Divergence in foreign policy and convergence in media

Abstract

There has been extensive literature on the strong political, economic, and cultural ties between the US and Canada. Foreign policy is a delicate issue between the two nations, whereby a central raised question pertains to whether Canada should parallel American foreign policies or create its own. This, however, augments into a situation that highlights a division between government announcements and media portrayals, deeming it necessary to investigate how and to what extent American foreign policies affect Canadian media, directly or indirectly, through their impact on Canadian foreign policies. This paper sets out to identify and reflect on the interconnected relationship between American foreign policy, Canadian foreign policy, and the Canadian media. With application to three central conflicts in the greater Middle East – the war on Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – this paper utilizes textual archival analysis of several US and Canadian government websites, as well as quantitative and qualitative content analysis of two major Canadian English newspapers – The Globe and Mail and The National Post. The paper concludes that Canadian foreign policies have been divergent from American foreign policies towards conflicts in the Middle East, while the Canadian media have been convergent to American foreign policies, being influenced by the US announcements and initiatives as well as American sources of information including the media.

Keywords:

• Canadian newspapers
• foreign policy
• Middle East conflicts
• political communication
• qualitative and quantitative content analysis
• textual archival analysis
• Afghanistan
• Canada
• Iraq
• Israel
• Palestine
• United States

Notes

1. .An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual conference of the Canadian Communication Association, Congress of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, May 2009.

2. .Given the differences among English and French Canadian media in terms of political interests, the focus in this paper has been only on the English Canadian newspapers. Studying both English and French newspapers would have necessitated comparisons among the two – a division that is out of the scope of this study. Further studies may consider this paper as foundation to study the French media in relation to American and Canadian foreign policies towards conflicts in the Middle East.

3. .The Globe and Mail has been called ‘‘the jewel in the crown of Canadian newspapers,’ [which] is … [a] truly national newspaper in Canada and has long been recognized as one of Canada's leading newspapers of record’ (Strentz & Keel 1995, p.365). The National Post was introduced on October 27, 1998 as the ‘new national daily newspaper’ (Klaschka 1998, p.26).

4. .Differences among The National Post and The Globe and Mail are not part of the objectives of this paper; hence, the statistical differences between the two newspapers in covering conflicts in the Middle East are not presented here.