Fracking in Canadian Print News: A Sociotechnical Debate

Abstract

It is widely recognized that fracking is a topic of debate in the news, which is largely “compartmentalized” into stories on fracking as economically beneficial or risky to environment and health. Building on previous scholarship, we take a constructivist position and focus on fracking as potentially technical and social, or sociotechnical. Our qualitative textual analysis of news printed in two high-circulation newspapers in Canada (2013-2015) reveals that normative positions on fracking are furthered alongside normative descriptions of Indigenous Peoples and regional cultures. We argue that science communication practitioners perform specific normative work via their communicative acts.

Problem Uncertainty, Institutional Insularity, and Modes of Learning in Canadian Provincial Hydraulic Fracturing Regulation

“…To trace how problem uncertainty was constructed over time in each province the study draws on thematic and content analysis of over 400 news articles. Media analysis is a useful technique in tracing changes in problem uncertainty over time because of the ability to isolate particular frames regarding fracking, as well as the actor, source, and date of each claim (Blair, Weible, Heikkila, & McCormack, 2015; Bronson, Dobson, & O'Doherty, 2019; Lodge & Matus, 2014; Olive, 2016; Olive & Delshad, 2017). The author and a research assistant developed a database of articles gathered using keyword searches of terms “hydraulic fracturing,” “fracking,” “unconventional gas,” or “shale gas.” The search yielded 220 articles from the Chronicle Herald in Nova Scotia and 218 articles from the Vancouver Sun , regional newspapers with the highest circulation in each province.…”