Canada's First Nations and the Mass Media

Paper Summary:

The paper focuses on the time when Elijah Harper's single vote in Manitoba blocked the constitutional reform package known as Meech Lake. The paper explains how Harper's action elevated the concerns and interests of Canada's First Nations to prominence on the Canadian political scene. The paper then examines Thomas Walkom's article "A Tragic Death Puts Meech into Perspective" that highlights the Canadian mass media's view of the First Nations of Canada. The paper shows how the mass media's perspective is a complex one which, at one and the same time, mingles respect and sympathy for peoples of the First Nations with a view that these peoples are inevitably "wards" of the Canadian state.

From the Paper:

"Mass media analysis is invariably complex in that media messages are often conveyed on more than one level in a mass media text. Consider, for example, Thomas Walkom's moving article "A Tragic Death Puts Meech into Perspective" from the Toronto Star. This article is profoundly disturbing in its depiction of the tragic death of a young Aboriginal woman - Noreen Munro - on the streets of Toronto where she lived homeless, while the constitutional debate known as Meech Lake continued. While this article is moving in describing the tragic end of this young woman's life, it is unusual in how Walkom suggests that this death suggests how pointless are the constitutional talks then underway in Ottawa. He concludes that such conferences should be limited to one in a century (Walkom)."

Sample of Sources Used:

• CP Staff. "Thousands of Natives Rally to Support Harper's Crusade." The Toronto Star. 22 June, 1990: A12.
• Henton, Darcy. "Natives Seize the Moment." The TorontoStar. 28 June, 1990: A21.
• Henton, Darcy. "Our People and Our Culture are Dying."The Toronto Star. 21 June 1990: A23.
• Henton, Darcy. "Why Canada's Native Peoples Want the Meech Accord Changed." The Toronto Star. 20 June 1990: A23.
• Oake, George. "Disappointed Natives to Keep Blocking Meech."The Toronto Star. 18 June, 1990: A1.

More papers on Canada's First Nations and the Mass Media:

• Research Paper # 71591 : "Violence and the Mass Media"
• Analytical Essay # 136260 : "Racism and the Mass Media"
• Essay # 90920 : "Politics and the Mass Media"

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