From the earliest days of English-language Canadian Broadcasting Corporation television (CBC-TV), the military has been regularly featured on the news, public affairs, documentary, and drama programs. Little has been done to study these programs, despite calls for more research and many decades of work on the methods for the historical analysis of television. In addressing this gap, this thesis explores: how media representations of the military on CBC-TV (commemorative, history, public affairs and news programs) changed over time; what accounted for those changes; what they revealed about CBC-TV; and what they suggested about the way the military and its relationship with CBC-TV evolved. Through a material culture analysis of 245 programs/series about the Canadian military, veterans and defence issues that aired on CBC-TV over a 40-year period, beginning with its establishment in 1952, this thesis argues that the conditions surrounding each production were affected by a variety of factors, namely: (1) technology; (2) foreign broadcasters; (3) foreign sources of news; (4) the influence of the military and its veterans; (5) audience response; (6) the role played by personalities involved in the production of CBC-TV programs; (7) policies/objectives/regulations set by the CBC, the Board of Broadcast Governors and the Canadian Radio-Television Commission (later, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission); (8) ambitions for program development and the changing objectives of departments within the CBC; (9) economic constraints at the CBC; (10) CBC-TV’s relations with the other producers of Canadian television programming, like the NFB; and, (11) broader changes to the Canadian social, economic, political and cultural scenes, along with shifts in historiography. At different times, certain of these conditions were more important than others, the unique combination of which had unpredictable results for programming. The thesis traces these changes chronologically, explaining CBC-TV’s evolution from transmitting largely uncritical and often positive programming in the early 1950s, to obsession with the horrors of war and questioning of the military’s preparedness by decade’s end, to new debate about the future of the forces and the memory of war in the 1960s, to a complex mixture of activism, criticism and praise in the 1970s and 1980s, and, finally, to controversy and iconoclasm by the 1990s.

Ce mémoire porte sur le rôle que jouent les médias de masse dans la construction de la personnalité publique des nouveaux chefs de partis politiques. Lorsqu’un individu est nommé à la tête d’un parti politique, il est la plupart du temps peu connu du grand public. Or, comme une écrasante majorité de citoyens n’a jamais l’occasion d’entrer en contact directement avec les hommes et les femmes politiques, c’est exclusivement par le biais des médias que la plupart des gens apprennent à connaître leurs représentants politiques – ou ceux qui aspirent à jouer ce rôle. Or les médias ne se contentent pas de répéter ce que les politiciens disent. Les informations qu’ils décident d’inclure dans leurs reportages, les mots qu’ils utilisent et les cadrages qu’ils retiennent contribuent à définir la personnalité des leaders émergents dont ils parlent. Les médias choisissent aussi de mettre l’accent sur certains traits de personnalité et décident d’en ignorer d’autres. Afin de mieux comprendre ce phénomène, nous avons étudié le cas de l’ex-chef du Parti québécois, André Boisclair. Nous avons cherché à savoir si la couverture dont ce dernier a fait l’objet a été stable ou si elle a suivi certains cycles, et nous nous sommes intéressés aux critères retenus par les médias pour évaluer sa personnalité. Pour ce faire, nous avons étudié le volume, le format, le ton, les objets et les cadrages qui caractérisent la couverture dont a été l’objet André Boisclair à l’antenne de la Société Radio-Canada et du Réseau TVA entre le 4 juin 2005 et le 21 février 2007. Nos conclusions sont à l’effet que la couverture a bel et bien suivi un cycle, et que les critères retenus par les médias sont très similaires à ceux qui sont réputés être importants pour la population dans le choix d’un leader politique. / This thesis focuses on the role played by mass media in the construction of the public personality of emerging leaders. When a political party chooses a new leader, this leader is often known by very few people. Since a majority of citizens rarely has the occasion to interact directly with political figures, it is exclusively through the media that most people are able to get acquainted with those who represent them – and with those who aspire to play that role. But the media do not only repeat what politicians say. The pieces of information they decide to include in their stories, the words they use, and the frames they select contribute to the definition of the public personality of the leaders they talk about. News media also choose to put the emphasis on particular personality traits, and to ignore others. In order to have a better understanding of this phenomenon, we have studied the case of former Parti québécois leader, André Boisclair. We have tried to determine if the coverage he was object of has been stable over time, or if it has followed cycles, and we have studied the criteria used by the media to assess his personality. To achieve these ends, we have studied the volume, the format, the tone, the objects and the frames, which have characterized the coverage broadcasted on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the TVA Network between June 4, 2005 and February 21, 2007 about André Boisclair. Our conclusions show that the coverage indeed follows cycles, and that the criteria used by the news media are very similar to those which have already been identified as important to the public in the selection of a political leader.

Ce mémoire porte sur le rôle que jouent les médias de masse dans la construction de la personnalité publique des nouveaux chefs de partis politiques. Lorsqu’un individu est nommé à la tête d’un parti politique, il est la plupart du temps peu connu du grand public. Or, comme une écrasante majorité de citoyens n’a jamais l’occasion d’entrer en contact directement avec les hommes et les femmes politiques, c’est exclusivement par le biais des médias que la plupart des gens apprennent à connaître leurs représentants politiques – ou ceux qui aspirent à jouer ce rôle. Or les médias ne se contentent pas de répéter ce que les politiciens disent. Les informations qu’ils décident d’inclure dans leurs reportages, les mots qu’ils utilisent et les cadrages qu’ils retiennent contribuent à définir la personnalité des leaders émergents dont ils parlent. Les médias choisissent aussi de mettre l’accent sur certains traits de personnalité et décident d’en ignorer d’autres. Afin de mieux comprendre ce phénomène, nous avons étudié le cas de l’ex-chef du Parti québécois, André Boisclair. Nous avons cherché à savoir si la couverture dont ce dernier a fait l’objet a été stable ou si elle a suivi certains cycles, et nous nous sommes intéressés aux critères retenus par les médias pour évaluer sa personnalité. Pour ce faire, nous avons étudié le volume, le format, le ton, les objets et les cadrages qui caractérisent la couverture dont a été l’objet André Boisclair à l’antenne de la Société Radio-Canada et du Réseau TVA entre le 4 juin 2005 et le 21 février 2007. Nos conclusions sont à l’effet que la couverture a bel et bien suivi un cycle, et que les critères retenus par les médias sont très similaires à ceux qui sont réputés être importants pour la population dans le choix d’un leader politique. / This thesis focuses on the role played by mass media in the construction of the public personality of emerging leaders. When a political party chooses a new leader, this leader is often known by very few people. Since a majority of citizens rarely has the occasion to interact directly with political figures, it is exclusively through the media that most people are able to get acquainted with those who represent them – and with those who aspire to play that role. But the media do not only repeat what politicians say. The pieces of information they decide to include in their stories, the words they use, and the frames they select contribute to the definition of the public personality of the leaders they talk about. News media also choose to put the emphasis on particular personality traits, and to ignore others. In order to have a better understanding of this phenomenon, we have studied the case of former Parti québécois leader, André Boisclair. We have tried to determine if the coverage he was object of has been stable over time, or if it has followed cycles, and we have studied the criteria used by the media to assess his personality. To achieve these ends, we have studied the volume, the format, the tone, the objects and the frames, which have characterized the coverage broadcasted on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the TVA Network between June 4, 2005 and February 21, 2007 about André Boisclair. Our conclusions show that the coverage indeed follows cycles, and that the criteria used by the news media are very similar to those which have already been identified as important to the public in the selection of a political leader.