Bridging or fostering social distance? An analysis of penal spectator comments on Canadian penal history museums

Abstract

Penal history museums are among the sites where cultural meanings about prisoners and imprisonment are developed, communicated, and consumed. Little research has explored what visitors take from these encounters. Drawing on literature concerning new media communication and Brown’s (2009) work on penal spectatorship, we analyze visitor comments about their sojourns into Canadian penal history sites found on TripAdvisor, a global travel website. We delve into the diverse stories that tourists share about their encounters with representations of incarceration, which we have found address the following themes: the performance of on-site actors; perceived authenticity of experiences and emotions; the convenience of visiting museums; attitudes about imprisonment; and views of penal history. Our research suggests that visits to penal history museums in Canada seldom translate into humanizing conceptions of the criminalized and views that challenge punitiveness among visitors, at least online. We also highlight how new media communications shape the actions of penal history museum workers in ways that tend to reinforce memorialization practices that foster social distance between authors and recipients of punishment.

Keywords

Penal tourism museums visitors social media Canada

Introduction

Brown (2009) argues that representations of prisoners and imprisonment, from those found in criminological pedagogy to those in popular culture, often foster social distance between authors and recipients of punishment. The process can create penal spectators who perceive imprisonment to be a necessary, appropriate response to social harm. Brown also notes that should such representations humanize the criminalized and reveal the consequences of penal intensification, they hold the possibility for bridging the divide between ‘law-abiding’ citizens and ‘criminals’, which could help raise critical questions about imprisonment.

Penal history museums are among the sites where representations of prisoners and incarceration can be found (also see Wilson, 2003, 2008). At least 17 countries are host to such sites (Ross, 2012). Several historic prisons are major tourist attractions, such as Alcatraz Prison in San Francisco, California, and Robben Island, near Cape Town, South Africa. In addition to these large institutions, there also exists an abundance of smaller prison and jail museums worldwide, including many in Canada. There are at least 45 penal history museums scattered across the Canadian landscape, each providing a unique view of incarceration (Walby and Piché, forthcoming). By contrast, the world leader in incarceration (Walmsley, 2013) and penal history sites is the United States with at least 57 (Ross, 2012: 115), suggesting that this form of dark tourism in Canada merits additional academic scrutiny.

From small, single-room jailhouses to elaborate museum spaces, these sites communicate meanings of confinement and punishment to tourists, many of whom share their responses to their visits using social media and other web-based platforms. The popularity of social media services such as Facebook, Twitter, and TripAdvisor have transformed the tourism industry by providing a virtual space for tourists to acquire information and share travel-related stories (Munar and Ooi, 2012). Like other tourism providers (Casaló et al., 2010), many penal tourism sites create social media pages to improve communications and monitor their online image. These digital platforms allow users to share travel-specific content such as personal responses, travel hints, and on-site experiences (Björk and Kauppinen-Räisänen, 2012). Such responses to penal history sites are valuable traces of cultural dialogue that are rich with meaning but often overlooked in the social sciences (Markham, 2011).

Visiting a decommissioned lock-up, jail, prison, or penitentiary that has been transformed into a museum site is a popular form of tourism (Strange and Kempa, 2003; Wilson, 2008). Researchers refer to this activity as a form of ‘dark tourism’, which is the act of touring sites associated with a macabre theme, such as death and suffering (Lennon and Foley, 2000; Stone and Sharpley, 2008). In Canada, many decommissioned carceral facilities in urban as well as rural areas have been retasked into museums that continue ‘to reproduce imprisonment as a dominant idea and/or material practice’ (Ferguson et al., 2014: 84). These sites convey many different narratives regarding penality, which are subsequently circulated by visitors across social media networks. However, research concerned with these narratives has often disregarded what tourists glean from their visits to penal history museums (Biran et al., 2011), which analyses of social media responses can illuminate.

We contribute to literature on penal and dark tourism by examining what visitors to Canadian penal history sites communicate about their encounters with incarceration on the global travel website TripAdvisor. Our purpose is to analyze the types of online responses expressed by tourists who visit penal history museums. We highlight how visitors to these heritage sites view confinement from a distanced position, sheltered from embodied connections to the pains of imprisonment. The social distance between individuals who are not imprisoned and the realities of incarceration produces what Brown (2009: 8) calls ‘penal spectators’ who perpetuate existing practices of state repression by taking part in leisure activities that maintain space from the violence that is directed at prison populations in their names. As our analysis shows, users of social media focus on spectacular elements of penal display and often do not contemplate the pain, suffering, and death that incarceration entails. Seldom do visits to penal history museums in Canada translate into humanizing conceptions of the criminalized or views that challenge punitiveness among visitors, at least online. Moreover, these new media communications shape the actions of penal history museum workers in ways that tend to reinforce memorialization practices that foster social distance between authors and recipients of punishment.

