How Canadians Communicate IV: Media and Politics
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How Canadians Communicate IV How Canadians Communicate IV Media and Politics Edited by David Taras and Christopher Waddell Copyright © 2012 David Taras and Christopher Waddell Published by AU Press, Athabasca University 1200, 10011 – 109 Street, Edmonton, AB T5J 3S8 ISBN 978-1-926836-81-2 (print) 978-1-926836-82-9 (PDF) 978-1-926836-83-6 (epub) Interior design by Sergiy Kozakov Printed and bound in Canada by Marquis Book Printers Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Media and politics / edited by David Taras and Christopher Waddell. (How Canadians communicate ; 4) Includes bibliographical references and index. Issued also in electronic formats. ISBN 978-1-926836-81-2 1. Mass media--Political aspects--Canada. 2. Social media--Political aspects--Canada. 3. Communication in politics--Canada. 4. Canada--Politics and government. I. Taras, David, 1950- II. Waddell, Christopher Robb III. Series: How Canadians communicate ; 4 P95.82.C3M45 2012 302.230971 C2012-901951-8 We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CFB) for our publishing activities. Assistance provided by the Government of Alberta, Alberta Multimedia Development Fund. This publication is licensed under a Creative Commons License, Attribution– Noncommercial–No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada: see www.creativecommons.org. The text may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes, provided that credit is given to the original author. To obtain permission for uses beyond those outlined in the Creative Commons license, please contact AU Press, Athabasca University, at [email protected]. Contents List of Illustrations vii Acknowledgements ix The Past and Future of Political Communication in Canada: An Introduction 1 David Taras part I The Changing World of Media and Politics 1 The Uncertain Future of the News 29 Florian Sauvageau 2 On the Verge of Total Dysfunction: Government, Media, and Communications 45 Elly Alboim 3 Blogs and Politics 55 Richard Davis 4 The 2011 Federal Election and the Transformation of Canadian Media and Politics 71 David Taras and Christopher Waddell 5 Berry’d Alive: The Media, Technology, and the Death of Political Coverage 109 Christopher Waddell 6 Political Communication and the “Permanent Campaign” 129 Tom Flanagan 7 Are Negative Ads Positive? Political Advertising and the Permanent Campaign 149 Jonathan Rose 8 E-ttack Politics: Negativity, the Internet, and Canadian Political Parties 169 Tamara Small 9 Myths Communicated by Two Alberta Dynasties 189 Alvin Finkel 10 Throwing the Baby Out with the Bathwater: Canadian Forces News Media Relations and Operational Security 213 Robert Bergen part II Citizens and Politics in Everyday Life 11 Exceptional Canadians: Biography in the Public Sphere 233 David Marshall 12 Off-Road Democracy: The Politics of Land, Water, and Community in Alberta 259 Roger Epp 13 Two Solitudes, Two Québecs, and the Cinema In-Between 281 Dominique Perron 14 Verbal Smackdown: Charles Adler and Canadian Talk Radio 295 Shannon Sampert 15 Contemporary Canadian Aboriginal Art: Storyworking in the Public Sphere 317 Troy Patenaude 16 Intimate Strangers: The Formal Distance Between Music and Politics in Canada 349 Richard Sutherland Final Thoughts: How Will Canadians Communicate About Politics and the Media in 2015? 369 Christopher Waddell Contributors 379 Index 383 Illustrations Tables 1.1 Regular readers of a daily newspaper, 2009 33 1.2 Regular readers of Montréal daily newspapers (Monday to Friday) 34 1.3 Advertising revenues by medium 36 3.1 Blog readers versus non-blog readers 60 3.2 Reasons given for reading political blogs 62 3.3 Blog readers’ familiarity with ideological blogs 63 5.1 Voter turnout in Ontario communities, 1979–2000 114 6.1 Canadian national political campaigns, 2000–2009 137 6.2 Total contributions from corporations, associations, and trade unions 142 6.3 Financial impact of proposed $5,000 limit, 2000–2003 143 6.4 Quarterly allowances paid to political parties, 2004–7 143 7.1 Political party election advertising expenses, 2004–11 158 7.2 Political party advertising in non-election years 160 Figures 1.1 Total daily newspaper paid circulation in Canada, 1950–2008 32 15.1 Norval Morrisseau, Observations of the Astral World (c. 1994) 322 15.2 Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, I Have a Vision That Some Day All Indigenous People Will Have Freedom and Self-Government (1989) 326 15.3 Heather Shillinglaw, Little Savage (2009) 330 15.4 Bill Reid, The Spirit of Haida Gwaii (1991) 336 Acknowledgements This book is the result of a collaborative effort between Athabasca University and the Alberta Global Forum, now based at Mount Royal University. We are particularly grateful to Frits Pannekoek, president of Athabasca University. Without his insights, guidance, and commitment, this book would not have been possible. The book and the conference that gave life to it received gen- erous support from a grant awarded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. We