Faction and Its Alternative

Abstract

An unexamined symbol in Upper Canadian press and politics is the faction, despite factions being a target of editors and writers in the first competitive newspaper environments after 1827. This article shows how editors and writers constructed images of this political enemy. The author argues that in the pages of the press, the symbol of faction seemed a foil for the kind of political work writers and editors of all political stripes also symbolized regularly during elections from 1828 to 1841: a rational elective politics organized around new visible political groupings.

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Duncan Koerber

DUNCAN KOERBER is a sessional assistant professor in the professional writing program of the writing department at York University. His research on newspaper agents, election coverage, and partisan newspaper communities has been published in Journalism History, the Canadian Journal of Communication, the Journal of Canadian Studies, and Media History.