News Media and the Military: Portraying and Responding to Right-Wing Extremism in the Canadian Armed Forces
Date
2024-01-02
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Abstract
In 2019 a Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) reservist was found to have been recruiting fellow reservists into a neo-Nazi paramilitary group known as The Base. The news of this event was reported in national headlines and an investigation into allegations of extremist recruitment was conducted by the CAF. While concerns of discrimination and racism within the military are not new, for instance, the scandal known as the Somalia Affair from the early 1990s involved allegations of racism within the military. The finding that the CAF was used to recruit members into right-wing extremist (RWE) groups was alarming. Traditional news media is vital to reporting and investigating stories, yet how stories are presented to the public can impact where people might stand on certain issues. News reports on RWE in the military could lead to diminished trust between the public and the CAF and could be damaging to the CAF’s reputation. This thesis explores how the Canadian news media portrays RWE in the CAF, whether the CAF acknowledges the presence of extremism in their organization, and how the CAF responds to this issue. Using a content analysis approach, news articles from The Globe and Mail and Departmental Plans from the Department of National Defence (DND) and the CAF are examined. The content of these sources is used to determine whether parallels can be drawn from news media reports on RWE in the military and reports generated by the CAF itself. The findings indicate that in the context of RWE, the CAF is generally portrayed negatively by the news media. More importantly, the findings suggest that the news media highlights the social and political context in Canada which might allow RWE beliefs to thrive. In contrast, reports from the CAF and DND prioritize presenting solutions to addressing RWE within the military by drawing focus on aspects of culture change. Ultimately, the CAF is not immune to the political and social influences that might divide Canadians. An environment that continues to provoke hate or violence motivated by hate places the CAF in a vulnerable position where it is not exempt from the influence of extremist beliefs.
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right-wing extremism, white supremacy, Canadian Armed Forces, Department of National Defence, news media
Citation
Shanti, D. (2024). News media and the military: portraying and responding to right-wing Extremism in the Canadian Armed Forces (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.