This study measures and compares the editorial reactions of ten
Canadian metropolitan dailies to the FLQ kidnap crisis of 1970, and the
specific, important events which occurred within the crisis. Besides
comparing the editorial reactions of individual papers, the newspapers
are also grouped by language (French and English) and by geographical
location, to determine the effect of these two characteristics upon
those reactions.
The thesis is divided into four chapters, as follows: Methodology,
an account of the crisis, the newspapers, and finally the presentation
and analysis of the findings.
The research method used is content analysis. Five categories are
devised, into which are classified the editorial content of the newspapers
analyzed. A frequency count method is used, with the theme as
recording unit and the paragraph as context unit.
Chapter two centers about a short account of the crisis and the
selection of important events within the crisis which could be expected
to have had some influence upon the editorial reactions of the papers.
Chapter three consists of the selection of newspapers to be analyzed,
of newspaper characteristics (language and location) which one might
expect to have an effect upon editorial reactions, and finally of deferring editorial content for the purpose of this study.
The presentation and analysis of findings (Chapter four) is subdivided
into two parts-editorial reactions to the entire crisis and
editorial reactions to important events within the crisis. It was found
that the single greatest determinant of how a newspaper reacted editorially to the crisis was geographic allocation. The papers from Ontario and Quebec put considerable emphasis upon the dangers of excessive reaction
by the authorities and upon the need for social reform as a
solution to the crisis, whereas the papers from other regions were
generally more concerned with the need for law and order. The French
papers devoted more editorial space to the crisis than did the English
papers but the nature of their reaction was generally similar to that
of the English papers of Ontario and Quebec. The French papers greatly
increased their editorial content about the crisis after the abduction
of Pierre Laporte - the English papers only after the proclamation of
the War Measures Act. Before the War Measures Act was proclaimed, all
English papers had put a strong emphasis upon the need for law and order.
After the proclamation, the English papers of Toronto, Montreal
and Ottawa de-emphasized that issue.
A summary of the more important findings of the study is presented
as a concluding section of Chapter four. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/41877 |
| Date | January 1971 |
| Creators | Holdrinet, Gérard Pierre |
| Publisher | University of British Columbia |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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