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With Canada becoming the first G20 country to legalize the recreational use of cannabis, there has been increasing interest in the emergence of this new marketplace. Newspaper framing helps to shape public opinion on legalization and news sources play a role in determining how the public perceives the use of cannabis. This research analyzes how mainstream newspapers reported on the legalization of recreational cannabis in Canada in the years before and after legalization (between 2016 and 2019). Using a content analysis of 1,390 cannabis-related articles, 11 dominant reporting themes are identified. Over time, there was a shift from negative and sensationalist cannabis news coverage toward more balanced and progressive framing. The findings identify the influence of editorial political stance on thematic coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BRISKIN L. Nursing Inquiry 2012; 19: 285-296 Resistance, mobilization and militancy: nurses on strike Drawing on nurses' strikes in many countries, this paper explores nurse militancy with reference to professionalism and the commitment to service; patriarchal practices and gendered subordination; and proletarianization and the confrontation with healthcare restructuring. These deeply entangled trajectories have had a significant impact on the work, consciousness and militancy of nurses and have shaped occupation-specific forms of resistance. They have produced a pattern of overlapping solidarities - occupational solidarity, gendered alliances and coalitions around healthcare restructuring - which have supported, indeed promoted, militancy among nurses, despite the multiple forces arrayed against them. The professional commitments of nurses to the provision of care have confronted healthcare restructuring, nursing shortages, intensification of work, precarious employment and gendered hierarchies with a militant discourse around the public interest, and a reconstitution and reclamation of 'caring', what I call the politicisation of caring. In fact, nurses' dedication to caring work in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries may encourage rather than dissuade them from going on strike. This paper uses a trans-disciplinary methodology, qualitative material in the form of strike narratives constructed from newspaper archives, and references to the popular and scholarly literature on nursing militancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Mass media are very influential in shaping discourses about health but few studies have examined the extent to which newspaper coverage of such stories reflect issues embedded in health policy documents. We estimate the relative distribution of health stories using content analysis. Nine meta-topics are used to sort stories across a range of major influences shaping the health status of populations adapted from the document Toward a Healthy Future (Second Report on the Health of Canadians (1999)) (TAHF). A total of 4732 stories were analyzed from 13 Canadian daily newspapers (10 English, 3 French language) using a constructed week per quarter method. Stories were sampled from each chosen newspaper for the years 1993, 1995, 1997 and 2001. 72% (n=3405) of stories in this analysis were from English-language papers, 28% (n=1327) were from French-language papers. Topics related to health care (dealing either with issues of service provision and delivery or management and regulation) dominated newspaper stories, accounting for 65% of all stories. Physical environment topics accounted for about 13% of all stories, the socio-economic environment about 6% of stories, personal health practices about 5% of stories, and scientific advances in health research about 4% of stories. Other influences upon health identified in TAHF were rarely mentioned. The overall prominence of topics in newspapers is not consistent with the relative importance assigned to health influences in TAHF. Canadian newspapers rarely report on socio-economic influences frequently cited in the research literature (and reflected in TAHF) as being most influential in shaping population health outcomes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper posits journalists as cartographers who, through their reporting, produce a news geography which maps the world and sketches the contours and connections of their communities within that world. Employing a methodology adapted to the analysis of newspaper sites on the World Wide Web, this paper reports on an intensive news-flow study of the on-line editions of Canada's three national newspapers - the Globe and Mail, the National Post and Le Devoir - to determine whether these newspapers are taking advantage of the Internet's technological capacity to expand their news geographies beyond conventional borders. We argue that not only do these newspapers portray a highly circumscribed world, but they fail to exploit fully even the national space of Canada, thus reinforcing the conventional news value of proximity - physical, cultural or emotional closeness - as a strongly determinant factor in mapping their news worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the manner through which the International Hockey League (IHL) and its operations were portrayed in newspaper coverage in the larger urban centers of eastern Canada, where hockey had its developmental and organizational roots within the middle- and upper-middle-class community, and compares it to coverage that appeared in newspapers in the communities that hosted IHL teams, which were communities driven by industry and had large working-class populations. To do so, a comparison of newspaper coverage of the IHL in local IHL newspapers with reports published in newspapers in major Canadian cities strongly associated with the origins, development, and organizational control of ice hockey, is undertaken. The development of the sport of ice hockey in both Canada and the USA, and newspaper coverage generally, and hockey specifically, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is reviewed. Representative examples of the coverage of IHL games and operations over the course of its three-year operations are then provided. Having compared the coverage of games and operations of the IHL between IHL and Canadian-based newspapers, the paper concludes with a discussion of how business competition, competing ideologies toward high-level sport, and class-based perceptions regarding violence, aggression, and masculinity can affect the newspaper coverage of sporting events.

