Effects of foreign ownership on media content: Thomson papers' coverage of Quebec independence role

Newspaper Research Journal, Winter 1999 by Hollifield, C Ann

Thomson papers' coverage of Quebec independence vote

Thomson papers covered the election more than a comparable group of other newspapers, and editorialized on the election while others did not.

Critics and scholars have long worried about the power that media owners have to shape the content and ideas that reach the public. In the past four decades, as concentration of media ownership has increased, considerable effort has been focused on studying the impact of ownership structures on the quality, nature and diversity of media content. In the late 1980s, the aggressive expansion of media corporations into overseas markets began raising questions about the impact foreign ownership may have on the content and performance of domestic media.1

Concern about foreign ownership of media is not new. Since the early part of this century, most nations have specifically prohibited or strictly limited the foreign ownership of core domestic media and communication companies at least partly out of fear that foreign owners would use those outlets to manipulate public opinion in times of national crisis. As a result of such restrictions, transnational media ownership was not widespread outside of the consumer magazine industry prior to the late 1980s. Not surprisingly, then, research on the international aspects of media performance has been focused largely on the effects imported media may have on domestic audiences, and on issues of international coverage, news flow and framing. Little attention has been paid to the effects foreign ownership may have on media content.

After the fall of the Eastern Bloc, the ownership of large segments of Eastern Europe's print media passed into the hands of foreign, largely Western companies.2 Simultaneously, the move towards privatization and liberalization of communication industries throughout the industrialized world opened the doors to greater international ownership of media companies.

Contributing to the rapid transnationalization of media companies since the late 1980s has been the global push for free trade in international markets. Industrialized nations, in particular, have recognized that information is a valuable trade good in world markets and,3 as a result, media and cultural industries are increasingly being included in free trade agreements. The European Union has worked to reduce national barriers to transnational media ownership and investment, while both the Canadian Free Trade Agreement and the North American Free Trade Agreement include specific provisions designed to pressure Canada and Mexico to open their cultural industries to American investment.4

Simultaneous with this increased emphasis on free trade has been the development of technologies that facilitate the management of global media operations, such as high-speed computer networks and satellite communications. Additionally, the movement by some media companies to take advantage of these new opportunities by transnationalizing has pressured others in the industry to do the same in order to avoid being placed a competitive disadvantage.

These factors suggest that the transnationalization of media will continue in the foreseeable future and lend some impetus to studying the question of the impact of foreign ownership on media content.

Literature review

Although there is little published research that directly addresses the question of the impact of foreign ownership on media content, and particularly print media content, there has been considerable examination of the effects of other types of ownership structures on newspaper content.

Media scholars have long been concerned about the rapid consolidation of media ownership that has taken place over the past few decades, with critics arguing that control of large numbers of media outlets allows a handful of corporate owners to obtain dominant influence over public opinion.5 This concern is, of course, based on the assumptions that owners influence media content and that chain ownership will tend to homogenize the content of the multiple media outlets held by the chain, leading to a reduction of the vigor and diversity of the editorial content and opinion available to the public.

Early research on the effects of chain ownership on newspaper content appeared to support those assumptions. Daniel Wackman, Don Gillmor, Cecilie Gaziano and Everette Dennis6 found that newspapers owned by chains were more likely than independent newspapers to endorse Presidential candidates and that chains tended to be homogenous in their endorsements. Those findings were replicated in a later study by Gaziano.7 Regional diversification within the chain, however, was found to lessen homogeneity of endorsements.

In other research, newspapers owned by the same company were found to be significantly more likely to carry editorials on the same issues and take the same positions on those issues than those owned by other companies.8 Purchase of a newspaper by a chain was found to be followed by an increase in the publication of editorials taking a politically liberal position,9 and a decrease in the number of argumentative editorials published.'o Research also indicated that the business interests of a chain were related to the number of editorials published in the group's newspapers about the issues related to those business interests and the position taken in those editorials."