Towards Reconciliation: The White Saviour Trope in Canadian Newspaper coverage of Grassy Narrows First Nation between 1977 and 2019

• Main Author: Stevens, Samantha
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2020
• Subjects: Canada; First Nations
• Online Access: https://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/id/eprint/986345/; https://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/id/eprint/986345/1/Stevens_MA_S2020.pdf

The white saviour trope that has been identified in films has yet to extend beyond the scope of cinematic inquiry. However, this trope does exist in Canadian news media as a vestige of colonial ideology passed down from the British empire. Since, reconciliation with First Nations people in Canada was one of the promises made by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau when he was elected in 2015, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada finished its investigation into the impact of the residential school system the same year, addressing the white saviour in the news today is important. This thesis reveals the white saviour trope within news discourse through four major registers, privilege, guilt, savagery, and inferiority, in order to help journalists facilitate social change. By using Fairclough’s three dimensional analytical framework, this thesis examines coverage of Grassy Narrows and the mercury contamination there in a case study spanning 1977 to 2019 in three of Canada’s largest newspapers: the Toronto Star, National Post, and Globe and Mail.