Chapter 13
The Canadian state is presently engaged in a court-mandated process of ‘reconciliation’ with its aboriginal populations. This process includes the efforts of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which will document the history of abuses that took place in government-funded, church-run schools during the 19th and 20th centuries. It is also being publicly defined and framed through media: newspapers, television newscasts, internet blogs and other forms of public communication. For many Canadians, whose daily experiences are far removed from this process, these mediated forms of communication are key sources of information about and engagement with ‘reconciliation’.
In this chapter, we consider a case study of a mediated representation of the reconciliation process, using a model we developed from adapting peace journalism (PJ). PJ draws from broader work on media and conflict that recognises the potential of media to exacerbate direct and structural violence (Becker 1981; Cottle 2006; Lynch & McGoldrick 2005b; Wolfsfeld 2004; Young 2008). PJ theory incorporates principles of conflict analysis to promote news production practices that aim towards conflict transformation (Lynch & McGoldrick 2005a; Shinar 2003). Proponents argue that PJ can help expand the discursive field of conflict and render more visible its logic and effects – for example, through an analysis of attitudes, behaviour and contradiction, or the ‘ABC conflict triangle’ (Galtung 2000). This helps open policy options and issues to public discussion (Spencer 2005). PJ researchers like Lee and 346Maslog (2006) conduct quantitative empirical studies to investigate the interplay between media representations and violence in news content, including its role in taking an interventionist ‘preventative advocacy’ stance, for example, in editorials and columns urging reconciliation (p314; see also Galtung 1998). Finally, practice-oriented PJ scholars and activists advance tools and guidelines that working journalists can use to increase their awareness of conflict resolution techniques in coverage of war and violence (Galtung 2000; Lynch & McGoldrick, 2005b).
We argue that a PJ model for analysing ‘cold’ conflict (see McMahon & Chow-White, 2011) can help researchers examine news discourse about the reconciliation process. Our model develops PJ in two ways. Theoretically, it incorporates insights from critical race theory to consider ‘cold’ conflicts, such as those between racialised groups in postcolonial societies. One shortcoming noted by PJ scholars, including Matt Mogekwu in this volume, is the field’s focus on ‘hot’ conflicts or direct violence (see also El-Nawawy & Powers 2010). Our model offers PJ researchers an analytical tool to examine prolonged and extended, or ‘cold’, conflicts, such as struggles over representations of race and racism (Entman & Rojecki 2000; Hall 1981; van Dijk 2009).
Methodologically, our model draws on and operationalises both agenda-setting theory (McCombs 1994; McCombs & Shaw 1977) and framing theory (Entman 2007; Weaver 2007). The selection of news stories, the salience of issues, and the sources that journalists draw from are all points of negotiation in the production of discourses. Journalists employ discursive frames to interpret and structure meanings about events or people, and make choices about what parties are included and excluded and how they are portrayed in media content (West 1990). For critical race theorists, each of these choices and the aggregate story that is told (or left untold) are key moments in the racialisation of the public sphere (Omi & Winant 1994).
Examples of ‘cold’ conflicts, and attempts by governments, non-governmental organisations and others to redress them, are ongoing around the world. For example, work is being done in South Africa to rebuild society after the formal deconstruction of the apartheid system. We chose to analyse news coverage of the formal reconciliation process 347in Canada to look for examples of journalism that captures attempts at reconciliation alongside the ongoing effects of structural racism against First Nations communities and individuals. Our approach recognises that the concept of ‘reconciliation’ is highly contested, and can be seen as an ongoing individual and collective process (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada nd). In her comparative discussion of truth commissions in South Africa and Germany, Andrews (2003) notes the difficulty of establishing reconciliation in formerly divided societies:
The power of truth commissions lies not so much in discovering truth – in the form of new facts – as in acknowledging it. Moreover, once the facts of the past have been established … the challenge of deciphering meaning behind such facts still remains. (Andrews 2003, p49)
Defining this process as the formation of ‘collective memory’, Andrews points out that the resulting ‘national narratives’ document stories of the past, which are then situated within the context of the present. Truth commissions allow members of society to ‘witness the dynamics of the making of collective memory, with all of the tensions and ambiguities this entails’ (Andrews 2003, p62). If certain stories are left out of this process, voices can become subsumed or erased in the construction of collective memory. For example, in their study of Australian Aborigines, Banerjee and Osuri describe the process of ‘institutional forgetting’ (2000). They argue that, in the Australian context, representations of the past have historically been embedded within a narrative of power shaped by broader political and economic inequalities: ‘the content of the past, present and future is preserved within the dominant identity that is thus able to present a history that “washed away” Aboriginal rights to land’ (Banerjee & Osuri 2000, p274).
