Drilling Is Just the Beginning: Romanticizing Rust Belt identities in the campaign for shale gas

ABSTRACT

Public apprehension over the environmental, social, and health impacts of unconventional gas drilling, or fracking, prompts various responses from oil and gas industries. Natural gas discourses operating in the Marcellus Shale Region, USA, for example, counter claims of environmental harm by emphasizing the economic growth that industry spurs. This article argues that corporate narratives operating in the Marcellus renew the jobs versus environment dichotomy by romanticizing labor identities in the region, binding Rust Belt identities to extraction in the past, present, and future of the region. The danger of this discursive move is the exclusion of alternative possibilities for working, living, and being without fossil fuel industries. I employ a critical analysis of one corporate advertising campaign, “Drilling Is Just the Beginning,” produced by the natural gas drilling company Range Resources, to demonstrate how extraction discourses construct futures that depend on shale gas development, thereby marginalizing possibilities for ecologically sensible alternatives.

KEYWORDS:

• Rust Belt
• labor identity
• Marcellus
• shale gas
• advertising
• Industrial nostalgia

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Sarah Dempsey and Elizabeth Dickinson for their guidance on this article; faculty members, Stephen Depoe, Laura Lindenfeld, and Tema Milstein, and the students from the National Communication Association's 2013 Doctoral Honors Seminar; and two anonymous reviewers for their encouraging and constructive comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. A play is an accumulation of oil and gas deposits stored within rock formations, such as shale. The Marcellus is one of 48 plays across the USA and stretches through Pennsylvania, as well as into Ohio, New York, West Virginia, and Virginia (United States Energy Information Administration, 2011).

2. The Range Resources advertisements are available for public viewing through the company's corporate YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/RangeResourcesCorp/featured.