Exam 11: The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and First Nations Issues: a Content Analysis of Major Canadian Media, 2014-2015

In Indigenous stories, government spokespersons rarely have a voice. Government officials, together with lawyers and other experts, play a small part in the public debate over Indigenous issues.

What is the importance of voice in media coverage? How do you think that the presence (or lack thereof) of Indigenous perspectives influences the audience?

What happened during the Burnt Church incident in 1999?

What are some examples of underlying factors of colonialism? How are they being neglected by mainstream media?

What was the result of the 2016 symposium on the Highway of Tears held by the Coalition of First Nations organizations?

How is voice represented in mainstream media? What stories include the most Indigenous voices? Which ones includes the least? How does this impact how these stories are framed?

What is referred to as the searchlight phenomenon? How does it reflect on the way Indigenous news recovered? How is the coverage for truth and reconciliation an example of this?

In news stories concerning missing and murdered Indigenous women, 12% of the articles specifically denied that the victim had a "high-risk" lifestyle, while a large percentage of the stories (17%) questioned the victim's vulnerability.

What was the political reaction to the MMIW crisis was mainly focused on?

Indigenous voices are particularly well represented in commentaries, letters to the editor, or opinion columns.

Describe how mainstream media fails to report on Indigenous stories. Why is this a problem? What are the observations from the Royal Commissions Report on Aboriginal Peoples and the TRC Executive Summary?

According to studies, socially disadvantaged groups are more likely to be subjected to which of the following?

Reports can appear to implicate other victims in their own victimization by emphasizing the absence of "vulnerability factors" in a specific case.

What are the characteristics and the challenges of reporting sex crimes? What are the five storylines of the Delhi rape according to Drache and Velagic?

What are some of the recommendations from the TRC mentioned in the text? Would you say that they have been followed? What would you consider to be the best approach to addressing these recommendations?

Which of the following is not one of the findings from the authors' detailed analysis of the coverage of Indigenous issues?

In 1995, members of the Shuswap Nations occupied unceded territory on a ranch owned by Lyle James, leading to many arrests. What is the name of that event?

The RCMP released which of the following documents related to MMIW cases in 2014?

Which one of the following is not one of the underlying factors of colonialism that are still largely ignored by the mainstream media?

Which one of the following is true about stories that refer to high-risk behaviour in relation to MMIW?