Abstract
This study examines the way that China is portrayed by the Canadian news media at the national, local, and hyper-local levels, and across multiple media formats. With an average of over 40,000 new immigrants per year – a number that has seen rapid growth since the 1980s – Chinese are Canada's second largest immigrant group. As a result, identifying the topics and issues that receive news coverage is key to understanding the role that the media at every level play in shaping cultural discourse and contributing to notions of national identity. Using samples from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Toronto Star, and Ming Pao, this analysis compares the coverage presented by mainstream broadcast news media and their online counterparts, as well as the coverage provided by a local newspaper with national reach and a hyper-local Chinese-language newspaper.
Acknowledgement
The authors gratefully acknowledge Professor April Lindgren of Ryerson University, Toronto, for contributing the data on Ming Pao from her study “The Local News Project: Journalism, Geography and Urban Discourse in the Greater Toronto Area”. The authors are also grateful to Bill Mann of the University of Toronto for his contributions to an earlier version of this research. Last, the authors would like to thank the reviewers for their comments and assistance.