Cette étude examine l’évolution de la couverture accordée aux enjeux dans la presse écrite durant les campagnes au Québec de 1994 à 2018. Deux constats ressortent de cette étude. On assisterait d'abord à une diversification de l'ordre du jour médiatique s'expliquant notamment par un recul de la question nationale dans l'espace médiatique au profit d'enjeux comme l'environnement et l'immigration. Le recadrage de la question nationale nettement plus axée aujourd'hui sur la dimension identitaire que sur la question du statut politique du Québec est frappant. Ces changements semblent indiquer la montée d'un axe politique libéral-autoritaire dans la province, alors même que l’émergence du multipartisme ouvre la porte à un réalignement politique durable. Ces observations tendent à confirmer la perspective voulant que l'ordre du jour lors d'une campagne résulte de l'interaction entre les médias, les partis et les électeurs et qu'il offre ainsi un reflet adéquat de l’évolution de la dynamique politique dans une société donnée.

This study is, to our knowledge, the first quantitative analyses of the relationship between local print newspaper health and voter turnout in Canadian municipal elections. Municipal turnout is understudied in Canada, and the few studies on the topic overlook the role of local media. This cross-sectional study fills a gap in the literature by determining the relationship between local print newspaper health and municipal election turnout in a unique dataset of 233 populous Canadian municipalities. Results reveal a significant positive correlation between turnout and two measures of newspaper health: (1) the total number of newspapers per population and (2) the publication frequency of the largest newspaper in a municipality.

Public health messages and societal discourse during the COVID-19 pandemic have consistently indicated a higher morbidity and mortality risk for older people, particularly those with multiple health conditions. Older adults’ interpretations of pandemic messaging can shape their perceived vulnerability and behaviours. This study examined their perspectives on COVID-19 messaging. Eighteen community-dwelling older adults residing in Manitoba (Canada) participated in semi-structured telephone interviews between July and August 2020, a period of low COVID-19 cases within the province. Inductive thematic analysis was used to identify key themes that described participants’ processes of information interpretation when consuming pandemic-related messages, their emotional responses to messaging and consequent vulnerability, and the impacts of messaging on their everyday lives. Understanding how older adults have construed COVID-19 and pandemic-related messages, and the subsequent impact on their daily behaviours, is the first step towards shaping societal discourse and sets the stage for examining the pandemic’s long-term effects.

This article examines the emotional terrain and discursive frames that govern the constitution of those subject to the “dangerous offender” (DO) designation in Canada. Focusing on the emotion of remorse, we discuss four narratives involving individuals who went through the DO hearing process, gaining significant media attention. Asking what role Indigeneity and other factors play in how the media discuss the emotional comportment of DOs, we examine the persistence of particular discursive frames in these narratives, and the counter-frames that challenge or disrupt dominant understandings of what it is appropriate to feel. The expression of emotion, and its interpretation, can be critical to the outcome of cases, criminalized people/survivor stigmatization, and normalization of punishment and may also motivate community mobilization and prompt policy change. Yet, emotion, and how it may be performed and interpreted differently, is not well understood or discussed in these narratives.

Forty per cent of Europeans refuse to have Roma as their neighbours, while 80 per cent of these do not even have direct contact with them. Using these statistics as a point of departure, this study analyzes how attitudes toward Roma are constructed. It proposes to investigate this process in two similar environments but where local integration policies directed toward Roma differ, resulting in disparate forms of intergroup contact. The analysis is premised on two theoretical assumptions: that the integration of migrants is a local public policy issue and that intergroup contact frames attitudes between majority and minority groups. From semi-structured interviews in the French municipalities of La Courneuve and Ivry-sur-Seine, four theories are empirically tested: the contact theory, the halo effect, the impact of local immigrant integration policies and media influence. This study demonstrates that the implementation of municipal policies in favour of Roma integration can improve their living conditions and thus deconstruct prejudices attributable to their precarious situation. In addition, it illustrates how the media activate, maintain or solidify the way Roma are perceived.

Cet article propose une documentation empirique du processus social de construction de l'immigration comme un problème de sécurité pour l’État canadien et sa population, et ce, au travers d'une analyse de contenu thématique d'articles de journaux publiés par La Presse et le National Post entre 1998 et 2015. Il quantifie et compare la place occupée par quatre discours-types au sein du discours médiatique canadien sur l'immigration. Ultimement, il révèle un discours de sécurité publique élevé fluctuant de façon importante sur la période et réfute l'hypothèse d'une intensification linéaire de la sécuritisation.

Since 2017, four provincial legislatures have introduced bills invoking the controversial notwithstanding clause. We present an original dataset of news articles from 10 different outlets that discussed the clause while these bills were being debated in Saskatchewan and Ontario. Empirically, although the clause is typically portrayed accurately, we find over one-fifth of articles about the clause did not indicate that it must be included in legislation. Normatively, the clause was twice as likely to be portrayed negatively as it was positively, and the type of portrayal was strongly associated with the ideological orientation of the news outlet. The rate of negative portrayals was similar across the two provinces, which suggests that attitudes toward the clause may endure beyond the policy issue itself or the level of media visibility.

This study used van Dijk’s critical-discourse approach to explore the current societal discourse on hope and to explore the hope of older terminally ill cancer patients, their significant others and primary nurse. Forty-three newspaper articles dealing with hope and cancer were collected and analyzed to explore how hope is socially constructed by print media. Individual face-to-face, qualitative, open-ended interviews were conducted with three triads, each consisting of an older palliative cancer patient, a significant other, and a primary nurse. The predominant discourse of hope and cancer in the newspaper articles was considered ageist, conveying the message that only one legitimate hope existed for persons with cancer: hope for a cure. The study findings suggested that this message caused confusion and distress for the patients, significant others, and their primary nurses because their own discourses of hope were focused on comfort, peace, and maintaining relationships at the end of life.