ElizaHuber-WeissMay17,2017NatureofDataFinalPaper

“Protectors”or“Protesters”:TextanalysisoftheportrayaloftheDakotaAccessPipelineinnationalandindigenous

newspapersIntroduction InDecemberof2014,EnergyTransferPartners,aDallas-basedenergycompany,

appliedtothefederalgovernmentofTheUnitedStatestobuilda1,200milepipeline

carryingoilfromNorthDakotatojoinupwithanexistingpipelineinIllinois.ByMarchof

2016,allfourstatesthroughwhichthepipelinewouldpassapprovedtheaction,andthe

ArmyCorpsofEngineersmadeplanstostartconstructionthatsummer.Theseplanswould

bethestartofoneofthelargestenvironmentalandsocialscandalsof2016,commonly

referredtoastheDakotaAccessPipelineprotests("ATimelineoftheDakotaAccess

Pipeline,"2017).

Whiletheproposedrouteofthepipelineskirtedtheactualreservationlandofthe

StandingRockSiouxtribe,itpasseddirectlyunderLakeOahe,fedbytheMissouriRiver,

andthewatersourceforthereservation.StartinginAprilof2016,afterthefinalstate

approvalhadgonethrough,membersofthistribeestablishedaprotestcampatthepoint

wheretheCannonballandMissouriRiversmeet.Thiscampwasbuiltontheideaof

peacefulprotestforthesakeofindigenousrightsandenvironmentalprotection,andwould

growtothousandsofpeopleinpopulationoverthecourseofthefollowingmonths,largely

duetosignificantsocialmediaactivityandtheinvolvementofpublicfigureslikeShailene

WoodleyandMassachusettssenatorElizabethWarren.Over600peoplewerearrested

overthecourseofthecamps.

InJulyof2016,theStandingRockSiouxtribesuedtheArmyCorpsofEngineers,

claimingtheyhadnotbeenconsultedintheprocessofdecidingwhere,when,andifthe

pipelineshouldbebuilt.ConstructionwastemporarilystalledinDecemberof2016dueto

acallfromtheAssistantArmySecretaryforCivilWorksformoreenvironmentalimpact

assessmenttobecompleted,andforalternateroutesavoidingLakeOahetobediscussed.

However,onJanuary24th,newpresidentDonaldTrumpsignedanexecutiveorder

advancingtheconstructionoftheDakotaAccessPipeline.OnFebruary22nd,thefinal

protesterswereremovedfromthecampsbyauthorities,andonMarch27th,2017,oilwas

pumpedintothepipelinethatnowrunsunderLakeOahe("ATimelineoftheDakotaAccess

Pipeline,"2017).

TheDakotaAccessPipelineconflictrepresentsthedisconnectbetweenindigenous

culturesandtheUnitedStatesfederalgovernmentandcorporateinterestthathasexisted

fortheentirehistoryofthiscountry.However,the#noDAPLmovementgenerated

significantpublicawarenessaboutindigenousrights.Newspapers,onlinenewssources,

andtelevisionnewssourcesacrossthecountrycoveredtheconflict,interviewingtribal

leadersandpeopleinvolvedintheprotests.Socialmediapresencesentirelyfocusedon

alertingthepublicabouttheconflictemerged,creatingsuchtrendinghashtagsas

#noDAPL,#indigenousrising,and#waterislife.

ThestoryandconditionsofDAPLmakeitafascinatingcaseinwhichtostudythe

similaritiesbetweentraditionalmediasourcesandsocialmediacommunicationsin

representingthevoicesofindigenouspeoples.A2012Australianstudyofindigenous

representationinnewsmediafoundthatwhilemanymediaanalystshavefounda

“narrowing,sensationalizing,orshuttingdownofpublicdebate”regardingindigenous

issuesinmainstreammedia,theinvolvementofindigenousactivistsinmainstreamnews

mediacanalsohavethelargesteffectonpolicyadvancements(McCallum,Waller,&

Meadows).Thisstudywillthereforeexaminetherepresentationofindigenouspositionsin

thetop-readnewspapersintheUnitedStatesascomparedtorepresentationsinboth

indigenousnewspapersandonsocialmediacampaignsaswayofevaluatingthe

similarities,thedisparities,andthepotentialimpactthesefeaturesmayhavehadonthe

trajectoryofthestoryoftheDakotaAccessPipeline.