We begin by defining the concept of penal spectatorship, and discuss its operation at decommissioned sites of confinement and punishment. Next, we reflect on social media and situate its role in the heritage tourism industry, as well as explain what previous research contributes to an analysis of penal spectatorship and prison museum visits. After discussing the methodological framework of our study, we explore the significance of social media communication about penal history experiences. We conclude with a discussion of what our analysis adds to debates about penality and social media.

Penal spectatorship and dark tourism

This study examines tourist responses to penal history museum visits through the theoretical concept of penal spectatorship (Brown, 2009), referring to the consumption of punishment from a social distance. Activities such as watching television shows and movies allow people to construct an understanding of punishment from a position removed from its original practice. This phenomenon has increased with advances in social media technologies, which facilitate new means for consuming representations of punishment and provide citizens with a voyeuristic glimpse into spectacles traditionally only available to those in proximity to the punished. In some cases, distanced engagements reinforce misconceptions about the penal system and promote punitive sentiments. Brown argues that penal spectatorship can naturalize the discourses of the state and direct its policies in punitive directions.

Dark tourism is a cultural practice that has the potential to limit the social distance of penal spectators should it provide visitors a close engagement with the realities of punishment. Penal spectatorship is merely a form of subjectivity that develops amidst particular cultural conditions, and is open to resistance and contestation. The experience of visiting a decommissioned prison can elicit reflections on how societies deal with social harm and promote empathy towards other members of society, such as the incarcerated (also see Wilson, 2003, 2008). Nonetheless, how individuals contemplate the meanings associated with their experiences at dark tourism sites is understudied (Stone and Sharpley, 2008). Research in this area primarily focuses on the ‘supply’ side of these experiences (e.g. the site of the attraction and its representations of penality), rather than interrogating how tourists experience their encounters with public displays of pain and suffering (Biran et al., 2011; Stone and Sharpley, 2008). Applying the concept of penal spectatorship to the Canadian context allows us to investigate how people make sense of their engagements with punishment, an underdeveloped area of research (Biran et al., 2011; Seaton and Lennon, 2004), by examining their online communications.

Penal tourism, heritage sites, and social media

There are a small number of studies that have examined the responses visitors have during their tours of decommissioned penal spaces. At the historic Fannie Bay Gaol in Darwin, Australia, Dewar and Frederickson (2003) used comment cards to uncover public sentiments concerning confinement and punishment, revealing many responses that favored using gaol techniques in contemporary times. Wilson (2008) discovered similar findings through interviews and questionnaires distributed to sightseers at a number of former Australian prisons. She found that a large number of tourists effectively endorsed the suffering of prisoners by regretting the closure of older style jails. She notes that in most Australian prison museums, visitors do not have personal connections with past prisoners and thus their suffering rarely evokes feelings of empathy. The notable exception is attitudes towards colonial-era convicts, who received compassion for residing in unpleasant conditions and receiving seemingly disproportionate punishments compared to their contemporary counterparts (Wilson, 2008). Naidu (2013: 55) examined experiences of tourists at Robben Island. Using interviews and participant observation, she found a master narrative promoting a ‘shared history’ of collective hardship. She describes how tour guests are able to suspend identity and take part in the shared memory of former prisoners. Similarly, Smith (2012) analyzed the performance of tourists at the Old Melbourne Gaol in Melbourne, Australia, through a series of structured interviews with visitors. While she discovered traces of empathy for past prisoners, most visitors felt little emotional attachment to the site and were only visiting to satisfy their historical curiosity. Such findings coincide with Wilson (2008: 42), whose interviews with penal tourists revealed considerably more interest in the historic penal architecture than the ‘imprisoned human element.’ While one study has discussed visitor reactions to tours of Kingston Penitentiary following its closure in fall 2013 posted on social media and newspaper article comment boards (see Ferguson et al., 2014: 94-96), no study has solely focused on analyzing online responses to decommissioned carceral facilities visits. We contribute to this literature by extending the analysis to social media comments made in relation to penal history sites across Canada.

