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Regional and Linguistic Agenda-Setting in Canada: A Study of Newspaper Coverage of Issues Affecting Political Integration in 1976*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Walter C. Soderlund ,
Ronald H. Wagenberg ,
E. Donald Briggs  and
Ralph C. Nelson
Walter C. Soderlund
Affiliation:
University of Windsor
Ronald H. Wagenberg
Affiliation:
University of Windsor
E. Donald Briggs
Affiliation:
University of Windsor
Ralph C. Nelson
Affiliation:
University of Windsor
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Extract

This note examines the way in which newspapers across Canada reported on events affecting political integration in the country during 1976. The year 1976 was significant with respect to Canada's political integration. While there were crises such as the “strike” of air traffic controllers over the introduction of French as a language of air traffic control in the province of Quebec (the incident which prompted us to undertake the study), it was of course the victory of the Parti Québécois in the November 15 election which provided the most direct challenge of all to the future of Canadian political integration. That event meant that what had been a cause for concern had now become a cause for alarm; a “situation” had become a “crisis.” A unique characteristic of this study is, therefore, that it begins in a “noncrisis” atmosphere and runs through the period of initial popular realization that the threat to “national unity” is both real and immediate.

Type
Note
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , June 1980 , pp. 347 - 356
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1980

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References

1 For excellent summaries on existing research on agenda-setting, see Becker, Lee, McCombs, Maxwell E. and Mcleod, Jack, “Development of Political Cognitions,” in Chaffee, Steven H. (ed.), Political Communications Issues and Strategies for Research (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1975)Google Scholar; and McCombs, Maxwell E. and Shaw, Donald L., “The Agenda-Setting Function of the Press,” in Shaw, Donald L. and McCombs, Maxwell E., The Emergence of American Political Issues: The Agenda-Setting Function of the Press (St. Paul: West Publishing Co., 1977)Google Scholar.

2 Arthur H. Miller, Lutz Erbring, Edie Goldenberg, “Typeset Politics: Impact of Newspapers on Issue Salience and Public Confidence,” paper prepared for delivery at the 1976 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, September 1976, 1.

3 Cohen, Bernard C., The Press and Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), 13Google Scholar.

4 Becker et al., “The Development of Political Cognitions,” 38.

5 McCombs and Shaw, “The Agenda-Setting Function,” 12.

6 Maxwell E. McCombs, “Newspapers Versus Television: Mass Communication Effects Across Time,” in Shaw and McCombs, The Emergence of American Political Issues, 105. We note that Miller et al., “Typeset Politics,” focus on the impact of direct personal experience regarding an issue as a variable which may diminish the effect of press agenda-setting. Thus, while we are not suggesting that the agenda-setting theory be accepted uncritically, it does appear to us to be a more powerful explanatory theory than those focussing on direct media effects, and moreover, given the nature of the existing literature on the Canadian press, provides an appropriate framework for further study.

7 Elkin, Frederick, “Communications Media and Identity Formation in Canada,” in Singer, Benjamin D. (ed.), Communications in Canadian Society (2nd ed.; Toronto: Copp Clark, 1975), 235Google Scholar.

8 Ibid., 223.

9 Gordon, Donald, National News in Canadian Newspapers (Report presented to the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, May 1966), 158Google Scholar.

10 Bruce, Jean, A Content Analysis of Thirty Canadian Daily Newspapers Published During the Period January I-March 31, 1965, with a Comparative Study of Newspapers Published in 1960 and 1955 (Report presented to the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, 1966), 275Google Scholar, 281–82.

11 Carol Charlebois, “The Structure of Federal-Provincial News,” paper prepared for presentation at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, Fredericton, June 1977, 2.

12 Ibid., 26.

13 Siegel, Arthur, “Canadian Newspaper Coverage of the F.L.Q. Crisis: A Study on the Impact of the Press on Politics” (Ph.D. Dissertation, McGill University, 1974), 1Google Scholar.

14 Ibid., chaps. 3 and 7.

15 Siegel, Arthur, “French and English Broadcasting in Canada: A Political Evaluation,” Canadian Journal of Communication 5 (1979), 1–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Employing the formula our combined coefficient of inter-coder reliability for front-page coding was 88 per cent. See Holsti, Ole, Content Analysis for the Social Sciences and Humanities (Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1969), 140Google Scholar.

17 Newspapers included in the study are as follows: Atlantic Canada: the St. John Evening Telegram, the Halifax Chronicle Herald, the Charlottetown Guardian, the Saint John Telegraph-Journal; Quebec: the Chronicle-Telegraph, Le Soleil, La Presse, Le Devoir, the Montreal Gazette; Ontario: the Kingston Whig-Standard, the Ottawa Citizen, the Ottawa Journal, the Toronto Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, The Windsor Star; the West: the Winnipeg Free Press, the Regina Leader-Post, the Edmonton Journal, The Calgary Herald, the Vancouver Sun, and the Victorial Daily Colonist.

18 The Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph was published as a weekly during this period and we sampled 45 issues.

19 Wagenberg, Ronald H. and Soderlund, Walter C., “The Effects of Chain Ownership on Editorial Coverage: The Case of the 1974 Canadian Federal Election,” this Journal 9 (1976), 686–87Google Scholar.