Methods

Thisanalysisinvolvedathree-partapproach:1)textanalysisofarticlesaboutthe

DakotaAccessPipelineinnationalandindigenousnewssources,2)spatialanalysisto

determinethelocationsofgeotaggedFlickrphotosasrelatingtotheirproximitiesto

reservationlands,and3)textanalysisoftagsandcaptionsforthesephotostodetermine

similartrendswiththeresultsofnewspapertextanalysis.

Newspapertextanalysis

ToapproximatethenationalnewsrepresentationofDAPL,thetopthreemostread

newspapersweredeterminedbasedonmediadatafrom2015.Indigenousnewssources

werefoundusingtheProQuestEthnicNewsWatchdatabase.Thesearchterm“Dakota

accesspipeline”wasusedforbothscrapingprocesses.ThetimeframewassetfromAugust

2016tothepresent(April4th,2017),asAugust2016sawthebeginningofalargespikein

thefrequencyofarticlesmatchingthesesearchterms.Thetextofthesearticleswas

compiledintotwoseparatetextfiles,onefornationalnewsandoneforindigenousnews.

FollowingthedataanalysismethodsofAbe(2015),thesetextfileswereanalyzed

usingRandVoyanttoperformbothwordfrequencyanalysesandkeywordincontext

(KWIC)analyses,usingthree-wordbuffersandaseriesofstopwords.Thewordsforthe

KWICanalysiswerechosenbasedonpopularhashtagsandtrendingnewstopics,soasto

drawparallelswiththesocialmediadata.Thekeywordsanalyzedwere:Life,Indigenous,

Tribe,Trump,Oil,Protest,andSioux.Thetwocorpuseswerecomparedbothqualitatively

andquantitatively(percentsimilarity)forthesimilarityinthetopicsdiscussedandthe

waysinwhichdifferenttermswereused.

FlickrAnalysis

FlickrwasscrapedusinganAPIcodeandRStudio.Sixtaggroupswereusedfordata

collection:DakotaAccessPipeline,DAPL,NoDAPL,YesDAPL,StandingRock,and

IndigenousRising.Eachofthesegroupscontainedanumberoftagsusingavariationon

thosephrases.SpatialdataonthelocationsofreservationlandsthroughouttheU.S.was

downloadedfromanArcGISonlinedataplatformandloadedintoArcMap10.4.Thislayer

wasthengivena5-milebuffer,andpostsfromwithinthesereservationswereidentified,

andcomparedwithpostsfromoutsidethereservationzones.

Results

Thetop50wordsinbothcorpusesrevealedsimilaritiesinsomeexpectedwords,like

“Dakota”,“Access”,“Pipeline”,“Standing”and“Rock”(Figures1aandb).Thesewordswere

allremovedfromfurtheranalysisforthisreason.However,comparisonofthetwo

corpusesdidrevealsomeinterestingdifferencesaswell.Whilethenationalnewscorpus

containsmanywordsrelatingtonationalaffairs,like“president,”“Obama,”“Trump,”and

“administration,”theindigenouscorpushasmanymorewordsrelatedtothefightfor

indigenousrights,like“community,”“rights,”“support,”and“indigenous”(Figure2).

Figure1a.Top50wordsinthenationalnewscorpusgeneratedfrom

searchingforarticlescontaining“DakotaAccessPipeline”in

theWallStreetJournal,theNewYorkTimes,andUSATodaypublishedbetweenAugust1st,2016andApril1

st,2017.Stopwords

like“a”,“the”and“and”w

ereremoved.Analysisw

asdoneusingRandJupyterNotebook,andthevisualwascreatedinExcel.

