Maintaining place: How journalists preserve their communities during times of dislocation

Abstract

Abstract

During the 2023 wildfires in Canada’s Northwest Territories, journalists evacuated alongside residents. Spread across Canada, they continued to report on and for a community that had been dislocated. This paper argues that, in such conditions, local journalism adopts a place maintenance function, preserving and repairing a shared sense of “home” when physical proximity is no longer possible. Building on concepts of imagined communities, place maintenance, and interpretive communities, we show Northern journalists sustain continuity through three mechanisms. First, they reaffirm a distinct Northern identity and its boundaries. Second, they coordinate and legitimate shared interpretations of the crisis within a small Northern journalistic community. Third, they enact custodial relationships with audiences through translation, coordination, and information provision when routine infrastructures falter. Across these practices, coverage is oriented toward restoring the status quo ante , clarifying journalism’s continuity work and the conditions under which place maintenance takes place during periods of rupture.