Does it matter who owns and funds the media? As journalists and management consultants set off in search of new business models, there's a pressing need to understand anew the economic underpinnings of journalism and its role in democratic societies. How Media Ownership Matters provides a fresh approach to understanding news media power, moving beyond the typical emphasis on market concentration or media moguls. Through a comparative analysis of the US, Sweden, and France, as well...

This book offers a comprehensive portrait of French and American journalists in action as they grapple with how to report and comment on one of the most important issues of our era. Drawing on interviews with leading journalists and analyses of an extensive sample of newspaper and television coverage since the early 1970s, Rodney Benson shows how the immigration debate has become increasingly focused on the dramatic, emotion-laden frames of humanitarianism and public order. In both countri...

Contesting Media Power is the most ambitious international collection to date on the worldwide growth of alternative media that are challenging the power concentration in large media corporations. Media scholars and political scientists develop a broad comparative framework for analyzing alternative media in Australia, Chile, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia, Sweden, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Topics include independent media centers, gay online networks and...

Does it matter who owns and funds the media? As journalists and management consultants set off in search of new business models, there's a pressing need to understand anew the economic underpinnings of journalism and its role in democratic societies.How Media Ownership Matters provides a fresh approach to understanding news media power, moving beyond the typical emphasis on market concentration or media moguls. Through a comparative analysis of the US, Sweden, and France, ...

This illuminating, entertaining, and timely volume examines the place and impact of public intellectuals in our rapidly changing and diverse society. Boasting an all-star cast of contributors – including some of Canada’s most prominent writers, journalists, and academics – it probes the role of public discourse and intellectual persuasion in shaping Canada’s past, present, and future.The Public Intellectual in Canada examines how individuals have come to assume this role, ...

As the threat of another Quebec referendum on independence looms, this book becomes important for every Canadian — especially as language remains both a barrier and a bridge in our divided countryCanada’s language policy is the only connection between two largely unilingual societies — English-speaking Canada and French-speaking Quebec. The country’s success in staying together depends on making it work.How well is it working? Graham Fraser, an English-speaking Canadian who ...

Canada is known for its inclusive citizenship and multiculturalism policies that have been largely successful in integrating an increased diversity of Canadians. In contrast to the previous approach, in 2007, the Conservative government initiated a fundamental change to make citizenship more meaningful and emphasize integration in multiculturalism. Policy Arrogance or Innocent Bias: Resetting Citizenship and Multiculturalism provides insight into the relationship between the politi...

Taking a sociological approach to the study of mass media, Mediated Society explores how the media affects individuals and society. Within this unique framework, the authors analyze media and mass communication as a social rather than as a technological construct while addressing issues such as democracy, citizenship, class, gender, and cultural diversity. Drawing attention to the way in which media frames everyday experiences and events, the text examines media and communication in urban, na...

In 1996, the Los Angeles Bus Riders Union, a grassroots advocacy organization, won a historic legal victory against the city’s Metropolitan Transit Authority. The resulting consent decree forced the MTA for a period of ten years to essentially reorient the mass transit system to better serve the city’s poorest residents. A stunning reversal of conventional governance and planning in urban America, which almost always favors wealthier residents, this decision is also, for renowned urban the...

Canadian public administration has provided a rich ground for examining the changing nature of the state. Currents of political change have rippled through the administration of the public sector, often producing significant alterations in our understanding of how best to organize and administer public services. This volume brings together some of the leading Canadian and international scholars of public administration to reflect on these changes and their significance. Providing a histori...

Are the dynamics of contention changing? This is the question confronted by the contributors of this volume, among the most influential scholars in the field of social movements. The answers, arriving at a time of extraordinary worldwide turmoil, not only provide a wide-ranging and varied understanding of how social movements arise and persist, but also engender unanswered questions, pointing to new theoretical strands and fields of research.The Future of Social Movement Resear...

The Case for Decentralized Federalism and its sister volume The Case for Centralized Federalism are the outcome of the Federalism Redux Project, created to stimulate a serious and useful conversation on federalism in Canada. They provide the vocabulary and arguments needed to articulate the case for a centralized or a decentralized Canadian federalism.The Case for Decentralized Federalism brings together experts who believe decentralized federalism is the...