A Critical Discourse Analysis of News Media on the Portapique (Nova Scotia) Mass Shooting

Abstract

The deadliest mass shooting to occur in Canadian history began in the town of Portapique, Nova Scotia, in April of 2020. The study employed critical discourse analysis in a media analysis of written news coverage of the Portapique mass shooting published between 2020 and 2024. The analysis revealed epistemic injustices in how the Portapique mass shooting was narrated as news media reflected and reproduced colonial forms of power within the socio-political, cultural, and historically shaped context. Findings include the failure of news media to contextualize the mass shooting as an act of gendered violence in both the creation and responses to the Portapique mass shooting, how the place identity of rural Nova Scotia diverted attention from the social context of the Portapique mass shooting, and how carceral logic through discourse on criminalization, police reform, and legislative changes, created a simulacrum of justice while sustaining the violence that carceral systems are meant to address. These findings demonstrate how news media consistently decontextualize the mass shooting from its root causes through narratives that align with carceral logic and patriarchal neoliberal ideologies. The study demonstrates how news media discourse can perpetuate and maintain existing power relations that enable mass violence, such as the Portapique mass shooting, to occur.