Framing social drama

Defining panics and protests as interrelated, commutable elements of social dramas, situations where disruption of the normal and normative create an opportunity and imperative for the intensification of meaning-making, this chapter analyses news framing (website reports of the English-language public broadcaster, the CBC) of the 2022 Canadian trucker convoy protest against COVID-19 public health measures. The analysis yields two main observations about the drama's trajectory. Firstly, despite the convoy's initial opposition to the specific vaccination mandate for truck drivers, the goals and identity of the protesters and their supporters were expanded and politicized more broadly in terms of far right-wing beliefs, particularly racism and white supremacy. The structure of feeling attributed to the protesters foregrounded anger and “populist rage.” Secondly, after remaining in—“occupying”—the centre of Ottawa (the national capital) for several weeks, the protesters were re-framed as the source of panic and fear by local residents that in turn gave rise to counter-protests against not only the actions of the truckers but also the inaction of local police and politicians generally for allowing the disruption to continue. Of all the major actors in the drama, local residents were the only ones whose voice went effectively unopposed in the news frame.