International news-flow research has repeatedly identified significant imbalances in the global exchange of news among regions of the world. With the emergence of thousands of news sites on the World Wide Web, and the corresponding ability of news audiences to access these sites, the Internet offers the technological capacity to globalize media content. This paper seeks to test that possibility by exploring the way one Canadian daily newspaper, the Montreal Gazette , occupies the geography of the Internet with its on-line news operation. The paper reports on an exploratory comparative news-flow study of the Gazette 's hard-copy and on-line editions to determine whether on-line publishing has prompted the Gazette to alter the boundaries of its news coverage. While the paper concludes that, indeed, the Gazette 's website consistently carried far more international news items than its hard-copy edition, it also notes that this distinction is largely explained by the website's very heavy reliance on wire-service copy and its emphasis on sports news. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from Shoemaker and Reese's hierarchical model of influences on media content, this paper summarizes content analyses by NewsWatch Canada on different dimensions of potential corporate influence on Canadian newspaper content: (1) the offsetting tendencies of content rationalization and duplication in chain papers; (2) newspaper coverage of their own parent companies, and of the media industry; (3) the influence of newspaper editorial positions on news coverage; (4) some potential impacts of advertising; (5) potential double standards related to politics and social class. While the research is exploratory, there is evidence of systemic corporate influence, particularly on the second, third and fifth dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores Canadian reporting on suicide and the ways it changed over 150 years. Archival research on the reporting practices of two long-standing newspapers presented here shows that suicide was not always taboo in the media. In fact, the silencing and tip-toeing around reporting on suicide only began in the mid-twentieth century. Early newspaper accounts frequently included reports on suicides, both local and far removed, including details on the exact manner of death. As public perceptions of suicide, and the laws surrounding it, gradually shifted from considering the act a crime to an aspect of psychiatric malady, reporting on suicide changed. Once suicide became an untouchable subject in newsrooms the stigma became entrenched, making it hard to address in any meaningful way for decades [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to the sociology of vital statistics by examining the understandings of infant mortality which circulated in Alberta in the early 20th century. In those years, infant mortality came to be represented as an unnatural and unacceptable diminishment of Alberta's population and an appropriate object of political concern. This paper deals with the ways in which infant mortality became saturated with symbolism, even before the full emergence of policies and programs for reducing it. Using a database of 73 digitized Alberta newspapers, I identify the dominant metaphors for infant mortality as economic inefficiency and military defeat. I also set this concern for lost infant life within the context of other population anxieties, including xenophobic fears about "unnatural increase" through immigration and fears about "population quality" which culminated in calls for eugenic sterilization. I argue that infant mortality is a unique form of population process in that it temporally fuses birth and death, creating, in the collective imagination, a spectral collection of those who might have lived, had they not been deprived of life unnaturally soon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses a language ideological debate that took place in Canadian national newspapers following the opening ceremonies for the 2011 Vancouver Olympics. Reports on the insufficient use of French during the opening ceremonies sparked protest from politicians, official commentators, citizens and online newsreaders alike. Previous research has suggested that language ideological 'debates' (i.e. overt manifestations of ideologies) are a useful site for studying the role that languages play in the construction of social groups (see Blommaert 1999a, b). In Canada, a national cliché is that Canadian identity is fractured both linguistically and geographically. Thus, the debate over the status of French in the Vancouver Olympics involves not only ideologies of language, but also ideologies of identity and belonging. An analysis of this language ideological debate, then, can shed light on the often naturalised and commonsensical understandings of Canadian national identity. The data consist of articles and commentary drawn from two national newspapers ( The Globe and Mail and Le Devoir). The findings suggest some of the ways in which languages are represented as unifying and dividing characteristics of Canadian identity, representations of which often differ according to the language of the newspaper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advocates have called for universal, quality child care in Canada since the 1970s, but the issue seldom appeared to acquire political urgency. The 2006 election campaign seemed different. The governing Liberals promised to devote billions to a nascent national program. The Conservatives promised parents a cash allowance for young children. Child care seemed to be emerging as a significant issue in a political campaign. How was ECEC written about before, during and after Canadian election campaigns? Who is quoted and how? Our project mapped articles about child care in four major Canadian dailies between 2000 and 2008. We found that coverage spiked in 2000 and 2005-2006-during federal elections. Coverage nearly doubled in 2005-2006 in all but one paper. Using content analysis, we compared coverage of child care and sources in the 55 days before the start of campaigning, 55 days of campaigning, and 55 days following the 2006 election. We mapped and compared who said what, and how about child care policy and related issues, in Canada. We found: (1) that newspapers' ideological slants are apparent in their choice of sources and focus; and (2) that more importantly, despite ideological differences, political figures outnumbered activists, parents and child care