The Internet has re-shaped the tourism industry by altering how travel-related information is shared, as well as the ways in which tourists plan for and consume their experiences (Gretzel and Yoo, 2008). Indeed, as van Dijck and Poell (2013) argue, there is logic to social media communication, which is discounted by social scientists who focus solely on mass media communication. Not only do tourism companies use the Internet and social media to advertise (Dorsey et al., 2004; Hays et al., 2013; Mohammed, 2004), but they use TripAdvisor to craft their image online (O’Connor, 2010). Social media technology now facilitates two-way communication. Today, tourists are encouraged to share their responses to visits at heritage sites through social media, a function only available through the development of Web 2.0 applications (Munar and Jacobsen, 2014). Web 2.0 refers to a group of web-based technologies that promote the participation and input of online users (Allen, 2013; Noti, 2013). Web 2.0 comprises applications including blogs (e.g. HotelChatter.com), forums (e.g. TourismZone.com), hostel (e.g. Hostel World) and hotel rating systems (e.g. Monarc.ca), social networking sites (e.g. Facebook), and wikis (e.g. Wikitravel). A byproduct of this online environment has been the emergence of social media, which Hunsinger and Senft (2014: 1) refer to as ‘networked information services designed to support in depth social interaction, community formation, collaborative opportunities and collaborative work’. These platforms have increased information-sharing abilities between tourists (John, 2013). Gretzel and Yoo (2008) contend that younger people are more likely to view these online travel reviews to make decisions about travel.

Content uploaded by tourists is shared across virtual communities and consumed by individuals using digital mediums such as social networks (e.g. Facebook), photo-sharing applications (e.g. Instagram), and travel review sites (e.g. TripAdvisor). Digital content created by consumers rather than media professionals is known as User-generated Content (UGC) or Consumer-generated Content (CGC). A related concept is electronic word of mouth (eWOM), which Hennig-Thurau and colleagues (2004: 39) define as ‘any positive or negative statement made by potential, actual, or former customers about a product or company, which is made available to a multitude of people and institutions via the Internet’. eWOM is a form of CGC created when visitors engage in online dialogue and share their views (e.g., of penal heritage site visits). Research has shown the influence that non-commercial eWOM has in shaping the attitudes, experiences, and decision-making processes of other consumers, known in marketing terminology as exhibiting high levels of online interpersonal influence (Litvin et al., 2008; Senecal and Nantel, 2004).

Little existing literature has examined how heritage tourists share their experiences in online communities (Munar and Ooi, 2012). In dark tourism studies, several scholars have called for more consumer-oriented research to advance understanding of the motivations and responses behind the rise of this macabre phenomenon (Biran et al., 2011; Seaton and Lennon, 2004). Biran and colleagues (2011: 838) note that future research should direct attention towards ‘less iconic or prominent sites… to further clarify the tourist experiences at dark sites’. This study addresses that gap by examining visitor stories about Canadian penal history museums and analyzing their comments posted on TripAdvisor. Understanding online responses is necessary for insights into the demand for penal tourism and the sentiments these locations foster. Such research also contributes to understandings of the online behavior of tourists who frequent decommissioned carceral facilities.

While there is little research on visitor responses to frequenting penal history sites on social media, tourism and market studies literature has explored this issue in relation to other destinations (Litvin et al., 2008; Munar, 2013; Munar and Ooi, 2012). Research on tourist use of social media has focused on their motivations for social media use (Bronner and de Hoog, 2011; Munar and Jacobsen, 2014); the credibility of blogs and travel review websites (Kusumasondjaja et al., 2012); the impact of online travel reviews (Gretzel and Yoo, 2008); and destination image management through tourist-generated content (Ayeh et al., 2013; Schmallegger and Carson, 2008). Much of the research in this field has been developed from a marketing perspective and has not examined online interaction (Munar, 2013). Further research is required to explore how penal history museum visitors communicate online.

Studies analyzing the online comments and reviews of tourists have examined social media services such as TripAdvisor (Gretzel and Yoo, 2008; Munar and Ooi, 2013; O’Connor, 2008), Facebook, and travel blogs (Bosangit et al., 2012). Research has shown that TripAdvisor is influential in shaping decisions that tourists and travelers make, and is fully international in scope. Munar and Ooi (2012) analyzed TripAdvisor reviews of two heritage sites – the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, and the Forbidden City in Beijing, China. The authors found that travel reviews treated both places similarly, providing evidence of an online virtual culture and generic tourists interests of sensuality, cultural joint-affirmation, and immediacy of experiences. Ooi and Munar (2013) examined TripAdvisor reviews of the World Trade Center memorial site in New York to demonstrate how spatial and temporal structures are negotiated through Web 2.0. On TripAdvisor, tourists mediate the experiences of others, acting as ‘cocreators of heritage experiences’ (Ooi and Munar, 2013: 174). Although users of TripAdvisor may not constitute an online community due to a lack of a shared sense of self, a similar phenomenon is in operation when users of this popular online travel forum share experiences of visits to Canadian penal history museums, which we examine below.

