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.