In Canada, historic relations between the state and aboriginal people are similarly problematic. The formal process of reconciliation can be read as the latest chapter in a centuries-long struggle for aboriginal rights and self-determination vis-à-vis the state. The federal government’s 2008 apology for residential schools and support for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission process is an encouraging development. However we argue that this development should still be 348critically scrutinised. In this chapter we do this by exploring some early mediated representations of Canada’s reconciliation process through an empirical analysis of a broadsheet newspaper series about the ‘state of affairs’ of First Nations peoples in British Columbia. This empirical site is conceived as a self-reflexive attempt by working journalists to highlight concrete examples of ‘reconciliation’, but a deeper look demonstrates more complex and contradictory processes at play (Galtung 1998).
PJ research has largely focused on examples of ‘hot’ conflict, such as media coverage of wars or other forms of direct violence. PJ researchers uncover those news production practices and narrative structures that promote a ‘culture of peace’, as well as those that harden dichotomies between discursively constructed ‘enemies’ in a mediated field of conflict (see for example Dente Ross et al. 2009; Galtung 2000; Lynch & McGoldrick 2005b). However, some PJ scholars suggest the field needs to pay clearer attention to the roles that structural factors, such as religious, national, transnational and ethnic identities, play in conflicts (El-Nawawy & Powers 2010). Where ‘hot’ conflicts erupt between parties in violent displays of direct force, ‘cold’ conflicts take place in more subtle (though still damaging) arenas of culture and media representation (Cottle 2006; Shinar 2003). In expanding its consideration of these cold conflicts, PJ theory can support research into representations of long-term cultural conflicts, including those between racialised communities in multicultural societies (LeBaron & Pillay 2006). The work of sociologists (Omi & Winant 1994), political philosophers (Fraser 2003), and critical scholars of race and media (Downing & Husband 2005; Jiwani 2006) highlights the potential of discursively constructed boundaries between racialised communities to result in material inequalities and systemic domination; that is, in structural violence (Galtung 1969; see Galtung 2000 for definitions of direct, structural and cultural forms of violence). For example, Green (1995) and Lawrence (2004) argue that legal and discursive frameworks justify the systemic domination of aboriginal groups by the Canadian state. From this perspective, media representations can perpetuate an ahistorical, 349hierarchical, racialised social structure that can become codified in discursive forms, including ‘common sense’, public opinion, government policy and institutional practice.
Critical scholars have demonstrated how journalism practices can inadvertently reproduce these broader power inequalities in the overt language of ‘old’ or ‘legacy’ racism (Hall 1981; Said 1978), and in the more coded discourse of ‘new’ racism (Downing & Husband 2005; van Dijk 2009). Hall described how researchers can challenge ‘old’ racism through examining the ‘relations of representation’ and the ‘politics of representation’ (Hall 1981). The ‘relations of representation’ refers to levels of inclusion and exclusion of racialised voices in media discourse (Hall 1981; Henry & Tator 2002; West 1990).
The politics of representation explores qualitative elements of ‘old’ racism, focusing on the language used in news discourse and the quality and accuracy of media representations of race. Critical scholars identified a number of consistent stereotypes, such as the recurring tropes of the ‘slave-figure’, ‘native’ and ‘clown/entertainer’ (Hall 1981; Said 1978). In Canada, researchers have described the historical prevalence and contemporary persistence of negative representations of aboriginal Canadians in the mass media (Lambertus 2004; Roth 2005; Winter 1992). For example, Harding writes that during the 1990s ‘aboriginal issues were framed, much as they were 130 years earlier, in ways that protect dominant interests and signify aboriginal people as a threat to such interests’ (Harding 2006, p224). While these efforts are important and necessary to the ongoing project of exposing and critiquing media representations, there are problematic assumptions buried in the use of the term ‘old’ to describe such forms of racism. We propose the alternate term ‘legacy racism’ to foreground the observation that examples and effects of so-called ‘old’ racism continue to be reproduced in contemporary discourse and social relations. ‘Legacy’ racism seeks to recognise the ongoing impacts of past processes on present realities and future possibilities (Hall 1997; Hill-Collins 2004).