Methodological framework

The social travel network TripAdvisor, which describes itself as the world’s most popular travel review website, was selected as a platform to gather UGC about responses at Canadian penal history museums. The website’s best-known feature is its travel reviews, whereby visitors rank their stays at or visits to destinations and share their thoughts, attitudes, and experiences. No membership or registration is required to view these reviews. However, users must register and create a profile in order to contribute their own content. As of June 2014, the website attracted over 260 million unique monthly visitors and had amassed over 150 million travel reviews across the globe (TripAdvisor, 2014). TripAdvisor was selected for this study due to its substantial number of travel reviews, as well as its status as a top-priority research platform in contemporary tourism studies (O’Connor, 2008). We used a covert approach to perform a textual analysis of travel reviews (Björk and Kauppinen-Räisänen, 2012). Online commenters were not informed of their participation, nor did we perform member checks or engage in dialogue with the users, which is not crucial to creating a descriptive analysis of this online community open to the general public. Further, we did not want to influence the candid discussions among visitors to penal history museums. This approach builds on the methodology of other web researchers (Björk and Kauppinen-Räisänen, 2012; Hewer and Brownlie, 2007).

Data collection began with locating the official TripAdvisor pages of Canadian penal history sites to acquire a general idea of the scope of reviews. Of the 45 penal history museums our research team studied, 20 had an official destination page on TripAdvisor. All locations with less than 20 reviews were excluded, a common practice in web research done to narrow down and achieve a consistent sample (Kozinets, 2002). Seven penal history museums, with a total of 671 travel reviews, were selected for textual analysis conducted in summer 2014: Morrin Centre – Quebec City, Quebec (231 reviews); HI-Ottawa Jail Hostel – Ottawa, Ontario (165 reviews); Correctional Service of Canada Museum – Kingston, Ontario (141 reviews); Old Prison of Trois-Rivières – Trois Rivières, Quebec (51 reviews); Huron Historic Gaol – Goderich, Ontario (36 reviews); Albert County Gaol at the Albert County Museum – Hopewell Cape, New Brunswick (24 reviews); and Old Cobourg Jail/King George Inn – Cobourg, Ontario (23 reviews). All text-based reviews were analyzed without the aid of automated tools. We have protected the anonymity and confidentiality of TripAdvisor commenters by not displaying their usernames or referencing on which site their comments were made. In addition, the names of penal history museums and staff members were removed from comments to protect their privacy. Given the online presence of the comments we analyze, the protection of those whose remarks are studied requires readers to not input excerpts into search engines. Noting this possibility, we have included quotes nonetheless, as not doing so would decrease the credibility and trustworthiness of the findings presented below.

Canadian penal history museums and visitor responses on TripAdvisor

Our findings show there are numerous users on TripAdvisor who adopt a variety of perspectives towards punishment and share diverse stories gleaned from penal history sites. Engagements with penality are often laden with emotion, providing views of the history of confinement and punishment that are a product of the narratives communicated at the site, as well as the specific aspects of museum experiences that emotionally engage the spectator. Visitors respond to the performances of on-site actors, levels of practicality and convenience, and perceived notions of authenticity, and also convey their opinions about imprisonment, which we expand upon below.

Performances of on-site actors

In our sample, museum visitors placed emphasis on the performances of on-site actors, which refers to staff members, volunteers, or other guests who shape the experiences of tourists. The performances of tour guides were the focus of most posts. Tour guides play a key role in facilitating the heritage experience, acting as mediators of knowledge that are essential for interpreting the tourist environment in a unique and educational way (Cohen, 1985). It was common for reviewers to refer to their guide by name and share how the guide impacted their visit. Tour guides were praised and critiqued on the basis of historical knowledge, personality, and storytelling abilities. Below are several representative remarks from different tourists:

We were really happy that Tripadvisor guided us to this tour – [tour guide] is a gifted storyteller and my 2 ten year old boys were fascinated, as I was.

Worth a visit; a colorful tour guide was 60% of the attraction.

A visit to this prison with all the explanations brought by a guide who was a previous inmate will change you[r] view and understanding of the prison system.

Un guide dynamique qui connait l’histoire de la prison sur le bout de ses doigts [our translation: A dynamic guide who has the history of the prison at his fingertips].

