Reversing the Gaze: Developing Indigenous and Western Media Frames to Coverage of Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples in the News Media*

Abstract

The news media is an important force shaping societal views of the socio‐politics of climate change. International scholarship finds it not uncommon for Indigenous cultures, communities, and perspectives to be underrepresented and misrepresented in Western media, especially on climate change issues. Research also indicates that accurate Indigenous representation occurs when Indigenous peoples are the authors of news articles themselves. We developed a Holistic Media Coding Protocol informed by Indigenous and Western perspectives to guide our content analysis of media coverage of climate change, environmental issues, and Indigenous peoples. We examined news articles from two Indigenous news publications, Indian Country Today and Navajo Times, and two Western news publications, The New York Times and The Salt Lake Tribune. Our findings indicate that creating and utilizing a theory‐informed Holistic Media Coding Protocol challenges the recurrent Western gaze on Indigenous peoples. This Holistic Media Coding Protocol contributes to our understandings of the media, settler colonialism, and climate change from Indigenous and Western perspectives. Overall, this research responds to a critical call for sociologists to engage more deeply with settler colonialism, Indigenous issues, and intersectional environmental justice.