In the early 21st century, scholars of ‘new’ racism like Bonilla-Silva (2001) and Hill-Collins (2004) developed a body of theory that identified more subtle expressions of racism. Legacy racism, with its 350overt biological markers of identity, is relatively easy to identify, and is quantitatively decreasing given widespread public condemnation. Scholars of ‘new’ racism draw attention towards emergent forms of racism expressed in the more fluid, coded terrain of culture (Barker 1989; Bonilla-Silva 2001; Chow-White 2009; Jiwani 2006). While overtly racist discourses are absent in most news discourse, repetitive structural patterns of ‘new’ racism remain; for example, in the framing of ‘neutral’ topics like immigration or housing, or in the deployment of terms like ‘welfare mothers’ or ‘terrorists’ (van Dijk, 2009). Critical race scholars argue that to counter these new forms of racism, analysis must consider ‘common sense’. Bonilla-Silva (2001) argues this can be done through examining several processes, including: increasingly covert discourses and practices, the avoidance of racial terminology, the invisibility of structural mechanisms that reproduce inequalities and the re-articulation of old practices in new forms. Hill-Collins describes specifically how new racism is articulated in media discourse:
The new racism relies more heavily on the manipulation of ideas within mass media. These new techniques present hegemonic ideologies that claim that racism is over. They work to obscure the racism that does exist, and they undercut antiracist protest. (Hill-Collins 2004, pp54–55)
For critical race scholars, new racism is revealed by research that exposes ‘naturalised’ and fluid hierarchies, frameworks, and images. Our PJ model for ‘cold’ conflicts (McMahon & Chow-White, 2011) draws on these insights to offer a tool for researchers to expose both forms of racism.
To develop our PJ model, we operationalised elements of agendasetting and framing theory. Many PJ researchers employ a methodology based in agenda-setting that focuses on overt expressions of language and representation (see, for example, Lee & Maslog 2006). According to agenda-setting theory, by highlighting certain issues, the news media confers on them a level of social relevance and importance, and issues are more likely to be debated, attacked or justified if they are validated in the media (Coleman et al. 2009; McCombs & Shaw 1977). While McCombs and other agenda-setting scholars argue that 351the media tells us what to think about, some push that argument further (Nesbitt-Larking 2001). Where agenda-setting theory measures the presence and salience of issues, a framing approach focuses on the qualitative meanings attached to issues, and the values embedded in media representations (Entman et al. 2009; Jiwani 2006; Pan & Kosicki 2003; Weaver 2007). This approach moves beyond a consideration of overt content analysis to also examine the implicit frameworks media producers employ to interpret and structure the placement of issues, events, and actors in discourse.
PJ researchers suggest that ‘theoretically, peace journalism is supported by framing theory’ (Lee et al. 2006, pp501–02). Framing theory is also supported by critical race scholars who found agendasetting a useful and necessary tool, but insufficient on its own to accurately capture the more subtle or implicit representations of ‘new’ racism (Hall 1996). As a parallel to these methodological developments, our model incorporates the insights of both agenda-setting and framing to comprehensively expose ‘cold’ conflicts.
This section briefly describes our PJ model for ‘cold’ conflict (McMahon & Chow-White, 2011). Our model works to uncover examples of value-based language, highlight the perspectives of various stakeholders to the conflicts examined, and explore the discursive field of power relations these statements operate within. The model emerged from our engagement with a strategically chosen empirical example of ‘reconciliation’ news coverage, which helped ground and enrich our theoretical argument. It includes four frames developed from PJ theory alongside techniques that reveal processes of ‘legacy’ and ‘new’ racism.
To identify processes of legacy racism, our model employs two analytical techniques. First, it examines the presence and/or absence of voices in the news discourse, particularly voices from marginalised and/or racialised communities. Second, it looks for evidence of previously identified, historically persistent negative stereotypes.352
Table 1: Model for analysis of ‘cold’ conflicts
| Legacy racism |
|---|
| Presence/absence of voice |
| Evidence of historically persistent stereotypes |
| New racism |
| Framing of parties in negotiation and conflict |
| Re-articulation of old stereotypes in new forms |
| Decontextualisation of key issues |
| Peace journalism: four frames |
| Cooperation and reconciliation in conflict transformation |
| Reporting ‘invisible’ effects of structural racism |
| Complicates stereotypes (directly and indirectly) |
| Community leadership and self-determination |
Our model explores the more subtle discourses of new racism through three analytical techniques. First, it examines the framing of parties in conflict and negotiation. This is done to explore whether these frames obscure and naturalise asymmetrical power relations by failing to acknowledge their existence (Galtung 2000). As Jiwani reminds us, in discursively formed allegiances or conflicts ‘the freedom to choose which side is “right” is accorded only to those who have the power to define and decide the limits of the debate’ (Jiwani 2006, p44). Second, our model seeks to capture the re-articulation of old racist frames and stereotypes in new forms, including in more subtle discourses of ‘common sense’. Third, our model points out the decontexualisation of certain issues, such as the omission of appropriate legal and historical contexts.
Finally, our model employs four analytical frames that highlight examples of PJ. These frames draw on existing PJ theory and incorporate insights from critical race theory, and emerge from our strategically chosen empirical site. The first frame identifies instances of cooperation, reconciliation and hope that simultaneously acknowledge past and present injustices. PJ scholars note the important role that mediated representations play in (re)constructing the effects of conflict 353transformation (Peleg 2006; Shinar 2003). They analyse conflicts as ongoing processes, as opposed to discrete events with a fixed start and end. In this way PJ works to ‘broaden the field within which contestation, argument and disagreement can take place’ (Spencer 2005, pp180–81; see also LeBaron & Pillay 2006; Lynch & McGoldrick 2005a).