Visiting a penal history museum is often the closest people get to viewing the inside of a prison or jail. The ways that visitors negotiate meaning and construct reality at these sites are influenced by their interactions with on-site actors. Tour guides and staff have the difficult task of interpreting a range of penal narratives and tailoring their presentations to diverse audiences. While attempts have been made to implement nation-wide standards for guide training in Canada (Pond, 1993), staff members at Canadian penal history sites vary in regards to education and experience levels. Depending on the site, visitors may interact with staff employed by federal agencies, local historians, student or retiree volunteers, former prison staff or, on rare occasions, ex-prisoners (see Ferguson et al., forthcoming). Interactive performances at these tour sites can, in rare cases (see TripAdvisor entries below), evoke critical reflections directed at challenging one’s fixed assumptions about incarceration and the management of social issues (Brown, 2009; Edensor, 2000).

The folks that are the guides and docents are excellent so if you visit talk with them; they really know their stuff … It does make you think about how we treat prisoners both now and in the past.

My child and I both really found the trip to [penal history museum] interesting and educational. It allowed us an opportunity for great discussion about how we manage and punish our social problems, historically and today.

However, tour guides and staff members are not simply impartial mediators – their thoughts are imbued with preconceptions and their actions are often part of a staged process (Dahles, 2002; also see Wilson, 2003, 2008). Online reviews, which inform the work of penal history museum staff, provide a glimpse into the way visitors interact with on-site actors, highlighting one area where power relations that shape knowledge of penality are negotiated. We elaborate upon this kind of interaction below.

Authenticity and emotions

Seeking an authentic experience has been cited as a key-motivating factor for heritage tourism, including those that deal with death and pain (Biran et al., 2011). However, how heritage tourists define authenticity has been a subject of debate within tourism literature. Research has shown that tourists accept a variety of definitions of authenticity, including historical verisimilitude, genuineness, originality, and authority (Bruner, 1994).

In our analysis of TripAdvisor comments, visitors were captivated by the originality of the artifacts, prison architecture, and tour narratives. This included encounters with relics such as original jail cells and graffiti inside them and handcuffs, as well as the historical testimonies of costumed actors and tour guides. This focus on historical originality revealed a section of visitors concerned with levels of ‘objective authenticity’ (Wang, 1999). Other responses showed more concern over whether experiences matched their preconceived ideas of a prison, accepting (or not) forms of ‘staged authenticity’ created by tour providers (MacCannell, 1973) as representative of the realities of incarceration. These perceptions of authenticity that are actively cultivated by museum staff (see Walby and Piché, 2015) – which are highlighted in the comments from users below – create a sense of ‘realness’, allowing museum-goers to become penal spectators by engaging in prison narratives. Here, they ‘make a jump from the visible and the tangible, to the invisible and the experiential’ (DeLyser, 1999: 626).

You see the markings on the walls made by real prisoners, you see the dark cells for solitary confinement and you can imagine the rats fighting you for your food.

It was really interesting how they managed to preserve part of the building from each of it’s [sic] very unique roles. You’ll get to walk into the old prison and see the graffiti scratched into the wood of the original floor.

The bars, bunk bed and shower were authentic from the time it was a jail and that was interesting.

Although it’s renovated, we were glad to see that a lot of it still looked like an old, authentic jail…

Often a purportedly objectively authentic encounter is not enough for heritage tourists. Of equal importance is the level of ‘emotional’ or ‘symbolic authenticity’ experienced at the site (Wang, 1999). The act of touring a decommissioned carceral facility is usually viewed as a novel experience, connected to elements of dark history and, on occasion, supernatural events (Brown, 2009). Among reviews, judgments of authenticity can be seen through short bursts of raw emotions expressed. Responses pertaining to the ambiance of the site, including remarks about their ‘spooky’ and ‘bone-chilling’ atmosphere like the ones below, were common.

If you like old, creepy, haunted looking places this should be of interest.

L’histoire de nos prisons, la vie carcérale, j’en ai eu des frissons. [our translation: The history of our prisons, prison life, I had the chills].

These spectators judge the authenticity of their experience based on the emotional connections they expect to feel while touring an old prison or jail.

Responses about souvenirs and gift shops signify the role physical symbols, as well as the symbols mediated within the language of social media, play in allowing actors to maintain the emotions and sensations felt while visiting a penal history museum (Wilson 2003, 2008). Such symbols act as ‘catalysts for shared fantasies and meaning-making’ (Lengel and Newsdom, 2014: 94). This is reflected in the following example:

The entertainment factor continued after we left the [penal history museum] courtesy of the fine pair of reproduction handcuffs we purchased.

Achieving a certain degree of intrapersonal ‘existential authenticity’ (Wang, 1999), to a point where one’s bodily feelings and emotions felt during and after penal history museum visits are perceived as authentic, is important to many who visit them.

