A Media Tale of Two Cities: Quebec Referendum Coverage in Montreal and Toronto

Abstract

T h i s a n a l y s i s f o c u s e s o n t h e t r e a t m e n t a c c o r d e d t h e S o v e r e i g n t y -A s s o c i a t i o n R e f e r e n d u m b y t h e M o n t r e a l a n d T o r o n t o m e d i a ( 3 n e w s p a p e r s , r a d i o , t e l e v is i o n ) . On c o n c l u t que l e s m6dia m o n t r 6 a l a i s o n t t r a i t 6 t o u s l e s a c t e u r s d une f a~o n 6 q u i l i b r 6 e m a i s que l e s m6dias t o r o n t o i s o n t f o r t e m e n t f a v o r i s 6 l e s p a r t i s a n s du Non. I t i s c o n c l u d e d t h a t t h e M o nt r e a l m e d i a t r e a t e d a l l a c t o r s i n a b a l a n c e d f a s h i o n w h i l e t h e T o r o n t o m e d i a s t r o n g l y f a v o r e d t h e p r o t a g o n i s t s o f t h e N o -c o m m i t t e e . N o t r e a n a l y s e p o r t e s u r l e t r a i t e m e n t a c c o r d 6 p a r l e s m6dias d e

Framing Catalonia: Evidence from Québec media

“…Canadian and Québec media coverage of the 1980 sovereignty-association referendum in Québec shows a disparity in the treatment of the issue. The Montréal media covered in a balanced way all the actors of the conflict, whereas the Toronto media largely favoured the federalist camp (Halford et al 1983). In the same vein, during the nationwide referendum on the renewal of the Constitution (commonly known as the Charlottetown Accord referendum), in which Québécois opposed, the Québec media treated the issue in a neutral manner (Dion 1994).…”

“…This is how the Québec experience was evoked to formulate prescriptions of democratic order. Surprisingly, media tend to focus less on the economic consequences of the Catalan referendum, whereas in the case of past Québec referendums this issue was very present in the public sphere (Dion 1994: 22;Halford et al 1983;Monière et al 1996: 82). The analysis shows that a single text published in the 9th week matches in this category.…”