How the media frames Arctic mining as a rush

Abstract

Mainstream media frequently portray the Arctic as the next great frontier for critical minerals. This article distinguishes analytically between broader political discourses, journalistic frames, and specific narrative metaphors. Employing a deductive frame analysis, the study systematically reviews mainstream news media and selected grey literature using a set of pre-defined keywords to identify salient linguistic markers, followed by an in-depth interpretive analysis of how these terms are mobilized to produce meaning. By pre-selecting the generic frames of “economic consequences” and “conflict”' our findings demonstrate how the media operationalises these frames to make them highly salient in the coverage. These frames are reinforced through urgency metaphors, most notably the language of a “rush” or “race”, which serve to concretize wider geopolitical discourses of mineral “criticality” and national security. At the same time, the framing of the Arctic as a strategic resource frontier marginalizes alternative perspectives, particularly those foregrounding decolonisation, Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC), and Indigenous Peoples’ rights.