Practicality and convenience

The notion that a positive tourist experience is dependent on the levels of comfort and practicality at a given site is not a new idea in tourism literature (Munar and Ooi, 2012). Many TripAdvisor users, such as the one cited below, were concerned with levels of accessibility experienced while attempting to visit a site:

The prison tours weren’t available in April when we visited which was unfortunate but we’ll visit next time…

Others offered practical tips to other consumers concerning prices, parking, bathrooms, noise levels, food services, and the like.

Suggest going early as was nicer to look around before it got busy and take time to read information posted on the walls. Reasonable price.

There is so much local history in this museum that you should allow an hour to two hours!

The importance of practicality and convenience among tourists was revealed in instances when they conflicted with desired levels of authenticity. Several responses illustrated how tourists sometimes expect a ‘sanitized’ version of history (Wong, 2013) to meet their required expectations of comfort. Certain anticipated aspects of penal heritage are praised, while those deemed less desirable are criticized. Several reviews mention undesirable levels of cleanliness, noise, smells, or particular aspects of the museum itself (such as original staircases) as being detrimental to the penal heritage experience. The following example is indicative of the kinds of complaints on TripAdvisor pertaining to decommissioned carceral facilities that have been partially converted into lodgings:

I stayed there with a friend of mine knowing all about the jail concept. It really sounded cool, but once we got there, we felt disappointed. I understand it’s about the experience of being at a place that used to be a jail, but c’mon! You could’ve at least improved the rooms…

This notion of a sanitized history can also be seen in the types of narratives told by tour guides and staff, who often tailor their stories for their particular audiences (Wong, 2013; also see Wilson, 2003, 2008). Although renovating and outfitting penal heritage sites with modern conveniences are necessary in certain circumstances, this becomes problematic when visitors are unable to distinguish between authentic aspects of incarceration and more staged experiences. In the quote below, we can see how a particular penal spectator fails to comprehend how their brief, comfortable experience inside a jail is in no way similar to how a past prisoner would have felt:

I’ve never seen a historic jail put to such good use, one, as accommodations, and two, as a place to learn about what being locked up must’ve felt like many generations ago. This is a very comfortable, clean facility …

Online travel reviews such as these show tensions being voiced about which aspects of penal heritage should be altered or preserved to accommodate the conveniences and preferences of contemporary tourists. This example also demonstrates how the quest for authenticity can quickly run up against concerns about convenience and accessibility.

Attitudes about imprisonment

Online travel reviews can be highly emotional. Stieglitz and Dang-Xuan (2013) argue that it is possible to gauge the emotional state of the writer, the types of emotions communicated to other users, and emotional opinions about certain issues from such comments. Here, we focus on how visitors to penal heritage museums express a variety of opinions and attitudes about penality in Canada via online travel reviews.

Among the reviews, a portion of penal spectators praised the conditions of confinement and punishment presented as bygones, two of which are shown below:

The jail cell conditions were more of what a jail should be. Prisoners need to be treated as prisoners. The levels of treatment there was in accordance with the crime committed as it should be.

Some of the corporal punishment devices that was [sic] at one time used, back before bleeding hearts stopped the government from punishing people who kill and rape.

In a few rare cases, critical opinions about imprisonment in Canada were expressed, such as the ones presented below:

It’s unbelievable how horrible and sinister was the inhuman treatment of prisoners. The effect of treating prisoners cruelly was and remains ineffective in discouraging crime…

Highly recommended tour but not for the overly sensitive as the prison had conditions that were appallingly cruel for inmates incarcerated here.

User-generated travel reviews offer valuable reflections of cultural attitudes brought on by a penal heritage experience, or ‘what the site does to them’ (Munar and Ooi, 2012: 264). Sharing content through pseudonyms on TripAdvisor allows users to don a mask and communicate sentiments with a certain level of anonymity, revealing opinions they may not in the physical world. Comments made in new media spaces represent an example of the ‘online disinhibition effect’ (Suler, 2004), where individuals are free to share information and project identities they may not otherwise. These emotional statements about punishment may not be evidence of a ‘true self’. However, they represent self-reflexive negotiations of virtual identity formation.

More importantly, sentiments about punishment circulate as an influential form of eWOM across virtual communities of online penal spectators, shaping the ‘carceral experience’ for other users, which is illustrated in the comments below.

We would never have gone here had we not read the reviews on Trip Advisor. I am so glad we did.

This site and tour was not listed among the top attractions … except here on Trip Advisor. The reviews were so good that we decided to give it a try.

Although it is easy to dismiss online expressions and opinions as superficial and banal, doing so would ignore the fact that these statements may be products of meta-narratives or broader cultural narratives (Murthy, 2012) of imprisonment. Their existence not only provides insights into a user’s sense of self, it also reveals what human beings perceive to be an appropriate response after viewing punishment within a particular cultural setting. These penal subjectivities demonstrate the actual effects that cultural engagements with punishment have on opinions and feelings about incarceration.

