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Social construction of aboriginal peoples in the Saskatchewan print media

This thesis examines the portrayal of Aboriginal Peoples in two Saskatchewan daily newspapers. This research is based on the question: "How is the notion of Aboriginal Peoples socially constructed in the print media?" Previous research indicates
that media portrayals of minority groups are often partial and stereotypical. Such portrayals are partly responsible for linking the unacceptable behavior of minority groups
to phenotypic traits, and thereby contributing to the social significance of "race." Discourse analysis is used to analyze 437 newspaper articles that were collected using a full-text keyword search of the EBSCO Host database, which indexes articles from the Leader Post and the Star Phoenix. In general, the results reveal that Aboriginal peoples are regularly portrayed as problematic; either as having problems themselves, or as causing problems for non-Aboriginal peoples. The results support the view that race is socially constructed and demonstrate that "race," through media discourse, can become a socially acceptable explanation for social problems.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:SSU.etd-06202008-130404
Date30 July 2008
CreatorsMaslin, Crystal Lynn
ContributorsShepard, Bruce, Schissel, Bernard, Li, Peter S., Wotherspoon, Terry
PublisherUniversity of Saskatchewan
Source SetsLibrary and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://library.usask.ca/theses/available/etd-06202008-130404/
Rightsunrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Saskatchewan or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report.

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