“Mothers are Medicine”: U.S. Indigenous Media Emphasizing Indigenous Women's Roles in COVID-19 Coverage

Abstract

As COVID-19 surged in 2020, non-Indigenous media had a chronic disease of its own: sparse pandemic news from Indian Country. Within this inadequate coverage, there was an erasure of sources: Indigenous women were missing. This study evaluates the role of gender in U.S. Indigenous news coverage during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. In a qualitative thematic textual analysis, 161 Indigenous media news articles were analyzed to examine gendered news coverage themes from the time the United States instituted a nationwide quarantine until the autumn of 2020. U.S. Indigenous media amplified voices of the Indigenous women on the COVID-19 frontlines. This study focuses on Indigenous media as the benchmark for telling ethical diverse Indigenous community-focused stories, illustrating how women's voices led media coverage and amplified issues. U.S. tribes are often matriarchal. As Europeans wielded disease and genocide as extermination tactics on these communities, women's voices served as medicine to guide narratives to community solutions and healing. As such, this study seeks to add to current theoretical understanding of how Indigenous women's roles were portrayed in COVID-19 coverage.

The influence of Indigenous standpoint: Examining Indian Country press portrayals of Native women in politics

“…Recent research has noted both the perpetuation of stereotypes for women of color in politics (Gibbons, 2022) and the need for further examination of the roles of Native women in Native media (Carter Olson et al, 2022). By bringing these two lines of research together with the findings of this study, journalists and journalism scholars can consider the potential benefits of standpoint theory approaches to journalistic practice and research.…”

“…Just as the leadership of the Cherokee Phoenix had differences of opinion, today’s Native journalists also offer varied ideas in their coverage of Native issues, identity and individuals. Nonetheless, “many Indigenous peoples around the world see media production as a way to preserve and transmit their culture, and a way to defend their rights” (Carter Olson et al, 2022, p. 5; Cultural Survival, 2020). Therefore, a deeper understanding of Indigenous standpoint theory is useful for understanding Native media.…”

“…Scholars have questioned for decades the “dearth of empirical research focused on American Indian women and written from an Indian cultural perspective” (Green, 1980; LaFromboise et al, 1990, p. 456). More recently, Carter Olson et al (2022) also pointed to the lack of “an Indigenous perspective of the roles of Indigenous women’s voices in Indigenous news media” (p. 2). As such, this study examines three Native newspapers and their coverage of Haaland, Davids and Herrell to understand their discursive strategies toward women in politics.…”

Editorial: Strategic narratives in political and crisis communication: Responses to COVID-19

“…(1) They must reflect the lived experiences of the full range of audiences being addressed (see Bodenheimer and Leidenberger, 2020;Davis and Lohm, 2020;Ogden, 2020;Chang, 2021;Dagnall et al;Hagström and Gustafsson, 2021), and (2) they must decolonise and dismantle the hegemonic cores of the language within which messages are constructed and the processes by which those messages are disseminated (see Kuhn et al, 2020;Elers et al, 2021;Kapoor;Carter Olson et al, 2022). In both of these ideals, we must ensure that strategic pandemic messaging centers in compassion.…”