'Colonialism has always thrived in Canada's press,' says researcher

At first, Carmen Robertson thought they'd gotten it wrong. 

Robertson, a professor at Carleton University who identifies as Lakota and Scottish, was poring over research findings from an in-depth analysis of how the mainstream media in Canada have represented Indigenous people from 1869 until 2009. 

"What we were surprised by was how little things improved," recalled Robertson.  

Robertson, and her colleague Mark Anderson, realized that their overall finding, while surprising, wasn't wrong. 

"The stereotypes that we found in the 19th century, they're still being reproduced," said Robertson. 

Robertson and Anderson's research was published in 2011 in their book Seeing Red: A History of Natives in Canadian Newspapers. Their book was the first of its kind to be published, and is considered a important text in many universities.

The main finding from their research was the media's unchanging stereotypical misrepresentation of Indigenous people, explained Robertson. While some of the specific terms have morphed over time, the same stereotypes continue to be recirculated.

Recurring tropes used by mainstream journalists when representing Indigenous people include the themes of "uncivilized" and "savagery," said Robertson. "Drunkenness," she added, "is a key trope that we saw, again and again."

The media's misrepresentation of Indigenous people is harmful, Robertson explained. "It reproduces and ... confirms the stereotypes that people hear in other parts of popular culture."

Colonialism and mainstream journalism are interconnected 

Journalists and the mainstream media are intertwined with colonization. "Colonialism has always thrived in Canada's press," wrote Robertson and Anderson in Seeing Red. 

"Canadiana, crucially aided and abetted by newspapers, and even scholars who should know better, has for decades denied it, persisting instead in believing the dreamed colonial version of history. In this way, Canada, like all nations, is an 'imagined community,'" wrote the authors. 

The influence of colonialism in mainstream media is "pervasive," Robertson told Unreserved host Rosanna Deerchild. 

It really was not an objective representation.- Carmen Robertson

In their research, Robertson and Anderson took issue with the concept of objectivity, a value that has long been upheld as central to journalism. The authors' analysis of 140 years of mainstream media coverage related to Indigenous people revealed how journalists consistently reproduced stereotypes. 

"It really was not an objective representation," she said. "What we saw instead was people understanding their own biases and reporting those."  

One of the many harms inflicted by the media's misrepresentation of Indigenous people is a result of the educational role off the press, she said. Robertson and Anderson refer to the press as "a kind of national curriculum."  

When stereotypes are reproduced in the media it reinforces those misrepresentations in people's minds, she said. "It becomes a kind of education."

"It can't change overnight" 

Stereotypes are "deeply entrenched" in the mainstream media. "The press has been around for a long time," said Robertson. "It can't change overnight." 

"I think there definitely is a will for some change, but it's far more incremental than we'd like to see," she said. 

But Robertson is heartened to see journalism schools in Canada taking up the Truth and Reconciliation's Calls to Action (Call to Action 86 is directed specifically at Canadian journalism programs and media schools).

Robertson and Anderson are working on an updated version of Seeing Red. The upcoming edition will include new content, including an analysis of the media coverage of the death of Colten Boushie, and the trial of the man who shot him, Gerald Stanley. The updated book is expected to be available by 2021, 10 years after Seeing Red was first published.