are deeply appreciative. We are also grate- ful to Gina Grosenick, who did a magnificent job of helping to organize the conference, and to Peter Zuurbier, whose assistance in collecting the indi- vidual essays and preparing the final manuscript was indispensable. Walter Hildebrandt, the director of Athabasca University Press, was extremely sup- portive and as always brought impressive ideas and good judgment. Those who worked on the volume for AU Press, Pamela MacFarland Holway, Joyce Hildebrand, Megan Hall, and Sergiy Kozakov, were all first rate. Everett Wilson helped with the original poster design for the conference and pro- vided ideas for the book cover. Christopher Waddell would like to thank the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University for giving him a wonderful vantage point over the past decade from which to watch the evolution of Canadian media, politics, and public policy. He is also grateful to his wife, Anne Waddell, and their children, Matthew and Kerry, for giving him the time to do that and to his mother, Lyn Cook Waddell, whose life as an author has had a tremendous influence on his own work. Chris adds a special thanks to Frits Pannekoek and Gina Grosenick for everything that they have done to make the conference and this volume possible. ix David Taras would like to thank Chris Waddell and Frits Pannekoek for being such insightful and inspiring colleagues, Dean Marc Chikinda and Provost Robin Fisher of Mount Royal University for their faith and vision, and Greg Forrest and Jeanette Nicholls of the Alberta Global Forum for their leadership. Gina Grosenick was magnificent, as always. Claire Cummings provided excellent assistance for the AGF on a whole series of fronts, which included helping to organize the conference. David would also like to thank his wife, Joan, for her support and understanding. x Acknowledgements David Taras The Past and Future of Political Communication in Canada An Introduction In June 1980, in the wake of the Québec referendum on sovereignty and the 1979 and 1980 federal elections, the Reader’s Digest Foundation and what was then Erindale College of the University of Toronto co-sponsored a conference on politics and the media.1 The Erindale conference brought together promi- nent party strategists and organizers, journalists, and scholars. Participants spoke about the power of television images, the presidentialization of Canadian politics, the concentration of media ownership, the failure of lead- ers to address policies in a serious way during elections, the sheer nastiness and negativity of political attacks, the power of the media to set the agenda and frame issues during elections, and the need for politicians to fit into those very media frames if they wished to be covered at all. None of these concerns have vanished with time. If anything, they have hardened into place, making them even more pervasive and intractable. Yet even as so much has remained the same, so much has changed. When the conference “How Canadians Communicate Politically: The Next Generation” was convened in Calgary and Banff in late October 2009, the media and political terrains had been dramatically transformed. The revolu- tion in web-based technology that had begun in the mid-1990s had hit the country with devastating force. As online media depleted the newspaper industry, TV networks, and local radio stations of a sizable portion of their audiences and advertising, the old lions of the traditional media lost some of their bite. The stark reality today is that every medium is merging with 1 every other medium, every medium is becoming every other medium, and all media are merging on the Internet. Most critically, a new generation of digital natives, those who have grown up with web-based media, is no longer subject to a top-down, command-and-control media system in which messages flow in only one direction. Audiences now have the capacity to create their own islands of information from the endless sea of media choices that surround them, as well as to produce and circulate their own videos, photos, opinions, and products, and to attract their own advertising. And the country has also changed. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the absorption of more immigrants from more countries than any other soci- ety in history, the growth of global cities, and connectivity have all produced a profoundly different society. Furthermore, years of constitutional battles and another much more desperately fought referendum in Québec in 1995 have culminated in both frustration and exhaustion. Living on the edge of a precipice could not be sustained indefinitely, even in Québec. The coun- try has also grown proud of its accomplishments. Canada’s banking system withstood the most punishing effects of the financial meltdown that ravaged the world financial system in 2008 and 2009; multicultural experiments that appear to be failing in other societies, such as France, the United Kingdom, and Germany, are succeeding in Canada; and arts and culture are burgeoning.