The power of numbers: how majority/minority status affects media coverage and framing of Indigenous contentious politics in Canada

Abstract

ABSTRACT News media perform an important role in shaping how Canadian society views Indigenous peoples and issues. They are rarely passive, neutral bystanders, as media routinely employ a particular set of frames (e.g., criminality, economic burden, threats to unity, promotion of social justice) when covering Indigenous stories. We explore how the use of such frames is influenced by dynamics of power as they relate to majority/minority linguistic differences. Through a controlled comparison, we examine the 2008–2019 media coverage of Indigenous responses to Ontario’s Far North Act and Québec’s Plan Nord – both of which concerned resource development on or near Indigenous territory. We find that where media serve the linguistic majority, they are much more likely to frame Indigenous responses to development plans as a threat to national unity. In contrast, where media serve the linguistic minority, they are significantly more likely to frame Indigenous responses in terms of social justice. Our findings suggest that traditional understandings of the differences between mainstream and ethnic or minority media fail to capture the complex dynamics at work in multilingual states. The paper addresses this gap in the literature and provides a broader understanding of how media and power dynamics shape the representation of Indigenous contentious politics.