Figure1b.Top50wordsintheindigenousnewscorpusgeneratedfrom

searchingforarticlescontaining“DakotaAccessPipeline”

intheEthnicNewsW

atchdatabasepublishedbetweenAugust1st,2016andApril1

st,2017.Stopwordslike“a”,“the”and“and”w

ere

removed.Analysisw

asdoneusingRandJupyterN

otebook,andthevisualwascreatedinExcel.

pipeline dakota standing rock water access north oil

people sioux corps project protest

constructiontribe camp army

native river

companyenvironmental

tribes land law tribal

reservationamerican state

missouri sacred day

federal energy

Figure2.Vendiagramcomparingthetop50mostfrequentwordsinthenationalcorpusandtheindigenouscorpus.Stopwordswereremoved.AnalysiswasdoneusingRandJupyterNotebook.

Figure3.Comparisonoftherelativefrequenciesoftheterm“protectors”and“protesters”inthenationalandindigenousnewssources.FrequencylistsgeneratedbyRanalysis,figurecreatedinExcel.

Alsoofsignificantimportancewasthepresenceof“protesters”inthetop50wordsinthe

nationalnewscorpusandof“protectors”inthetop50wordsintheindigenousnews

corpus.Lookingattherelativefrequenciesofthesetermsinbothcorpuses,itisclearthat

nationalnewssourcesrarelyevenusedtheword“protectors”(Figure3).Theseresults

werealsobackedupbytheFlickranalysis,whichfoundthatinpostsforcertaintaggroups,

thepostscomingfromwithinreservationareascontainedthereferenceto“protectors”

whiletheonesfromoutsidereservationareasdidnot,insteadusingtheword“protesters.”

TheseresultsshowadisparityintheportrayalofthepeopleinvolvedintheNoDAPL

movementbetweenthenationalnewssourcesandtheindigenousnewssources,backedup

byadisparityinsocialmediapostingscomingfromwithinoroutsideofreservationareas.

TheKWICanalysisfoundthatthetermwiththemostsimilarcontextbetweenthe

twocorpuseswas“Oil”with53%similarity,andthetermwiththeleastsimilarcontextwas

“Life,”withonly9%similarity(Figures4aandg).However,someofthetermshavehigh

similaritywithintheirtop5words,whichshowsasurprisingalignmentofnationaland

indigenousportrayals.Thisalignmentisbestshowninthewordcloudfor“Indigenous,”

whichshowsverysimilartopterms(Figure4b).Somecommondifferencesthroughout

theseKWICanalyseswere:1)acknowledgementofindigenousnetworksintheindigenous

newspapersthatwerelessacknowledgedinthenationalnewspapers,and2)thesacred

andpeacefulnatureofthecampswasmoreemphasizedintheindigenousnewspapersthan

thenationalnewspapers.Thesethemesareparticularlyevidentinthewordcloudsfor

“Protest,”“Tribe,”and“Sioux”(Figures4d,eandf).WedidnotfindtheKWICanalysesof

“Trump”or“Oil”tobeveryrevealing(Figures4candg).

a b

c d

e f

g Figure4,a-g.Wordcloudsrepresentingthemostfrequenttermswithina3wordbuffercontextofthetopterminorange.Wordcloudsboxedinorangerepresenttheanalysisofthenationalnewssources,wordcloudsinbluerepresenttheanalysisoftheindigenousnewssources.Topwordsaredisplayedbeloweachcloud.AnalysiswasdoneusingRandVoyant.Inadditiontonormalstopwords,“Standing,”“Rock,”“Dakota,”“Access,”and“Pipeline”wereremovedfromtheanalysis.Fortheanalysisof“Trump,”“Donald,”“Mr,”and“President”werealsoremoved.

