Water Gives Life: Framing an Environmental Justice Movement in the Mainstream and Alternative Salvadoran Press

Abstract

This article explores mainstream and alternative press discourses of conflict over metallic mining in El Salvador. Through identifying mainstream and counter-frames, I show how an anti-mining movement achieved a position of short-term prominence within the dominant media discourse surrounding gold mining. However, even when the movement was able to break into the mainstream press, the resulting news coverage reproduced the nation-state's traditional power structure. In contrast, the alternative press challenged the neoliberal economic system, presenting a counter-narrative of community rights and a negligent national government that failed to protect the environment and health of its citizens. In this comparative analysis, I argue that by reframing dominant narratives of economic progress toward community rights and environmental justice, alternative media can act in synergy with environmental justice movements to discursively break a cycle of environmental inequity by collectively reimagining a more sustainable and just future.

Keywords:

• Global South
• El Salvador
• Metallic Mining
• Transnational Corporations (TNCs)
• Environmental Justice Movements
• Media Framing

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Michael Dougherty, Patricia Loew, Hernando Rojas, Christopher Wilson, and the anonymous reviewers for helpful feedback on earlier drafts of this paper. This research was funded in part through a Nave Short Term Field Research Grant from the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian Studies Program.

Notes

1. In 2008, Pacific Rim estimated the mine holds more than 1.4 million ounces of gold equivalent (Pacific Rim Mining Corp., 2008).

2. The term campesino refers to peasant or small landholding, or landless, farmers in rural Latin America. It is often used in a politicized context.

3. All translations from Spanish to English are by the author.

4. ARENA stands for Alianza Republicana Nacionalista, or Nationalist Republican Alliance. The party held power in El Salvador for 20 years until 2009, when leftist president Mauricio Funes was elected (Brice, 2009).

5. Since 2001 El Salvador has used the US dollar as its official currency, a process referred to as dollarization.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jill E. Hopke

Jill Hopke is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Life Sciences Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison