Television Frames of the 2008 Liberal and New Democrat Accord

Abstract

This article examines how the Liberal and New Democratic Accord was framed through and by national television news during the first week of

Historical Institutionalism in Communication Studies

“…1). New institutionalism has continued to inspire work in the area of journalism and news production (Anderson, ; Brand, ; Lowrey & Erzikova, ; Lowrey & Woo, ; Miljan, ), where it largely continues to draw on the organizational/sociological version of new institutionalism. In the area of journalism and news production, new institutionalism is sometimes used in conjunction with, or likened to, Bourdieu's field theory (Anderson, ; Benson, ; Benson, ).…”

“…In the context of news production, historical, case study, and comparative approaches are most often used (Benson, 2004;Brand, 2010). Content analysis is also sometimes used (Entman, 2006;Herman & Gandy, 2006;Lawrence, 2006;Miljan, 2011). In the context of organizational communication, new institutionalism is often combined with content and discourse analysis (such as analyses of organizational statements or policies) to examine how organizational change takes place (Atkinson, 2008a(Atkinson, , 2008bComtois et al, 2004;Frandsen & Johansen, 2011).…”

(Mis)Representing the 2008 Prorogation: Agendas, Frames, and Debates in Canada’s Mediacracy

“…two recent projects have offered important contributions to understanding the media's role in 2008 (Miljan, 2011;McBrien, 2012). the first is a Master's thesis (McBrien, 2012) that explored the agendas and frames used by newspapers in their coverage of the 2008 prorogation.…”

“…the second involved an institutional analysis of how the liberal-NDP accord was framed through national television news during the first week of December 2008 (Miljan, 2011). Miljan argues that the media left the debate of the merits of the proposed coalition, or the prorogation of parliament, to the frame sponsors.…”

“…the 2008 prorogation represents an important case study in understanding how the Canadian media communicates essential principles of parliamentary democracy. In this article, we build on past work that suggests that the 2008 prorogation offered a problematic picture of what Canadians know about their democracy (Wheeldon, 2011), as well as more recent research that highlights the problematic role that the media played in communicating what was at stake during the run up to the 2008 prorogation (McBrien, 2012;Miljan, 2011;Wheeldon, 2013).…”