Despite a loss of readership and revenue, newspapers, one of the main providers of new information to the public, continue to playa major role in helping to shape public debate about social problems. The news media is therefore one of the primary ways for claims-makers to distribute their claims to a large audience. By presenting the claims, the news media alters the claims and re-presents them. These new claims represent one possible worldview, and because of the news media's major role in public debate, these claims may be very influential.
A review of the research literature on political corruption shows that few media studies about political corruption have been conducted in Canada. Furthermore, the research literature uses a wide variety of different definitions for what constitutes political corruption, making it extremely difficult to compare and analyze different articles in the research literature.
I chose to examine how The Globe and Mail, which many people consider to be Canada's premier newspaper, perceived, reported, and describes political corruption. My goal is to explore how The Globe and Mail describes political corruption and presents claims-makers' claims, and how these claims may influence debate. I used a quantitative content analysis to analyze newspaper articles about political corruption published in The Globe and Mail from 1990-2000.
I found that numerous articles published in The Globe and Mail identified political corruption as a serious problem with serious effects on Canadians. Grand corruption in the Federal level of government was the most identified type of corruption, with favouritism as the main form. For quotes, The Globe and Mail primarily used State sources and alleged offenders. The structure of Canada's political system was identified as the primary cause of political corruption, while solutions were constructed to include either increased accountability or stronger laws. The information provided by The Globe and Mail usually came from others sources, and there was very little independent investigation of claims.
These results show that The Globe and Mail presents a limited debate about political corruption. The focus on presenting State viewpoints may limit discussion of other possible causes and solutions, and this limited discussion may result in ineffective legal responses.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/28538 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Creators | Wild, Stephen |
| Publisher | University of Ottawa (Canada) |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 120 p. |
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