E. Donald Briggs

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

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 Canadas 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 Quebecois 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.

Output and Feedback: Canadian Newspapers and Political Integration

pendent newspaper was consistent with two other findings. Some 69% said they preferred to patronize a local independent supermarket instead of a national chain, and 67% said they favored a locally owned appliance store to a national chain. One has to question the genuineness of the expressed preference for locally owned newspapers , g r o c e r y m a r k e t s a n d appliance stores. It may not have been indicative of overt consumer behavior; it may have reflected the conventional wisdom that there is innate good in local ownership. It was suspected that the opposition to government interference with group ownership at both the national and state level might be linked t o Texas conservatism or a laissez faire or pro-business attitude. However, in response to two other items. 69% said that big business had too much power, and 40% agreed that the laws regulating business were not strict enough. The strongest associations in the study were between the two combined knowledge variables and the two combined attitude variables. The 12 correlations between the four variables were all positive and significant beyond the .OOl level and ranged from .41 to .63. Thus persons who were knowledgeable about their local newspaper ownership and about national trends in newspaper groups tended to favor local and independent ownership and tended to favor government limitations on group ownership at both the state and national level. Public awareness of this issue may result in public advocacy of government intervention.

Was R2P a viable option for Syria? Opinion content in the Globe and Mail and the National Post, 2011–2013

In the spring of 2011 the Syrian civil war emerged as a late chapter of the “Arab Spring,” a chapter that in retrospect has turned out to be the most complex and potentially most serious. How such crisis events are framed in press coverage has been identified as important with respect to possible responses the international community makes under the doctrine of Responsibility to Protect (R2P). By most indicators (number of casualties, number of refugees, plus the use of chemical weapons against civilians), Syria certainly qualified as a candidate for the application of a UN Security Council authorized R2P reaction response; yet during the first two-and-a-half years of the war no such action was forthcoming. This research examines editorial and opinion pieces on Syria appearing in two leading Canadian newspapers, the Globe and Mail and the National Post, from March 2011 to September 2013 in terms of assessing how the civil war was framed regarding the appropriateness of an R2P military response on the part of the international community. The research has both quantitative and qualitative dimensions. The former examines whether framing promoted or discouraged international involvement (i.e. a “will to intervene”), as well as whether diplomatic and especially military actions such as a “no-fly zone” or more direct military attacks would be likely to result in success or failure. Qualitatively, the major positions taken and arguments presented regarding R2P, and whether it should be invoked for Syria, are reviewed.

Review: Canadian Relations with South AfricaCANADIAN RELATIONS WITH SOUTH AFRICA A diplomatic history TennysonBrian DouglasWashington DC: University Press of America, 1982, xvi, 238pp,

author concludes that no change in the trade pattern is in sight. Yet one is left with no clear sense of whether or not some compromise will eventually be reached within the traditional pattern of the complementarity of trade between the two countries. Ambiguity lurks behind the authors lack of analysis and decision on the issues he describes: a good description does not necessarily make a good analysis and conclusion. One would have anticipated analysis, for instance, of the push and pull of Canadian federalism on trade and of the regional character of trade in Japan, or of the United States presence in Canada-Japan trade relations. Finally, it seems out of place to have included a history of the Japanese Canadians in this book. This is not to belittle the importance of their experiences in Canada on the contrary, the matter of reparations may become a serious political battle for the Japanese-Canadian evacuees even though the Canadian government seems to consider the episode closed (pp 93-4). However, even though immigration policy is a bilateral issue, Japanese Canadians are citizens of Canada and their attendant problems are primarily a domestic concern.

26.95

...offers Benders outstanding analysis of the U.S. Angolian intervention...two stimulating essays on the regional role of the CIA (by Stephen Weissman and Lemarchand himself), and two divergent views of the best U.S. policy toward South Africa by William J. Foltz and R. Hunt Davis, Jr.