The second frame identifies examples of the long-term impacts of violence, both direct and indirect, on racialised communities. PJ scholars argue that comprehensive coverage of conflict must move beyond the direct effects of violence to also consider its structural impacts (Becker 1981; Galtung 2000; Spencer 2005). When these indirect impacts are made more visible and concrete, they become discrete objects that can be examined and critiqued (Lynch & McGoldrick 2005a; see also Zandberg 2010). This approach can be enriched by critical race theory, which seeks to expose the long-term, structural effects of racism (Bonilla-Silva 2001; Hall 1997; Hill Collins 2004).
The third frame highlights examples of attempts by journalists to confront and counteract stereotypes that are connected to ideologies embedded in distinct chains of meaning activated and reproduced in recurring images. Hall’s (1981) analysis of the politics of representation describes how stereotypes can be directly challenged through the presentation of individuals in non-stereotypical positions (see also Attille & Blackwood 1986; Dennis 2009; Entman & Rojecki 2000; Henry & Tator 2002). Media producers can confront and break the chains of associations activated each time a problematic racialised stereotype is invoked (Jiwani 2006). Stereotypes can also be challenged through the recognition of hybridity, which counteracts a static, homogenising approach to identity and suggests a more fluid and complex conception of identity (Cottle 2000; Hall 1981). Our model demonstrates examples of such hybrid images.
The last frame in our model identifies racialised groups and individuals as rational, goal-oriented political actors rather than passive, emotional ‘victims’, and identifies the historical continuity of leadership in a variety of institutional fields. Following the arguments of postcolonial scholars, this frame highlights multifaceted representations that demonstrate the agency of all involved parties in enacting change 354and struggling for justice and self-determination, as opposed to portraying one side as ‘oppressors’ and the other as dominated ‘victims’ (Fanon 1963; Said 1978). One of the racial projects of postcolonial scholars has been to recoup subaltern voices in historical texts, tell counter stories, and frame colonial subjects as agentic actors (Shome & Hegde 2002; Spivak 1999). PJ researchers similarly seek to expose instances of parties in conflict that are portrayed along a ‘zero-sum’ axis, where one side is represented as ‘oppressor’ and the other as ‘victim’ in an asymmetrical binary logic (Galtung 2000; Lynch & McGoldrick 2005a; Spencer 2005). This frame seeks to highlight the agency of all involved parties in enacting change and struggling for justice.
We now turn to an application of our PJ model to an empirical site of analysis. We previously used this site to develop our model (McMahon & Chow-White, 2011); here we examine it in more detail as a case study. The eight Vancouver Sun stories ran as a series titled ‘Dark past, hopeful future’ over an eight-day period from 13 to21 June 2008 (see Table 2). The series is an attempt by the newspaper to document a perceived shift in race relations following the Canadian government’s 2008 apology for its treatment of First Nations children in residential schools, and the early stages of the $60 million Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The TRC is mandated to document the history of abuses that took place in these governmentfunded, church-run schools (Milloy 1999). Our analysis avoids specific comment on these events and issues, instead assuming a general desire to move forward processes of reconciliation by all involved parties.
This case study offers a set of media discourses that aim to capture optimistic attempts at reconciliation alongside the aftermath and ongoing effects of the systemic abuse of generations of First Nations individuals and communities. We see it as a self-conscious form of journalism that highlights post-conflict or reconstruction activities, while also recognising the after-effects of violence. It is a publicly symbolic attempt at relationship-building between First Nations and non-aboriginal communities in British Columbia. But at the same time, 355we find examples of the continuity and re-articulation of legacy and new racism. The following analysis treats this series as a complex set of discourses resulting from implicit media production practices, rather than critiquing the actions of individual reporters.
Table 2 Stories from The Vancouver Sun series ‘Dark past, hopeful future’
| Headline | Date published | ID | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aboriginal educators find hope amid dismal student results | 13 June 2008 | Steffenhagen | ||
| Many paths to healing | 14 June 2008 | Todd | ||
| First Nations have key role in Games | 16 June 2008 | Lee1 | ||
| First Nations resort turns the corner | 17 June 2008 | Constantineau | ||
| First Nations celebrate new cultural centre | 18 June 2008 | Lee2 | ||
| First Nations take early steps towards better health | 19 June 2008 | Fowlie1 | ||
| New treaty negotiations spark cautious optimism | 20 June 2008 | Fowlie2 | ||
| Currents of history | 21 June 2008 | Sinoski |
Note: The series URL: www2.canada.com/vancouversun/features/apology/series.html
A quantitative examination of the case study reveals that all of the stories in The Vancouver Sun series include First Nations voices. This indicates that, in terms of the relations of representation, racialised communities are making progress. Most of the stories include the voices of both elite sources and everyday people, moving beyond a two-party source 356dichotomy to demonstrate differentiation within the First Nations community. That said, not all voices are represented, and so the relations of representation continue to be restricted in stories where the voices of everyday or oppositional First Nations people are limited or excluded. For example, the voices of organised groups opposed to the 2010 Olympics, such as Mostly Water (Mostly Water 2009), are not included, despite several mentions of the event.
