Last Updated on October 12, 2026 by Karl Thompson
This post uses Louis Theroux’s BBC series Dark States to illustrate what “postmodern” research methods might look like in practice. In brief, Theroux’s documentaries:
- focus on unusual, deviant case studies
- use a narrative style built around people’s own stories
- lack a fixed structure, following connections as they arise
- don’t analyse wider economic and political structures
- seem aimed at entertainment rather than at offering solutions.
This is an extension post for the theory and methods part of A-level sociology. It is useful as an example when evaluating postmodernism, or when comparing interpretivist and postmodern approaches to research.
Louis Theroux documentaries are a great example of ‘postmodern’ research methods.
I say this for the following reasons:
- Firstly, these documentaries select unusual, deviant case studies to focus on, which is especially true of the latest series – ‘Dark States’ which consists of three episodes about heroin users, sex trafficking and murder.
- Secondly, they tend to have a narrative style, focusing on people’s stories.
- Thirdly, there’s a lack of structure about the documentaries… Theroux makes a connection with people and sees where that leads.
- Fourthly – there’s no real attempt to be critical, or provide any analyses of the role of economic and political structures which lie behind these stories. In short, they are not properly sociological!
- Finally, these documentaries seem to be produced for entertainment purposes only – they simply invite us to marvel or gawp at the ‘messed up’ individuals before us, without offering any real solutions as to how they might sort their lives out, or how society should deal with them.
A brief analysis of two episodes of ‘Dark States’ demonstrates the postmodern nature of these documentaries:
In the first episode in the series, H****n Town, Theroux looks at how the over-prescription of painkillers has unleashed a heroin epidemic. Theroux says that he largely steered clear of the pharmaceutical companies, regulators and politicians who permitted the disaster…. Instead, he hung out on streets where heroin and opioid addiction is “off the scale, unlike anything I’d ever seen before” and made addicts the stars, giving them space to express themselves and showing how many are beguiled by the romance of being outlaws.
The third episode, on Sex Trafficking in Houston, focuses on the relationships between sex workers and pimps, also shows the ‘postmodern documentary method – in which Theroux deliberately avoided making any value judgments:
Theroux says that he avoided the term “sex slave”: “If you overdo the abusive dimension, you strip the women of agency – it’s oddly disempowering and kind of neo-Victorian. The women are getting a kind of emotional fulfilment in their relationship with the pimps, even though it is poisonous and often damaging.” The pimps tended to be stylish, eloquent and intelligent. “These guys are, in their own way, deeply damaged, often the children of prostitutes, who may have had dads or family friends who were pimps. The closest analogy I have is that they are living in semi-apocalyptic conditions where the police are just not an option.”
Of course there are both strengths and limitations of these postmodern methods… I guess the biggest strength is that they allow the respondents to speak for themselves, and it’s down to the viewer to interpret the information as they will, and analyse deeper if they feel the need!
How this links to A-level sociology
Postmodernists reject “metanarratives”, the big theories, such as Marxism or functionalism, that claim to explain society as a whole. A postmodern approach to research therefore avoids imposing an overarching explanation. It lets many different voices speak and treats each person’s story as valid in its own terms. Theroux’s style fits this well.
This overlaps with interpretivism. Both favour qualitative, respondent-led methods and try to understand the world from the participant’s point of view. The difference is that interpretivists still aim to build a sociological explanation from what people say, while a postmodern approach is more willing to leave the stories uninterpreted.
Limitations of this approach as research:
- No structural explanation. Critics, especially Marxists and other structural sociologists, would argue that focusing on individual street addicts rather than on pharmaceutical companies and regulators misses the causes of the problem.
- Unrepresentative. Case studies chosen because they are unusual can’t be generalised from.
- Shaped by entertainment. What ends up on screen is selected and edited for audiences, not chosen systematically for research purposes.
- Reactivity. Theroux is a well-known presenter with a camera crew, which is likely to change how people behave and what they say.
Sources:
Signposting and related posts
This post has been written as extension material for students studying theory and methods, as part of the AQA’s A-Level Sociology course.
For the wider strengths and limitations of this kind of data, see qualitative data: strengths and limitations, and for the interpretivist approach it overlaps with, see positivism and interpretivism.
For more detailed posts on research methods, please see my page on research methods.
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