Discussion

Themostpowerfulfindingofthisanalysiswasthetrendinthefrequenciesofthe

terms“protesters”and“protectors.”Indigenouspeoplesinvolvedinthemovementagainst

theDakotaAccessPipelinehavesaidthattheyare“protectors,notprotesters”(Gyeneset

al.,2017).Thisreflectsaconsciousdecisiontodepictthemselvesinapositivelight,fighting

forsomethingtheydeserve,ratherthanagainstsomethingthatshouldbedone.Andyet,

themainstreammediahascontinuedtousethewordprotestersoverthewordprotectors,

aresultsupportedbothbyourstudyandtheresultsofananalysisperformedby

researchersforMediaCloud(Gyenesetal.,2017).Thisstudyfocusedontextanalysisofa

widerangeofnewssources,andfoundthatinmainstreamnewspaperslikeTheWallStreet

Journal,theterm“protectors”wasneveradopted,whereasother,moreleft-leaningnews

sources,likeDemocracyNow,didadopttheterm,althoughtherewasneveradefined

choicewithinthesemediasourcestouse“protectors”astheofficialterm.

Theprevalenceofthesetwotermswithinthetwocorpusesmattersbecausethey

revealapatterninmattersofsovereigntyandagencysurroundingindigenousrights.By

favoringthephrase“protesters”over“protectors,”nationalmediaislabelingthesepeople

assomethingtheythemselvesdonotidentifyas.Onecouldevendrawparallelswiththe

initiallabelingofNativeAmericanpeoplesas“Indians”byfirstEuropeansettlers.Whilethe

matterofwordchoicemayseemlikeasmallone,thelanguageusedinthesenewsarticles

isrepresentativeoftheminimalpowergiventoindigenouspeoplesinthiscountry.The

Gyenesetal.studyfoundthatthefrequencyoftheterm“protectors”asbeenontherisein

recentmonths,eventhoughthemediaattentiontoStandingRockhasdeclined.However,

thistrendmostlikelysuggeststhatthemostdedicatednewssourcesaretheonesmost

closelytiedtoindigenousgroups,andthereforewithamuchsmallerreadershipthanthe

nationalnewsmedia.Perhapsitistimetoexaminethelanguagethatthenationalmedia

usesforitsabilitytoperpetuateproblematicpowerstructures.

Theothersignificanceofthedifferencebetween“protectors”and“protesters”isthe

wayittranslatestothereadersandthelargerpublic.“Protesters”impliesthatsomethingis

beingstopped,inhibited,bytheiractions.Ithasarestrictiveconnotation.“Protectors,”on

theotherhand,hasheroicconnotations.ItpaintsthoseagainsttheDakotaAccessPipeline

notasagainstdevelopment,butforsafedrinkingwater.Ananalysisofnewspaperarticles

inNigeriasurroundingthetopicofterrorismfoundthatthetermsusedwithinnews

articlescouldactuallyplayaroletoeither“arrestoraggravateasituationespeciallyina

crisissituationorchaoticatmosphere”becauseofthenationalperceptionoftheactorsand

theactors’ownreactiontosuchlabels(Ebim,2017).Thedecisionsmadebythemedia

aboutthelanguagethatgoesintosuchemotionalandsensitivecoverageastheDakota

AccessPipelineconflictmustthereforebedeliberateandawareoftheirimpact.Sentiment

analysisofthesetextcorpusesmaybealogicalnextsteptodeterminejusthowmuchthe

differencebetweentheuseof“protesters”and“protectors”affectsthetakeawaythatthe

readergetsfromthearticle(Shapiro,Sudhof,&Wilson,2017).

