The many voices of business: Framing the Keystone pipeline in US and Canadian news

Corporations rarely enter political battles alone. They have long partnered with trade associations to articulate industry views, and more recently have begun routinely creating their own activist organizations to act as allies. Amid this turn toward grassroots corporate organizing, how is the voice – or perhaps voices – of business articulated in the news? Using the case study of coverage of the Keystone bitumen pipeline, I offer a framing analysis of 480 news items from six outlets in the United States and Canada, showing which voices and frames dominate the debate. My data demonstrate that while corporations have a robust voice in news, trade associations participate only sparingly, and corporately funded grassroots campaigns are almost wholly omitted. Furthermore, key silences characterize corporations’ mediated voice, with companies neglecting to comment on issues such as climate change; anti-pipeline activists, meanwhile, maintain their own forms of strategic silence. Proponents and detractors alike promote their ‘owned issues’, offering discourse more akin to a shouting match than a debate