The Canadian media system, which in many respects is this society's "meeting ground"—its public square—is in the midst of a profound shift away from the foundations on which it has rested comfortably for decades. The publicly financed Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, long the backbone of the broadcasting system, is threatened by budget cuts and by technological change. The newspaper industry has fallen into the hands of a few powerful individuals. Huge global corporations and a vast communications revolution are dramatically altering the nature of news and entertainment. This book argues that unless action is taken these changes will narrow our access to the information we need as citizens and damage our capacity to communicate with each other and reflect on ourselves as a community. Power and Betrayal in the Canadian Media is a sweeping exploration of the Canadian media system and the impact it has on Canadian society, politics, and culture.

The Canadian media system, which in many respects is this society's "meeting ground"--its public square--is in the midst of a profound shift away from the foundations on which it has rested comfortably for decades. The publicly financed Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, long the backbone of the broadcasting system, is threatened by budget cuts and by technological change. The newspaper industry has fallen into the hands of a few powerful individuals. Huge global corporations and a vast communications revolution are dramatically altering the nature of news and entertainment. This book argues that unless action is taken these changes will narrow our access to the information we need as citizens and damage our capacity to communicate with each other and reflect on ourselves as a community. Power and Betrayal in the Canadian Media is a sweeping exploration of the Canadian media system and the impact it has on Canadian society, politics, and culture.

Media coverage of the Supreme Court of Canada has emerged as a crucial factor not only for judges and journalists but also for the public. It's the media, after all, that decide which court rulings to cover and how. They translate highly complex judgments into concise and meaningful news stories that will appeal to, and be understood by, the general public. Thus, judges lose control of the message once they hand down decisions, and journalists have the last word. To show how the Supreme Court has fared under the media spotlight, Sauvageau, Schneiderman, and Taras examine a year in the life of the court and then focus on the media coverage of four high-profile decisions: the Marshall case, about Aboriginal rights; the Vriend case, about gay rights; the Quebec Secession Reference; and the Sharpe child pornography case. They explore the differences between television and newspaper coverage, national and regional reporting, and the French- and English-language media. They also describe how judges and journalists understand and interact with one another amid often-clashing legal and journalistic cultures, offering a rich and detailed account of the relationship between two of the most important institutions in Canadian life.

The digital world has impacted the way Canadians socialize and interact with others, teach and learn, conduct business, experience culture, fight political battles, and acquire knowledge. The traditional forms of media, newspapers, radio, and television are being replaced by digital media which is fast, sporadic, and sometimes inaccurate. As a result, Canada is experiencing a number of overlapping crises simultaneously: a crisis in traditional media, a crisis in public broadcasting, a crisis in news and journalism, and a crisis in citizen engagement.

The main objectives of the series correspond to those of the journal Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research, also published by Mouton de Gruyter. The discipline of communication science is concerned with investigation of the structure and function of mass communication processes and their impact on society and social groups. How these processes have an impact on values, knowledge, opinions and behaviour of individuals similarly constitutes an important area of concern for the discipline. The Communications Monograph series emphasizes these concerns of the discipline through publication of books taking a European social science perspective. Inasmuch as mass communication cannot be studied distinct from other modes of communication, the purpose of the Series is to publish material covering other communication forms - intrapersonal, interpersonal, organizational - in addition to mass communication. In other words, the Communications Monograph series encompasses the entire field of communication science as its domain of interest. Special attention is addressed to the publication of titles that serve as main texts for academic courses and focus on such topics as communication theory and methodology, mass media and production of mediated messages, media use, reception processes, and media impact, political and marketing communication, advertising, public relations and propaganda, media policy, new media technologies and electronic networks, media history and media development.

A comprehensive, up to date, and probing examination of media and politics in Canada.

A compilation of essays and commentary delivered at the second annual Kent State University Symposium on Democracy, this work recognizes and considers the differences that arise when the competitive forces of commerce clash with the demand for the open availability of information in a democratic society. The conflicting roles of advocate-initiator and objective reporter for journalists who cover community politics; the role of the news media in forming public attitudes toward things political and their role in affecting voter nonparticipation; the role of financial considerations in the news media's attempt to provide citizens with needed news and perspective on political affairs; and particularly the role of the conglomeration of ownership of news media organizations are a few of the topics discussed in this volume.