| dc.description.abstract | In November 2012, the Idle No More movement began as a series of teach-ins and
protests in Saskatchewan, which drew attention to the continued settler-colonial
relationship between the government of Canada and Indigenous peoples, as well as
changes to environmental regulation. The movement gained momentum and quickly
became nationally recognized. This study explores the mainstream media’s portrayal of
the Idle No More movement over a one-year timeline, using qualitative methods
including a critical discourse analysis of media content and semi-structured interviews
with journalists. The critical discourse analysis phase of this study revealed themes and
patterns of coverage of the movement, while the interviews with journalists provided
valuable insight into the context of the coverage. The themes of the coverage were
determined to be Chief Theresa Spence’s hunger strike, protests, internal politics and the
relationship between the Canadian government and Aboriginal people. The findings
suggest that coverage of Idle No More perpetuated colonial and stereotypical
understandings of Aboriginal people as the nature of the media, such as the appeal to
emotion and inability to contextualize the issues, restricts challenges to colonial thought. | en_US |
