The Third World First Nations Reserve: Framing Crises on First Nations Reserves In Canadian Newspaper Coverage

• Main Author: Chandler, Harry
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: Attawapiskat; Canada; Kashechewan; First Nations
• Online Access: https://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/id/eprint/979029/; https://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/id/eprint/979029/1/Chandler_MA_F2014.pdf

This study is an examination of recent Canadian newspaper coverage of First Nations reserves, specifically focusing on whether this coverage marginalizes Aboriginals through the use of ethnocentric language, stereotypes and news frames that conform to a larger historical-colonial discourse of Aboriginal peoples in Canada. Using a combined methodology of critical discourse analysis and frame analysis, this research examined the press coverage of the water crisis of 2005 on the Cree First Nation reserve of Kashechewan and the housing crisis on the neighboring reserve of Attawapiskat in 2011. Both of these incidents warranted significant press coverage and drew national attention to the conditions of Canada’s First Nations reserves. Examining selected newspaper coverage of these events in The Globe and Mail and The National Post, this study determined that the newspapers framed these reserves in such a way that emphasized their poverty and hopelessness, equating them with Third World nations, thereby serving to further marginalize Aboriginal people. A comparative analysis of the coverage using the Aboriginal newspaper The Wawatay News established a counter frame to those of Canada’s mainstream newspapers.