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Coups, Earthquakes and Hostages? Foreign News on Canadian Television*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Robert A. Hackett
Robert A. Hackett
Affiliation:
Simon Fraser University
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Abstract

Foreign news coverage on Canadian national television was content analyzed in light of Third World criticisms of Western news agencies. Using a sample of CBC and CTV national English-language newscasts in 1980 and 1985, four hypotheses were considered: (1) the geographical distribution of foreign news is highly concentrated, focussing on the West and regions of violence involving Western interests; (2) news from the industrialized West and from the Third World tends to be characterized by different formats and topics; (3) differences between networks are limited; and (4) differences between the two years studied are minor. The results support these hypotheses, with the partial exception of the fourth one, to the detriment of the image of the Third World on Canadian television.

Résumé

Cet article propose une analyse de contenu des informations des pays étrangers transmises à la télévision nationale canadienne. Cette analyse a été faite dans le contexte des critiques par le Tiers monde des agences de presse occidentales. En employant un échantillon des informations nationales anglaises à CBC/SRC et CTV en 1980 et 1985, l'auteur a considéré quatre hypotheses: (1) la distribution géographique des nouvelles de l'étranger est très inégale, en se concentrant surtout sur l'Occident et sur les régions de violence qui concerne les intérêts occidentaux; (2) les nouvelles de l'Occident industrialisé et du Tiers monde ont souvent des formats et des sujets differents; (3) les différences entre les deux réseaux et (4) entre les deux années étudiées seront peu importantes. Les résultats confirment ces hypothéses, à l'exception partielle de la quatrième, au détriment de la représentation du Tiers monde à la télévision canadienne.

Type
Note
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 22 , Issue 4 , December 1989 , pp. 809 - 826
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1989

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References

1 On the media and foreign policy in Canada, see for example Stairs, Denis, “The Press and Foreign Policy in Canada,” International Journal 31 (1976), 225–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stairs, Denis, “Public Opinion and External Affairs: Reflections on the Domestication of Canadian Foreign Policy,” International Journal 33 (1978), 128–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Nossal, Kim Richard, The Politics of Canadian Foreign Policy (Scarborough: Prentice-Hall, 1985Google Scholar), chap. 2. On the idea of media agenda-setting, see Shaw, Donald L. and McCombs, Maxwell E. (eds.), The Emergence of American Political Issues (St. Paul, Minn.: West, 1977Google Scholar).

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4 Although TASS is sometimes considered to be a global counterpart to the four major Western outlets, it is less often the subject of Third World criticism, perhaps because its influence is limited by its explicitly propagandistic function and other factors. See Righter, Rosemary, Whose News? Politics, the Press and the Third World (London: Burnett and Andre Deutsch, 1978), 24–25Google Scholar; and Smith, Anthony, The Geopolitics of Information (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 84.Google Scholar

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13 The results reported in this study should not be assumed to be applicable to French-language television journalism. Previous studies have shown important differences between anglophone and francophone coverage of both domestic and international affairs. See Robinson, , “Foreign News Conceptions in the Quebec, English Canadian and U.S. Press;” and Siegel, Arthur, Politics and the Media in Canada (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1983Google Scholar), chap. 10.

14 Inherent in this kind of study is the risk that any given time period selected for sampling, even a full year, may be atypical of routine news coverage. In some sense, of course, every potential monitoring period is unique. Major international news stories in September and October 1980 included the US presidential election campaign, the ongoing Iran hostage crisis, the ongoing struggle between the Polish government and the Solidarity trade union, and the outbreak of war between Iran and Iraq. Domestic news was dominated by the failure of the federal-provincial constitutional conference in September, the federal clerks’ strike, the opening of Parliament and the introduction of the federal budget with its controversial National Energy Program in late October. In October 1985, international stories included US-Soviet arms talks, an Israeli attack on a PLO base in Tunisia, the hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro by four Palestinians, conflict in South Africa and a meeting of Commonwealth heads of government in the Bahamas at which sanctions against South Africa dominated the agenda. I have noted in the text where such events might have resulted in departures from “normal” news patterns.

15 For instance, in the fall of 1980 CTV had a correspondent in China and aired 12 items from that country, including several video reports; CBC had no China correspondents and broadcast only six items, none of them video reports.

16 Zwicker, Barrie, “Our Portrayal of the Soviet Union Dooms Ourselves,” in Zwicker, Barrie, War, Peace and the Media (Toronto: Sources, 1984), 9.Google Scholar

17 Larson, Television's Window on the World, 55–60.

18 Details of the prominence index, adapted from an index kindly provided by Andrew Osier, as well as a table of the findings discussed here can be obtained from the author.

19 Larsen, Television's Window on the World, 42.

20 Dahlgren, Peter with Chakrapani, Sumitra, “The Third World on TV News: Western Ways of Seeing the ‘Other,’” in Adams, William C. (ed.), Television Coverage of International Affairs (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex, 1982), 45–63.Google Scholar

21 Zwicker, “Our Portrayal of the Soviet Union Dooms Ourselves,” 9.