providers. With only minor variations across the newspapers, the voices of parents and child care activists were marginal especially in the 55 days of campaigning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By the start of the 20th century, readers of weekend newspapers had become accustomed to a smorgasbord of reading fare. The passage of the Lord's Day Act in 1906 changed Canadian weekend reading habits by specifically banning the making, sale, importation and distribution of newspapers on Sundays. Focusing on the cities of Windsor (Ontario) and Detroit (Michigan), this paper uses circulation theory to explore the complicated relations that emerged between local, provincial and national authorities; religious groups; the rhythms of leisure and media production in modernity; and a voracious reading public that refused to be told how to spend their Sundays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) have historically been sites of heated public controversy. However, with widespread use, the boundary-challenging risks surrounding ARTs have become less newsworthy. One exception includes their use by “older mothers,” particularly postmenopausal mothers. In this paper, I review the social science literature related to the risks of ARTs and the conceptualizations of “older mothers”. Next, I move to analyze the specific case of 60-year-old Ranjit Hayer, who gave birth to twins in Calgary, Canada, through the context of the Canadian media coverage the week following the birth, using concepts from cultural approaches to risk perception, constructivist studies of technology, and risk communication theory. I argue that risk discourses emerge when technologies and users expose and challenge the contingent stability of the sociotechnical discourses surrounding them. This leads to a public re-opening of a “closed” technology and user and a reconstruction of the risks associated with them. This case demonstrates how an apparently “settled” sociotechnical network becomes reframed in terms of risk, and how the negotiation of this risk reveals, constructs, and interweaves various boundary discourses. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

As more adult women with young children have entered the paid labour force in the last decade, more Canadian families are seeking access to affordable child care. One might expect to observe a measurable and decided increase in coverage of child care in major media in that time. Yet, in terms of articles recorded and analyzed in four major Canadian dailies, child care has remained marginal, moving in and out of the spotlight and often all but disappearing. Even the Toronto Star, which covered the issue the most frequently of the dailies examined, had coverage that varied markedly between 2000 and 2007. By counting articles about child care, we found that the greatest jumps in coverage in all four dailies were spikes in 2000 and 2005-2006-coinciding with federal election campaigns. A closer look at the 2005-2006 period revealed that the National Post had the least extensive coverage. Nonetheless, it too had higher than its normal coverage during the campaign. At that time the newspapers' coverage nearly doubled, in all but one paper, before falling to their average (low) yearly coverage, in 2007- again, despite a continuing unmet demand for affordable child care among Canadian families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Canadian Century Research Infrastructure (CCRI) is a research project in the social sciences and humanities in Canada that involves seven universities and partnerships with several public- and private-sector institutions. The goal of the project is to create a research infrastructure centered oil microdata from the 1911-1951 decennial Canadian censuses, accompanied by metadata and extensive contextual data. The result will provide a new foundation for the study of change in Canada in the first half of the 20th century. This paper will describe the research infrastructure that is being created, and explain how the CCRI defines metadata and contextual data, and why it is of interest to social science researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper challenges Lefebvre's distinction between Representations of Space and Spaces of Representation. Most current work in this area has assumed modernist conceptions of power, thereby interpreting representations of space (conceived space) as the property of the powerful who alone possess the ability to abstract space for their particular ends. Contrary to Lefebvre, I suggest that representation and abstraction are not the agents of state capitalism alone but are also manifested in 'counter' discourses. As an example of a 'counter discourse' I draw upon a series of editorial articles written in a local gay-oriented newspaper about a gay enclave in Vancouver, Canada. I argue that these depictions cloud the distinctions as practised between conception, abstraction and the imaginary in urban space. They also serve to promote one interpretation of space above others, and in that sense they colonize the experience of everyday life in their own way. The act of 'speaking for' presupposes a certain power, and in these cases, highlights the fact that the power of representation and abstraction does not only occur at the state or 'system' level. I suggest that by overcoming the assumption of a zero-sum ontology of power, one can see how a variety of agents in the urban context engage in the attempt to carve out their 'own' spaces of stability in the urban social imaginary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National and regional consciousness are central to contemporary political cleavages in Canada. The Canadian press presents divergent viewpoints on federalism and the future of Canada and Quebec. This study examines the linkage between types of newspapers read by Canadians and readers' feelings toward Quebec and Canada. Data are individual responses from the 1993 Canadian Election Study. The analysis reveals that consumers of French-language newspapers have significantly more positive feelings toward the province of Quebec and more negative assessments of the nation of Canada. Readers of (English-language) nationally oriented papers, however, have more favorable views of Quebec than other Canadians. This research adds to the literature on the effects of mass media on individuals' political and social attitudes and the formation of beliefs in the Canadian polity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]