A Comparative Discourse Analysis of Media Texts Pertaining to Fracking in North Dakota’s Bakken Region A dissertation presented to the faculty of the Scripps College of Communication of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy Brian J. Hough August 2015 © 2015 Brian J. Hough. All Rights Reserved This dissertation titled A Comparative Discourse Analysis of Media Texts Pertaining to Fracking in North Dakota’s Bakken Region by BRIAN J. HOUGH has been approved for the School of Media Arts and Studies and the Scripps College of Communication by Lawrence E. Wood Associate Professor of Media Arts and Studies Scott Titsworth Dean, Scripps College of Communication ii ABSTRACT HOUGH, BRIAN J., Ph.D., August 2015, Mass Communications A Comparative Discourse Analysis of Media Texts Pertaining to Fracking in North Dakota’s Bakken Region Director of Dissertation: Lawrence E. Wood This research broadly investigates mediated discourse and knowledge construction among media outlets commonly identified as “traditional” and “new.” Specifically, this research represents a case study of fracking in the Bakken shale region of North Dakota. Using qualitative, interpretive methods this dissertation considers what knowledge(s) are constructed, upheld, and silenced in mediated representations of fracking in the Bakken. This dissertation draws upon a poststructural definition of discourse, which views knowledge and meaning as constructed realities, rather than Real in an objective sense (Castree, 2001, 2014; Foucault, 2010/1972; Hall, 1997). Although the power and resources required to produce discourse is unequal, taken-for-granted ways of thinking and doing are nevertheless always open to challenge from relatively less powerful sources. This is consistent with Foucault’s (1995/1975) conception of power as circulatory and disciplinary, rather than oppressive. Data for this research come from a mix of “traditional” and “new” media sources. Some scholars argue that these distinctions become less important in a converged mediascape (Jenkins, 2006). Nevertheless, this research proceeds from the position that (1) the productive norms of traditional and new media could result in distinct knowledges and claims to truth, and furthermore (2) current research continues to distinguish between iii the productive norms and types of knowledge constructed by traditional and new media (e.g. Geiger and Lampinen, 2014; Kim, 2015). Scholars argue that traditional media represent objective accounts of events, whose texts are undeniably powerful shapers of knowledge, and disseminated by a professional caste culturally sanctioned to report on events, i.e. journalists (e.g. Gerhards and Schäfer, 2010; Lockwood, 2011). Alternately, scholars note that new media, e.g. blogs and social media aggregators, present the lay public and under-represented organizations with productive avenues to challenge the dominant discourses put forth by commercial, mainstream traditional media outlets (e.g. Atkinson and Rosati, 2009; Kaye and Johnson, 2011; Parker and Song, 2009) Scholars are currently split regarding new media’s potential to substantially offset established traditional media power (e.g. Tang and Yang, 2011; van Dijck, 2009, 2012). This research takes place within multiple environmental contexts: the United States recent increase in oil and gas development, oil companies’ global expansion of “unconventional” extraction practices such as hydraulic fracturing, and global climate change. Given our dependence on myriad forms of media for knowledge of these events, this project’s implications project beyond a regional case study of fracking in North Dakota. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost I would like to thank my wife Gina. Her support, patience, proofreading, and sacrifice throughout this process is simply beyond parallel. Additional accolades go to my immediate family—father Jim, mother Kay, and sister Katie—and family-by-marriage—Richard and Brenda Knapp, and the extended Baartman family. Thanks for listening to my Bakken ramblings, getting me out of my own head, and supporting me throughout the entire process. Additional thanks to this project’s advisor Dr. Lawrence Wood. I was slow getting ‘out of the gate’ with this dissertation. I appreciate your patience, tolerance of an anxiety-ridden advisee, superb academic and professional guidance. Thanks also to my committee: Dr. Jenny Nelson, whose office door was always open, and greatly aided my understanding of poststructural theory; Dr. Roger Aden, whose scholarship provided me with new insights on place; and Dr. Harold Perkins, whose discussions of the upper Midwest made home feel a little less distant. Finally, thanks to my fellow graduate students and friends who shared this journey. I would specifically like to thank Dr. Greg Newton—watching the Vikings lose is less miserable among friends, wings, and beer. Thanks also to Betsy Pike, who provided good humored perspective throughout the writing and editing process. Finally, to the proprietors of Avalanche Pizza, and Jackie O’s Pub and Brewery: if carbohydrates are indeed brain food, your respective establishments undoubtedly, and profoundly, contributed to this endeavor’s successful completion. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iii Acknowledgments............................................................................................................... v List of Figures .................................................................................................................... ix Chapter 1: Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1 Fracking History and Practice ....................................................................................... 2 Fracking and Oil in North Dakota’s Bakken Region .................................................... 6 Brief Overview of Remaining Chapters ....................................................................... 9 Conclusion to Chapter One ......................................................................................... 12 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background and Literature .......................................................... 15 Discourse .................................................................................................................... 17 Discourse and Power .................................................................................................. 20 Discursive Formations and Intertextuality .................................................................. 23 Discourse: Institutions, Ideology, and Hegemony ...................................................... 26 Resources and Resistance ........................................................................................... 32 Chapter 3: Mediated Discourse ......................................................................................... 36 Traditional Media ....................................................................................................... 40 Objective Reality and Traditional Media .............................................................. 41 The Question of ‘Who Speaks’ in Traditional Media ........................................... 43 Traditional Media and Power ............................................................................... 46 Alternative Journalism .......................................................................................... 51 New Media .................................................................................................................. 52 The Web as an Alternative .................................................................................... 54 New Media - Blogs ............................................................................................... 56 New Media Critiques .................................................................................................. 58 Audience Labor ..................................................................................................... 61 From Audience Labor to Audience Exploitation .................................................. 62 Controlling User Generated Content .................................................................... 65 Environmental Discourse ............................................................................................ 67 The Romantic/Resource Binary ............................................................................ 70 Nature as Commodity ........................................................................................... 72 vi Nature and Media .................................................................................................. 73 Related Scholarship .................................................................................................... 77 Strategies of Power ............................................................................................... 78 New Media Complexity ........................................................................................ 81 Neoliberalism ........................................................................................................ 84 Conclusion to Chapter Three ...................................................................................... 88 Chapter 4: Methodological Approach to This