Ralph Nelson

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.