Tracing Corporate Influences on Press Content: a summary of recent NewsWatch Canada Research

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.

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