Paper short abstract:

Arctic journalists have been tasked with reporting on climate change, economic development, and multiple levels of government priorities and policies. This paper draws on a multi-year research project that uses content analysis and ethnography to understand media changes in the Canadian Arctic.

Paper long abstract:

Journalists in the Arctic have been tasked with reporting on and adequately representing the severity of ongoing climate change as well as concurrent economic developments, holding community, regional, national, and transnational governments accountable for priorities and policies. News stories must often negotiate with varying kinds of knowledge, including local, indigenous, and scientific predictions and expertise. In assessing news values for regional and global audiences, journalists must also deal with colonial histories, sedimentations of representation, and transforming journalistic norms related to new and social media platforms. This paper draws from a multi-year research project that investigates how journalists based in the Canadian Arctic are adapting professional standards, norms and practices in order to navigate changes to media technologies, audiences, and news organizations. As new networked and digital media technologies enable greater reach and participation across the north, they are also expanding potential global audiences interested in news about economic, social and environmental changes taking place in the Arctic. This paper will discuss some early ethnographic research with journalists in the Canadian Arctic as well as in-depth content analyses of how regional, national, and international media have reported on the Arctic and how social media audiences and contributors on Twitter responded during major events such as COP 21 in Paris.