The impacts of negative media coverage

Today in The Conversation Canada, we turn the spotlight on our own industry – the news media.

The role of the media has been front and centre ever since Prince Harry and Meghan Markle gave up their official royal duties and moved to Canada. Shana MacDonald of the University of Waterloo looks at the negative media treatment Meghan has received since her romance with Prince Harry became public in 2016. She is just the latest woman “to experience negative media coverage and shifting public opinions once entering the Royal Family.”

Negative media coverage of Canada’s Indigenous Peoples has been around for as long as newspapers have existed in this country. Have things improved? Chad Walker of the University of Exeter is part of a research team that analysed how media has recently portrayed the involvement of Indigenous communities in renewable energy projects across Canada. This story is part of our ongoing series on the Truth and Reconciliation’s Calls to Action.

Also today:

Regards,

Scott White

Editor-in-Chief

Today's Featured Articles

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex attend the annual WellChild Awards in London in October 2019. (Toby Melville/Pool via AP)

Let’s laud Harry and Meghan for their act of self-care — and leave them alone

Shana MacDonald, University of Waterloo

If we're ever to move past outmoded values of gender, race and class, we need to wish Prince Harry and Meghan Markle well — and challenge those who would prefer everything remains the same.

Muskrat Falls on the Churchill River in Labrador, in February 2011. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Daly

Journalists covering Indigenous Peoples in renewable energy should focus on context and truth, not click-bait

Chad Walker, University of Exeter

The mainstream news media has been biased in its reporting and portrayal of Indigenous Peoples on stories about renewable energy projects. What and how can they do better?

Some lakes in the Arctic are expanding and others are disappearing as permafrost thaws. This lake north of Inuvik, N.W.T., is expanding as the ice wedges (darker lines leading away from the lake) around this lake melt and the ground subsides. (Philip Marsh)

Collapsing permafrost is transforming Arctic lakes, ponds and streams

Philip Marsh, Wilfrid Laurier University; Evan Wilcox, Wilfrid Laurier University; Niels Weiss, Wilfrid Laurier University

Hundreds of thousands of lakes, rivers and streams in the Arctic exist only because of the permafrost that lies beneath them. The warming Arctic threatens to change that.

La Conversation Canada

Des manifestants tiennent des fleurs lors de protestations survenues le 11 janvier à l'Université Amir Kabir à Téhéran, en hommage aux victimes de l'écrasement du vol PS752. La police réplique avec des gaz lacrymogène. L'apparente unanimité qui a suivi l’assassinat de Soleimani s’est vite effondrée face à la présence de revendications populaires et d’un mécontentement général. AP Photo

Assassinat de Suleimani : malgré l'apparente unanimité, l'Iran est plus divisé que jamais

Vahid Yücesoy, Université de Montréal

L'apparente unanimité qui a suivi l’assassinat de Soleimani s’est vite effondrée face à la présence de revendications populaires et d’un mécontentement général. Les Iraniens protestent désormais contre leur régime.

Health + Medicine

  • Snakes could be the original source of the new coronavirus outbreak in China

    Haitao Guo, University of Pittsburgh; Guangxiang “George” Luo, University of Alabama at Birmingham; Shou-Jiang Gao, University of Pittsburgh

    A new coronavirus related to SARS and MERS has now traveled from China to the United States. A genetic analysis reveals that this deadly pathogen may have originated in snakes.

Politics

Culture + Society

Science + Technology