Blowing smoke in the Ring of Fire: a critical analysis of news media discourse on resource extraction in Northern Ontario

Abstract

Talk of societal green transitions has become commonplace across the globe. As the need to address the impacts of human-driven climate change grows increasingly critical, so too do massive societal shifts towards environmental justice and sustainability. In Ontario, the Ring of Fire region has received considerable media attention for its potential to be mined for critical minerals key to Canada's green transition. As mining corporations move to position themselves in the centre of these green transitions, it is crucial to interrogate the language used to cover resource extraction activities in news media. This project employs a critical discourse analysis of national and regional news media coverage of the Ring of Fire between January 1 2021 and September 27 2022 to answer the following questions: How are discourses (re)produced in national and regional news media coverage of the Ring of Fire region in Canada? What general discursive themes are dominant in news media coverage of the Ring of Fire? How do the narratives within these themes relate to imaginaries for future green transformations? Grounding this analysis in ecolinguistics theory, three overarching discursive themes were identified in the data set: greenwashed and destructive discourses, Indigenous communities-government-mining industry relations discourses, and conflict discourses. The dominant narratives within these themes convey a technological and market-led imaginary for future green transformations, where the region is valued purely in economic and geopolitical terms. Indigenous partnership is assumed, with any opposition framed as temporary. Linguistic tools, such as salience strategies and environmental melodrama, can challenge the dominant discourse and provide room for other imaginaries of societal green transformations.