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The Effects of Chain Ownership on Editorial Coverage: The Case of the 1974 Canadian Federal Election

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Ronald H. Wagenberg  and
Walter C. Soderlund
Ronald H. Wagenberg
Affiliation:
University of Windsor
Walter C. Soderlund
Affiliation:
University of Windsor
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Extract

In the literature dealing with the role of the press in Canadian politics one dimension which has attracted the attention of a number of commentators is the effect that chain ownership of large metropolitan dailies may have on influencing the amount, type, and interpretation of news disseminated to the public. The issue of the effects of chain ownership has been examined empirically in the United States, and studies confirm the hypothesis that chains do indeed influence the editorial positions of member newspapers. This note examines through content analysis the effects of chain ownership on editorial treatment of issues, political institutions, and political leaders in the context of the 1974 election.

Type
Notes
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , December 1976 , pp. 682 - 689
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1976

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References

1 For literature which stresses the negative effects of chain ownership on the Canadian political process, see Porter, John, The Vertical Mosaic: An Analysis of Social Class and Power in Canada (Toronto, 1965), 462–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Warnock, John, “All the News it Pays to Print,” in Lumsden, Ian, ed., Close the 49th Parallel etc.: The Americanization of Canada (Toronto, 1970)Google Scholar; Report of the Senate Committee on Mass Media, Vol. I, The Uncertain Mirror (Ottawa, 1970); and Clement, Wallace, The Canadian Corporate Elite: An Analysis of Economic Power (Toronto, 1975), 270–324.Google Scholar

2 For an empirical study that examines the effects of chain ownership on presidential endorsements in four campaigns, see Wackman, Daniel B., Gillmor, Donald M., Gaziano, Cecile, and Dennis, Everette E., “Chain Newspaper Autonomy as Reflected in Presidential Campaign Endorsements,” Journalism Quarterly 52 (Autumn 1975), 411–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar According to the authors, “in general, the vast majority of chains exhibited homogeneous endorsement patterns in the four election years.”

3 Wagenberg, Ronald H. and Soderlund, Walter C., “The Influence of Chain Ownership on Editorial Comment in Canada,” Journalism Quarterly 52 (Spring 1975), 93–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 We had originally selected the Sudbury Star, but a strike at that paper forced us to shift to the Timmins Daily Press. As a result, we missed some of the early issues of the Daily Press, which reduced our sample of Thomson editorials somewhat.

5 Arguments can be raised regarding the independent character of both the Toronto Star and Le Soleil. With regard to the former, while there are other papers controlled by Toronto Star Limited, these are weekly newspapers in the area surrounding metropolitan Toronto and weekend magazines. The Toronto Star is the only major newspaper in the group. Le Soleil is a different case, with the previously family owned paper sold to the Francoeur interests in the winter of 1974. While we are aware of talk of an impending sale, the actual transfer of ownership escaped our notice.

6 We did all editorial coding for this study ourselves. Our intercoder reliability, using the formula C.R. =: 2M/N 1 + N 2, combining both editorial selection errors and coding errors, was 83.5 per cent. The total number of editorials coded was 894.

7 Wagenberg and Soderlund, “Influence of Chain Ownership,” 97

8 Ibid., 95

9 Soderlund, Walter C. and Wagenberg, Ronald H., “A Content Analysis of Editorial Coverage of the 1972 Election Campaigns in Canada and the United States,” The Western Political Quarterly XXVIII (March 1975), 103–4Google Scholar