As my eyes stayed glued to the television many things entered my mind this past weekend. The media coverage of the G20 summit was plagued with the “othering” of protestors and a positive representation of law enforcement and politicians. The protestors were described as “thugs”, “dangerous”,” violent” while the police were described as “heroic”, “justified”, and “doing a great job.” It is important to look at such media discourse as social power, abuse, dominance and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by text and talk in the social and political context (Dijk, 352). Interestingly enough once the new legal powers came to the police there was much talk and debate on if this was necessary. Ultimately what happened during the G20 summit protest was a justification technique in the media of such new laws, and the 1 billion dollar budget for law enforcement to be perfectly necessary to protect citizens from such “violent” protestors. Meanwhile the majority of the protestors were innocent people, many were community organizers, social advocacy workers, youth workers, lawyers, and students.
Media footage illustrated images of police cars set on fire, and vandalizing of stores yet as this was occurring no police were in sight to stop it. Later protestors were arrested in large groups and sent off to jail. Section 2(b) of the Charter states that "Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms: ... freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression. During the G20 summit protests, many people were arrested simply for exhibiting the freedom of expression. I do not in any way condone the burning of police cars, nor the vandalizing of buildings. But many of the people who were arrested were not taking part in either of those activities.
As a society we must question laws in place, and ask ourselves if they are just. We must also question injustices as they occur. By not questioning we are silently allowing injustice to replicate in society. Many people were interviewed in various media broadcasts stating the police were doing an excellent job, how Canada looks like a different country in the footage, how people are being so violent etc. Yet very little is shown of the other parts of the protests. We are given very limited information on the protestors, the groups they are from within Canada and why these mobilization efforts are occurring. What we are hearing is of a Black Bloc group which origins are not even Canadian. Sadly we are losing the picture of why these protestors went out to resist the G20. The media’s coverage of the G20 summit protests created the continuation of control of public discourse and demonstrated the power of controlling people’s minds as a way to reproduce dominance and hegemony (Dijk, 357). Through the media coverage we were taught to believe that the protestors were the aggressors and the police were simply doing their job. Due to the powerful nature of news media many would believe such ideas to be true. The fact of the matter is many innocent people have been arrested and continue to be detained. Although many experts have said that the people will be let go without charges why have they not been let go? Also why do many of them show signs of physical abuse? And what about the emotional trauma suffered? The questions are not being answered, and silence lingers. Foucault has stated that social change will disturb us, It will never come easy but social change is necessary. We have become a society that does not want to question authoritative power or bureaucracy, but social change cannot happen without questioning injustice created on our very own soil.
Sources:
Dijk Teun A.Van (2003). “Critical Discourse Analysis” In Schiffrin, Deborah, The Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Wiley, John & Sons pp. 352-371
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