Views of penal history

According to Munar and Ooi (2012: 262), the emotional and personal experiences inherent within travel reviews restrict their historical credibility, creating ‘partial views on heritage’. Aspects of penal history on TripAdvisor are textually interwoven within the travel reviews of visitors to Canadian penal history museums. Emotional moments in tourism outweighed responses detailing the historical relevance and cultural value of the heritage sites, which is a reflection of the social distance between penal spectators and the imprisoned (Brown, 2009). However, travel review writers do provide culturally relevant information, as well as express accurate historical knowledge and descriptions about heritage sites, which is illustrated by the three remarks below:

This historic gaol has seen it all – murder, theft, forgery, insanity, poverty and hangings. Serving as a true multipurpose building for over a century – courthouse, council chamber, jail, insane asylum and governor’s residence – this is a must-see.

The displays are also fascinating - there's everything from re-created prison cells to old torture devices to clandestine weapons.

The grounds were [sic] the scene of the last public hanging in Canada- where people packed lunches and came by horse & buggy from miles around to watch the last person swing.

Travel reviews written by penal spectators provide partial views of penal history, in the sense that they handpick the aspects of heritage that they are emotionally connected to (Munar and Ooi, 2012). Each travel review comprises a different textual perspective about a similar phenomenon, producing an array of representative symbols that shape and alter interpretations and meanings of penal history. These views dwell on the spectacular elements of their experience, such as stories of prison violence, notable prisoners, and prominent events that occurred behind the walls. Although these are the stories usually communicated by tour guides ((see Ferguson et al., 2014: 89-94), it is important to note the absence of the more mundane or controversial aspects of prison life in online travel reviews. For instance, comments about Indigenous prisoners who find themselves in colonial prisons, suicide, and mental health issues were notably absent from responses, while penal spectators frequently cited a fleeting moment behind bars as representative of what being incarcerated – including being confined in segregation – are like:

I got to be locked in solitary confinement too, which really helped drive home what a stay in the prison might be like.

The highlight of the tour for our 15 yr old was watching her younger brother put in an actual cell, the barred door close & the metal door for solitary confinement closed behind it for a taste of 30 days of silence.

You don't know what solitary confinement was like 200 years ago unless you are locked in yourself!

L’expérimentation du ‘trou’, dans le noir total, est assez particuliere. [our translation: Trying out the ‘hole’, in total darkness, is a pretty unique experience].

Responses of penal heritage sites are being shared and consumed through social networks in such communications. Previous research has shown how heritage tourists communicate and jointly reaffirm their experiences through these networks, shaping peoples understandings of their own experience and knowledge of history (Munar and Ooi, 2012). Virtual communities such as TripAdvisor achieve high levels of solidarity and credibility based on their personal engagements with the site. The discourse of social media users is an emerging voice of authority in new media environments (Meyers, 2012). For example, Singer (2014) reveals how social media users are key gatekeepers in the journalism industry. Users evaluate and determine the visibility of particular media content, assessing ‘what is worthy and what is less so… what others should read and what they might as well ignore’ (Singer, 2014: 56). Similarly, Pietrobruno (2013) demonstrates the capacity for the video-hosting website, YouTube, to act as an archive of ‘intangible heritage’. Through the process of sharing heritage representations, many of which counter official state narratives, the creators of user-generated heritage videos have the power to decide which aspects of history are ‘valuable and worthy of safekeeping’ (Pietrobruno, 2013: 1261). Therefore, understanding the types of narratives being shared through these social networks allows for an increased understanding of how penal history is being digitally re-constructed and negotiated online.

Social media and the co-construction of penal heritage

Social media makes it possible for anyone who has Internet access to express their views online (High et al., 2012; Molyneaux et al., 2014; Shade et al., 2005; Trottier, 2012). Such communication can influence the image and popularity of these penal heritage sites, as well as shape the preconceptions, experiences, and knowledge bases of other users about incarceration. Attention to these responses and reviews through the concept of penal spectatorship illuminates the ways people make sense of their experiences with punishment at cultural sites such as museums.

Canadian penal heritage museums are now engaging with consumers over social media as a management strategy. Like other tourism marketers, staff members in these operations monitor social media pages for information and revenue-generating purposes (Litvin et al., 2008). For example, one annual report released by the Morrin Centre (2012) includes TripAdvisor as evidence of high consumer satisfaction. Furthermore, the activity coordinator at the Ottawa Jail Hostel regularly converses with travelers through Facebook (Hostelling International, 2012). In our sample, representatives at three penal history museums were interacting with visitors through replies to TripAdvisor reviews. Many museums also promote networking by providing links to social media pages through their websites.