The series also contains several examples of persistent colonialera stereotypes demonstrating that challenges in the politics of representation continue. Harding (2006) discovered that negative stereotypes of aboriginal peoples in the Canadian news media are remarkably stable over time. We find continued evidence of his findings. For example, one story leads by marshalling the frame of the ‘violent and irresponsible native’. Starting a story this way offsets simultaneous attempts in the story to build a narrative of community struggle and individual redemption, as is evident in this quote:
Life at the Penticton Indian Band took a dramatic turn about four years ago after Dustin Joseph Paul killed three friends in an unprovoked drug-and-alcohol-fuelled shooting rampage. Paul, who snorted cocaine and drank heavily at a popular party spot on the reserve before the killings, said at trial he began shooting because a voice in his head told him that doing so, and then slitting his own throat, would lead to a better life. (Fowlie1)
While this example in part reflects conventional storytelling practices such as personalisation and dramatisation, framing the story this way is problematic given the attendant (and in this case, unacknowledged) historical and cultural stereotypes it invokes. Scholars argue the process of public witnessing is an important part of ‘reconciliation’ (Llewellyn 2002). However, this story (re)opens personal histories of pain and suffering to public witnessing, and invokes a chain of associations including images of alcohol and drug abuse, criminal deviancy, and ‘savage’ behaviour that recall stereotypes like the ‘drunken Indian’ or ‘savage’ (Harding 2006; Hall 1981). As Jiwani notes: ‘in projecting onto the colonised traits that were considered excessive (sexuality, 357immorality, emotionality, fecundity, and so on) the colonisers were able to construct an image of themselves as intelligent, rational, superior, moral, and controlled’ (Jiwani 2006, p33). Since the story is framed this way, the article’s later discussion of community-driven First Nations health policies and practices is pushed to the background.
We also found examples of more subtle discourses of new racism in the series. We explore these examples by looking at the positioning of parties in representations of conflict, the re-articulation of old racist frames in new forms, and the omission of key historical, legal and cultural contexts.
Some of the newspaper articles framed parties in conflict and negotiation in ways that obscure and naturalise asymmetrical power relations by failing to acknowledge their existence. This process was apparent in the (re)production of discursively formed allegiances or conflicts. In British Columbia, First Nations and non-aboriginal parties have made public statements expressing a desire towards negotiation rather than litigation to manage conflict (see, for example, Transformative Change Accord 2005). However, the series undermines this goal by repeatedly contrasting ‘reasonable’ state negotiators with ‘emotional’ First Nations leaders. In a story about the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, Squamish nation hereditary chief Joe Mathias is initially described as a ‘defender of native rights who preferred to negotiate rather than litigate’ (Lee1). The rest of the story constructs and employs a binary division between ‘negotiators’ (benevolent government and corporate groups and the First Nations communities that cooperate with them), and ‘litigators’ (First Nations communities that express reluctance and suspicion of their initiatives). Echoing the tendency of news frames to gain salience through repetition (Entman et al. 2009), this frame is elaborated on in another story about treaty negotiations. The then minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation for the province of British Columbia, Mike de Jong, points out the successes of the treaty negotiation process as based in reasoned negotiation and compromise, while, in contrast, oppositional First Nations parties are described 358as expressing ‘immense frustration’, ‘anger’, skepticism, and, at best, ‘cautious optimism’ (Fowlie2). Minister de Jong is described as:
Hopeful that over the next year there will be further progress with reconciliation deals, such as the one recently approved by the Musqueam Indian Band. De Jong said that deal is an example of an approach ‘designed to build a culture of settlements through negotiation rather than litigation’. (Fowlie2, emphasis added)
This quote concludes a story filled with optimistic, negotiation-oriented statements from government representatives, and pessimistic, emotional and reluctant statements from oppositional First Nations leaders. The ‘litigators’ are portrayed using generalised, negative language, as is apparent in this quote:
The common table itself was born out of immense frustration by a group of first nations … ‘We cannot accept the current one size fits all approach with inadequate policy/mandates being imposed by your governments’ negotiators,’ wrote a group of then about 50 first nations that called themselves the Unity Protocol. ‘The level of anger and frustration is reaching levels of which you have been repeatedly warned’. (Fowlie2)
Viewed across the series, this frames ‘good’ First Nations communities in relation to ‘bad’ ones and the dominant society. Parties in negotiation become valorised as either ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ depending on their synchronicity with the dominant corporate/government frame, echoing the findings of previous research on labour/management framing in news coverage (Hackett 1991). This situates the right of aboriginal people to employ legal measures to ensure fair consultation and accommodation in a framework of deviancy.
