The Influence of Geopolitics and Foreign Policy on the U.S. and Canadian Media: An Analysis of Newspaper Coverage of Sudan's Darfur Conflict

Abstract

Considerations of two facts, (1) Canadian media's strong dependence on the U.S. media, and (2) salient differences in foreign policy between the two nations (multilateralism— Canada, unilateralism—the U.S.) raise the question of whether Canadian major media's coverage reflects this difference.With content analysis and semantic network analysis of The New York Times (U.S.) and Globe and Mail (Canada) on the issue of Sudan's Darfur conflict, the authors found that (1) both newspapers focused on the facts of the conflict and Sudan's need of international aid, but (2) the Canadian newspaper's coverage focused more on multilateral/international help and people's suffering from the conflict than the U.S. media.Therefore, it may be concluded that geopolitical status and the U.S. media's influence exert a limited effect on the coverage of Canadian foreign policy: Canadian media have their own voice.