Social media technologies change the way we understand our heritage, but also enable public audiences to take part in the construction of the past (Ciolfi, 2012). Everyday users and heritage institutions are reflecting on the meanings of penal history museums at decommissioned carceral sites, as well as imprisonment as they share information using social media networks. Many heritage institutions across the world communicate through social media as a way of producing a form of history that represents the desires of the local community, generating a type of ‘shared heritage’ (Ciolfi, 2012). While this co-construction process may still be limited at penal history sites in Canada, the comment below, posted on the TripAdvisor forum of one museum, provides a glimpse into the relevance of penal heritage co-construction:

The [museum] … is looking for ideas and suggestions on subjects to help us develop our historical and heritage programs for guests. All creative suggestions are welcome.

Given such examples, we contend that experiences and discourses shared by penal spectators not only shape the carceral experiences of other users online, but have emerging weight as a stakeholder in the heritage creation process.

Conclusion

Penal history museums are among the cultural sites where penal spectatorship takes place in Canada, circulating representations of confinement and punishment to onlookers. Many of those who frequent these sites reflect on their visitation using social media, communicating stories to online audiences that most often condone imprisonment, which is largely accepted as a compelling part of our past and a necessary part of our present. We have found that these online communications tend to reflect the views of penal spectators (Brown, 2009), that is visitors who view imprisonment and punishment from a distance and tend not to express concern about their role in fostering carceral futures. Curations in these penal history sites tend to help foster such social distance, and we found evidence of curators paying attention to the online comments of penal spectators and adjusting museum displays to fit with views expressed online.

Our analysis of social media responses provides the beginnings of a descriptive mapping of an online terrain of tourists who share their experiences concerning their encounters with penal history museums. These contemporary travel writers are part of a virtual community who share information that is influential in decisions concerning the curation and marketing of tourism destinations, as well as how other tourists view their own brief carceral encounters. eWOM dispersed across social media sites may raise questions of quality and credibility. However, these views are not intended to provide objective or technical knowledge. Rather, they provide insights into a visitor’s experiences and the cultural sentiments fostered by penal history museums. Although their influence in the heritage process remains limited, it is imperative that researchers not dismiss these virtual communications and instead treat them as valuable traces of culturally relevant material that shape narratives about the history of imprisonment in Canada and elsewhere. In addition, reading and writing online travel reviews is especially commonplace among younger generations, who place a high degree of confidence in their content (Gretzel and Yoo, 2008). Social media provide a forum where meaning-making concerning criminalization and punishment happens, so researchers should not overlook these communications or assume that they are not real in their consequences.

Finally, several limitations must be considered when interpreting the results in this under-developed area of penal and dark tourism scholarship. Our focus was directed at textual data that penal spectators chose to share and is unable to capture a more comprehensive understanding of penal heritage experience. The extent to which nonverbal communications on TripAdvisor were produced, manipulated, or removed by TripAdvisor or other third parties for various reasons is unknown. Given our focus on TripAdvisor reviews, future research examining visitor experiences shared online could undertake observations across other social media sites, such as blogs and Facebook, as well as consider combining web research with off-line research methods for triangulation (Kozinets, 2002). Broadening the sites of such research is important, given the pervasive use of social media by younger consumers. Future studies in this area could also investigate experiences at penal history sites in relation to race, gender, class, and other differences, perhaps through web surveys and interviews. Research examining the experiences of penal history museum-goers on-site remains rare and would contribute to knowledge concerning how these excursions reinforce and/or alter how visitors engage with the punishment performed in their names everyday in operational carceral institutions.

Footnotes

Funding

This study was produced as part of the Carceral Cultures research initiative (), which aims to generate knowledge about Canada’s culture of punishment that informs and gives meaning to related penal policies and practices. The project is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (grant number 430-2012-0447).

Author biography

Matthew Ferguson is completing his Master of Arts degree in the Department of Criminology at the University of Ottawa.

Justin Piché is Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminology at the University of Ottawa and former Co-managing Editor of the Journal of Prisoners on Prisons ().

Kevin Walby is Associate Professor and Chancellor’s Research Chair, Criminal Justice, University of Winnipeg. He has co-edited with R.K. Lippert Policing Cities: Urban Securitization and Regulation (2013, Routledge) and Corporate Security in the 21st Century: Theory and Practice in International Perspective (2014, Palgrave). He is co-author with R.K. Lippert of Municipal Corporate Security in International Context (2015, Routledge).

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