New racism is also present in the series through the re-articulation of old racist frames in new forms. The Vancouver Sun series demonstrates a shift in language from the historical frame of the ‘white man’s burden’ to its re-articulation as a benevolent, government- and corporate-driven ‘culture of negotiation’. As noted earlier, some aboriginal political 359groups support the principle of a ‘culture of negotiation’. However, when employed in a way that undermines the agency of these groups and increases the relative discursive position of government/corporate decision-makers and their allies, the descriptor becomes another example in the long struggle over the language of aboriginal rights – and of state attempts to define and structure access to those rights through discursive and legal strategies (Green 1995). Viewed in this way, the ‘culture of negotiation’ can naturalise pre-existing power structures and render oppositional perspectives non-threatening, homogenised and contained.
The ‘culture of negotiation’ frame is positioned throughout the series as a result of government largesse, rather than First Nations self-determination. Words like ‘giving’, ‘allowed’, and ‘building’ imply agency and benevolence on the part of government/corporate parties, and are positioned against the passive acquiescence or litigious resistance of some First Nations groups. For example, in a discussion of the legacy of residential school policies, portrayals of government benevolence appear in language that reflects active attempts at reconciliation: ‘the apology gave first nations a chance to press their point’ (Steffenhagen, emphasis added). This quote undermines First Nations agency in this process: rather than the culmination of First Nations-led demands for justice and hard fought legal battles, the apology is framed as ‘giving’ these communities a chance to present an argument for self-determination. Even stories that work to document First Nations communities’ shift towards greater independence portray their actions as stemming from state benevolence, not community-driven agency. This is seen in quotes like ‘giving first nations a hand in developing programs to fit their needs’ (Fowlie1, emphasis added).
Finally, new racism is supported in the decontexualisation of certain issues; specifically the omission of appropriate legal and historical contexts. As noted, policy documents released by First Nations political organisations make clear the position of many groups to achieve solutions over land claims and other disputes through negotiation rather than litigation. For example, a statement by former Assembly of First Nations National Chief Phil Fontaine states that ‘good faith 360negotiation is preferable to litigation, but clearly this is not the final word from the courts or First Nations on these fundamental matters’ (Assembly of First Nations 2005). This statement demonstrates that the Assembly of First Nations was willing to negotiate in good faith. At the same time, it reserved the right to seek alternative remedies through the courts if negotiations – over such issues as land claims – did not prove fruitful, noting that negotiation is ‘not the final word from the courts or First Nations’.
However, aside from the exception of one story about treaty negotiations that elaborates on the appropriate legal context, the series suppresses discussion of important cases such as Delgamuukw (Culhane 1998) and cornerstone reports such as the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (1996). This oversight represses the long history of First Nations-led political and legal struggle that has preceded the ‘culture of negotiation’. Instead of explaining the legally mandated requirements for business and government to seek aboriginal cooperation for economic developments, the articles describe relationships between organisations such as the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) in charge of planning the 2010 Winter Olympics and aboriginal communities as driven by the goodwill of corporate and government organisations. For example, a business deal is described as an attempt by VANOC ‘to include first nations in economic, social and cultural opportunities’ (Lee1, emphasis added). But this statement neglects the relevant context of the court-mandated requirement of the organisation to seek permission to conduct business on First Nations claimed territories. Further decontextualisation is highlighted in the language used to describe First Nations communities’ frustration with the treaty process. Rather than explaining specific, concrete problems and challenges, a story on treaty negotiations employs vague terms, such as ‘six key issues’ and ‘significant roadblocks’. At one point, the treaty process is described as having ‘dragged on for years with only a few notable successes’ (Fowlie2), but without any context as to why.361
Despite these notable examples that reproduce and re-articulate legacy and new forms of racism, The Vancouver Sun series also demonstrates a clear attempt to focus on the ongoing transformational effects of recncilion-oriented activities. This section elaborates on some of these frames.
