and American Studies, University of Flensburg, Flensburg, Germany

    Johannes C. P. Schmid

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Schmid, J.C.P. (2021). Framing Actuality: Frame Theory, Graphic Narrative, and (Post)-Documentary. In: Frames and Framing in Documentary Comics. Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63303-5_2

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