Abstract
Over the past 2 decades, Alberta’s bitumen industry has emerged as a major point of contention in Canadian politics, with the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion (TMX) project being a recent controversy that has attracted both domestic and international media attention. This brief research report focuses on news coverage of TMX in a rarely studied form of ethnic media: WeChat newsfeeds (known as “public accounts”) targeting Chinese diasporas across Canadian metropolises. A thematic analysis of TMX-related WeChat articles published between January 2016 and May 2021 reveals an overall negative attitude toward the project’s opponents. This stance is mainly due to WeChat public accounts’ heavy reliance on the Canadian mainstream media’s framing of TMX. As a result, the Canadian mainstream media’s downplay of the climate emergency and decarbonization sets the news agendas of the surveyed WeChat public accounts. Accordingly, there is an urgent need to develop non-English alternative media to engage ethnic minority groups in broader public conversations on climate change mitigation.
Highlights
People of Chinese descent have grown rapidly in Canada since the early 1990s
While Canadian content published by WeChat newsfeeds does not conform to conventional criteria of fake news, it is susceptible to disinformation and extreme opinions from other sources due to two factors: 1) WeChat’s lack of regulation over information targeting Chinese diasporas and 2) a dearth of
This study aims to explore 1) how WeChat public accounts report on the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion (TMX) controversy and 2) how their coverage relates to the Canadian mainstream media
Summary
People of Chinese descent have grown rapidly in Canada since the early 1990s. It is expected that the 2021 Census will find a similar, or even stronger growth trend of the Chinese Canadian population. Along with this trend, people of Chinese descent have acquired additional significance in Canadian politics. As WeChat’s impact in Canada is increasingly felt, there is a growing concern over the app’s role in domestic political communication. While Canadian content published by WeChat newsfeeds (known as “public accounts”) does not conform to conventional criteria of fake news, it is susceptible to disinformation and extreme opinions from other sources due to two factors: 1) WeChat’s lack of regulation over information targeting Chinese diasporas and 2) a dearth of
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