This frame expresses change as bringing about long-term conflict transformation (including material transformations and attempts to address structural violence). It is contrasted against framing ‘reconciliation’ as an event with a fixed start and end, hardening dichotomies between parties, and operating only on a symbolic level. Several stories in the series emphasise community-driven cooperation and hope (accompanied by an acknowledgement of past injustices). For example, some articles highlight concrete examples of cooperation through formal mechanisms like public apologies and financial reparations delivered from non-aboriginal institutions such as the United Church and the federal government. Others describe community-driven economic development projects. For example, one story describes how a First Nations community transformed a former residential school into a thriving business. In acknowledging the site’s past alongside its optimistic future, and highlighting community-driven partnerships with non-aboriginal communities, the story offers a symbolic and physical example of reconstruction:
St Eugene school educated about 5,000 first nations children between 1912 and 1970 and sat derelict for 30 years before a combination of government funds, band money and private capital transformed the property into a quality resort. ‘The decision to transform the site of so much pain and suffering into a new tourism business was not easy’. … [St Mary’s band Chief Sophie] Pierre and resort officials invoke the words of late band elder Mary Paul when explaining the decision to create the resort. ‘Since it was within the St Eugene Mission School 362that the culture of the Kootenay Indian was taken away, it should be within the building that it is returned,’ Paul said. (Constantineau, emphasis added)
Another story frames the economic partnership between the four First Nations host communities, government and corporate parties in the lead-up to the 2010 Winter Olympics as a ‘history-making opportunity’. This partnership is presented as the result of entrepreneurship, First Nations agency, and local initiative:
The Vancouver relationship [between First Nation and non-First Nation groups] is so strong that the four host First Nations are consulted on nearly everything, and VANOC actively seeks to include first nations in economic, social and cultural opportunities. (Lee1)
Importantly, this story includes relevant legal context, such as a description of the Delgamuukw case, that ‘implicitly gave strength to first nations’ claims that their aboriginal title hadn’t been extinguished’ (Lee1). By noting this fact in the lead paragraph, the story sets up a frame that the business negotiations leading to the Olympic partnership result from the history of ongoing legal and political struggles on the part of First Nations communities to achieve self-determination.
The Vancouver Sun series also offers examples of media discourses that highlight the long-term repercussions of the structural violence of colonial public policies. For example, the series describes the ongoing negative effects of the government’s residential schools policy while also acknowledging the successes of indigenous forms of health and spirituality. This relational approach to representing structural racism across time is apparent in this quote:
The school dropout rate is still high among aboriginal students … and first nations students are still being taken into care by government agencies. Much of this stems from the pain and loss they suffered by being forced into residential schools…‘The residential schools were like a shock, an explosion on the people, and we still feel the 363reverberations’ [said Shawn Atleo, then regional chief of the Assembly of First Nations]. (Sinowski, emphasis added)
Journalists tend to write about the experiences of individuals, to ‘humanise’ otherwise abstract issues. At the same time, it is important to situate individuals in the appropriate social, cultural, political and economic structures that impact their lives. The example highlighted above demonstrates an example of this technique.
An article about the 2010 Winter Olympics notes that Chief Leonard Andrew of the Lil’wat has a ‘deep skepticism, born of long experience, about grandiose ideas’ (Lee1). The story includes appropriate context for this skepticism, explaining it as the result of long-term policies like the residential school system, racism against aboriginal communities, and social problems within his community. Chief Andrew is given an opportunity to express his legitimate concerns and hopes within a discursive framework that situates his statements in a broader context.
The Vancouver Sun series offers examples of direct and indirect attempts to counter longstanding stereotypes. Several articles discuss the efforts of First Nations leaders working in professional fields like law, politics and education – moving beyond the historical stereotype of uncertain, emotion-driven First Nation leadership (Harding 2006). One story high-lights leaders like Frank Calder (the first full status aboriginal person to attend Chilliwack high school and the University of British Columbia, and a former elected Member of the Legislative Assembly) and Gordon Antoine (who founded the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology). These individuals received recognition through achievements such as the Order of British Columbia and Order of Canada, demonstrating that they are viewed as leaders not only by their own communities, but also by the non-aboriginal community (Sinoski).