Thefindingsofthisstudyrevealthepoweroftextanalysistoapproachalarge

amountofdataandpullsignificantandinterestingpatternsoutofit.Theindigenousnews

corpusincorporated135articles,andthenationalnewscorpuscontained133.Wewere

abletopulloutpatternsthatmatchedthefindingsofothertextanalysisresearch,aswellas

supportedfindingsfromthesocialmediaanalysisportionofourproject.Whilethereareof

courselimitationstothesekindsofanalysesthattakebigdataandtrytosimplifyand

condense,therearealsosignificantbenefitstobeingabletovisualizethetrendsinasetof

datathatmightnotbeeasypicturejustfromreadingthetext.Theseanalysestherefore

enrichabodyoftextwithmeaningthatmighthavebeenmissedotherwise.

Textanalysisisarelativelynewfieldofsocialscienceexploration,especiallyusing

programslikeRandVoyant.However,thereareasignificantnumberofstudiesexamining

itsusefulnessandapplication.WutichandGravlee(Wutich&Gravlee,2010)layouta

spectrumofapplicabilityoftextanalysismethods,fromexploratorytoconfirmatory,with

eachofferingitsowncontributiontoanunderstandingofthebodyoftext.Themethods

usedforthisresearchfallbetweenexploratory,sincethisisanewbodyoftextandthese

methodswerenotasextensiveastheycouldhavebeen,andconfirmatory,becausethe

findingsarebackedupbypreviousresearchandotheranalyses.Thelimitationsoftext

analysis—suchasbiasincollectionandinterpretationofdata—areacknowledgedinmost

studiesthatutilizethesemethods(Dilling&Berggren,2015).Inthisstudy,wecouldhave

chosendifferentormorekeywordsthatmighthaverevealedotherpatternsthathavebeen

missed.Wealsocouldhavecollectedfrommorediversenewssources,likefromonline

siteslikeTheHuffingtonPost.However,wefeelthattextanalysisherehasofferedus

valuableinsightintotheportrayaloftheDakotaAccessPipelineconflictbythemedia,and

thewaysinwhichthatportrayalissignificanttotheunderstandingofindigenousrights

withintheUnitedStates.

Conclusion

Thisstudytooktwobodiesoftext,onegeneratedfromarticlesfromthetopthree

nationalnewspapersinthecountry,onegeneratedfromarticlesfromindigenous

newspapers,andanalyzedtheirdepictionsoftheDakotaAccessPipelineusingtextanalysis

methods.WordfrequenciesandKWICanalyseswereusedtodeterminewhatwasbeing

talkedaboutineachcorpusandhowthosetopicswerebeingaddressed.Wefound

significantresultsindicatingthatthenationalnewssourcesportrayedactivistsinvolvedin

theconflictas“protesters”despitetheirdesiretobecalled“protectors.”Theseresults

suggestthatthereisadisconnectbetweenindigenouscommunitiesandthepublic

awarenessofthemthatisperpetratedbythemedia.Theseconclusionstherefore

contributetoalargerdebateontheuseoflanguageinshapingpublicperceptionsandthe

sovereigntyofindigenousgroupswithintheUnitedStates.

Thesynthesisoflargedatasetsintosuccinctanddirectstatementsisinherentlya

processthatinvolvesoversimplification.However,italsoaprocessthatinvolves

deliberate,justifiabledecisionsonhowtoproduceconclusionsinwhichareaderwillhave

confidence.Thisanalysisrevealedasignificantdifferenceintheuseof“protesters”versus

“protectors”innationalandindigenousnewsmediareferencingtheDakotaAccessPipeline

conflict.Thisfindingallowsustoexaminetheroleofmediainskewing,shaping,and

classifyingissuesbasedonthelanguageused,andhowthatlanguagecanhaveanactive

partincontributingtoorbreakingdownestablishedpowerstructures.

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Ebim,M.A.(2017).“Terroristsortags”?ContestedidentitiesinmediaportrayalofmilitantsinNigeria.Mgbakoigba:JournalofAfricanStudies,6(2),142-154.

Gyenes,N.,Sehat,C.M.,Fish,S.,Shah,A.,Kaiser,J.,Villareal,P.,...Zuckerman,E.(2017).Fightingfor,notfightingagainst:MediaCoverageandtheDakotaAccessPipeline.

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