The series also includes representations of aboriginal cultural forms that are expressed in the language of contemporary business. While references to ‘artistic branding’ bring up arguments about the commodification of material culture and community-‘owned’ intellectual property (see Brown 2003) that are beyond the scope of 364this chapter, they nonetheless demonstrate a shift in the portrayal of aboriginal art as an ‘exotic remnant of the past’. For example, a story about a new cultural centre challenges the stereotype of aboriginal culture as the relic of a lost culture:
The new $30-million Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre, [is] a living museum that pays homage to the art, history and culture of the first nations. ‘We are not a museum culture, we are a living culture,’ said Joy Joseph McCullough, the education director for the Squamish. (Lee2, emphasis added)
The Vancouver Sun series also illustrates indirect methods of countering stereotypes through several examples of cultural hybridity. One article discusses the history of religious syncretism in First Nations communities, through which some former residential school students combined aboriginal and non-aboriginal religious traditions in a new form of spiritual practice. This highlights the fluid and diverse nature of religious practices in British Columbia:
Like many aboriginals, [David] Belleau was trying to heal through a complex mix of aboriginal rituals, Western psychotherapy, Alcoholics Anonymous, traditional art and dance and, surprisingly to some, Christianity … Many aboriginals are accepting church apologies and offering forgiveness, while exploring a blend of spiritual and psychological practices, both aboriginal and Western. (Todd, emphasis added)
Finally, some of the stories in The Vancouver Sun series portray First Nations leaders as pushing forward ongoing constructive change in their communities, and in broader society, in fields such as law, politics and education. These developments are accompanied with an acknowledgement of past struggles and successes achieved by First Nations leaders. As opposed to the frame of government/corporate benevolence (as discussed in our ‘new’ racism analysis), this frame highlights the long struggle of First Nations peoples to achieve social justice in a variety of institutional fields. They are presented as rational, goal-oriented 365political actors rather than passive, emotional, ‘victims’ of colonial power. For example, the series includes statements by Grand Chief Stewart Philip from the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs that are critical of the government’s current approach to the treaty process in British Columbia. This demonstrates an active political argument for increased self-determination in treaty negotiations:
I stated at the outset that I have no faith in the common table given the fact that the policy underlying the treaty process hasn’t changed … What we need is a dramatic fundamental structural change in legislation and policy and practice because the status quo is just an impediment to us reaching those goals. (Grand Chief Stewart Philip, cited in Fowlie2)
This frame also highlights the historical continuity of leadership in First Nations communities. In fact, one story focuses on multigenerational leadership driven by the agency of individuals and communities, as apparent in this quote:
They were born into a world bent on assimilation, but first nations elders like Frank Arthur Calder and Grand Chief George Manuel refused to buckle under colonial control. Instead, following a trail blazed by their ancestors, the two men pulled themselves from the residential school mire to doggedly pursue a centuries-long fight for the rights of their people. (Sinowski)
This frame of First Nations self-determination and leadership is further echoed in discussions of community-led health policies and projects. Where warranted, existing problems are explained in the context of government (not First Nations) neglect, and articles note efforts to recoup culture and build relationships led by First Nations community members. For example, one story presents reconstruction in the field of education through an acknowledgement of the historical movement from state control to First Nations self-determination. This shift is framed in terms of hope, pride, and reconciliation through concrete mechanisms like an agreement that gives First Nations more control of educational administration:366
A result of a landmark deal signed in 2006, which recognizes the right of first nations to control their own schools and gives them a stronger role in educating aboriginal students in public schools … ‘It’s recognition, finally, that first nations people can do it, and they need to do it for our own children,’ said [First Nations educator Kathi] Dickie. (Steffenhagen, emphasis added)
The series also includes statements that validate different knowledge systems, as demonstrated in descriptions of First Nations professionals who ‘don’t have academic degrees but do have firm community roots’ (Fowlie1). This comment serves to counteract tendencies to diminish First Nations knowledge by contrasting it to Western ‘rational’ belief systems (Dei et al. 2000).
Peace journalism theory and research has largely focused on analysing ‘hot’ conflicts and direct violence. In this chapter, we use our PJ model to demonstrate one way researchers might investigate the more subtle discursive terrain of ‘cold’ conflicts (McMahon & Chow-White, 2011). We proposed the concept of ‘legacy’ racism as an alternative to ‘old’ racism, to recognise the continuing impact of past racist policies and practices on groups and individuals. Finally, we critically analysed a case study of news coverage about ‘reconciliation’ activities between First Nations and non-aboriginal communities in Canada.
The Vancouver Sun series exhibits some characteristics that reflect the normative suggestions put forward by proponents of peace journalism and critical race theory; however, many of these brief articulations are far overshadowed by ongoing evidence of both legacy and new racism towards First Nations people. Our model demonstrates these contradictions most clearly in its discussion of the recurring frame of the ‘culture of negotiation’. This frame may be a prima facie example of PJ, since it appears to highlight a process of negotiation and conflict transformation between equal parties. However, our model reveals that the frame in fact undermines First Nations agency and constructs an asymmetrical binary between ‘benevolent’ corporate/state parties and 367‘frustrated, emotional’ First Nations groups. Explained this way, the ‘culture of negotiation’ becomes an expression of new racism. This demonstrates that putatively self-reflexive, ‘reconciliation’-oriented news representations can at times perpetuate systemic domination of racialised communities.
Critical race theorists have long contended that structural racism is not solely based in media discourses. Similarly, PJ researchers and critics question whether mediated approaches to peacebuilding are effective in securing material change and transforming conflict. Our case study underscores these points. Ongoing evidence of both legacy and new racism in ‘reconciliation’ media suggests that such coverage does not always challenge structural racism, and in fact may reproduce it in new forms.
However, we also found news discourse can simultaneously contain seeds of progressive reform. Our model exposed nascent tendencies towards PJ, enabling us to highlight examples of discourses that challenge stereotypes, expose the structural effects of violence, demonstrate the fluid and contingent nature of group-based identities and offer appropriate contextual explanations. By helping researchers highlight such examples of PJ, while also exposing ongoing processes of legacy and new racism, we hope our analytical model is useful for projects of peacebuilding and reconciliation.
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