Politics, Society, and the Media is the first comprehensive political sociology of the media to be published in Canada. Paul Nesbitt-Larking draws upon a range of disciplines, including cultural and media studies, political economy, social theory, and political science to provide an analysis of the relationship between power and representation in Canada. The framework for the book presents a model of the mutual interaction between politics and the media. Attention is focused in the early chapters on how cultural, ideological, economic, and governmental forces shape and condition the production of media in Canada. Chapters on the work of Innis, Grant, McLuhan, and their postmodern successors place the evolution of McLuhan's theoretical argument that "the medium is the message" at the heart of the book. Canadian identity, and how to understand Canadian media politically, is the subject of a chapter on textual analysis. Two extensive chapters follow on the media's influence and effects on politics. In addition to standard topics on politics and the media, this new edition offers much more: an examination of the media on the politics of gender and aboriginal peoples, the micro-politics of the media workplace, and an exploration of important media-related considerations. Throughout, reference is made to relevant and compelling issues placed within the context of media theory
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Just as even the most personal of our narratives can ultimately be traced back to our communal pasts, so they are worked up, told, and retold through complex chains of sharing: Situated utterances, partial hearings, and fractured representations circulate meanings and interpretations through relays of retelling as social agents listen to and tell their own and each other's stories. Narrative political psychologists explore how the storied lives of political actors are both shaped by their historical and structured circumstances and reproduce their ongoing political agency. In such contexts, how do narrative political psychologists assess truth claims? Guided by a critical‐realist theoretical approach, the article sets out a series of considerations for the assessment of truth and facts. Three interrelated characteristics underpin the search for truth and meaning in political storytelling: responsibility, recognition, and representation, applied to the scientific community, research participants, and the broader polity, respectively. The article explores the ethical and practical implications of the three characteristics in the evaluation of truth claims across political narratives, highlighting both the quest for verifiable facts and the complexity and indeterminacy of the historical and cultural contexts in which truths emerge and are contested. Reference is made throughout to an empirical study of the narratives of members of a declining fraternal organization.
The article is set in the normative claim that our work as political psychologists emerges from concerns with our contemporary worlds and that political psychologists should not hesitate to draw out the policy implications of their own work. Following a brief explanation of the Allport tradition of the contact hypothesis and its critics, the article proposes four analytical considerations that contribute to the further understanding of the psychology of encounter and the politics of engagement: First, the insight that the individual is already constituted as a social being, through contact; second, an exploration of the opportunities and challenges of dialogue; third, the changing nature of selfhood, agency, and identity in the contemporary world; and, finally, through deep multiculturalism, the cosmopolitical perspective, and the politics of care, the case for a viable and sustainable politics of engagement.
The core focus of "Political Psychology: Critical Perspectives" is an interrelated set of European-based theories and perspectives that emphasize both the social context of the individual and the capacity of citizens to engage in strategic discursive and rhetorical agency. Through an explanation of social representations, social identity, self-categorization and other theories, Tileagă raises questions about mainstream methodologies in political psychology and offers alternatives. The core achievements of the book consist of the integrated presentation of a range of critical European-based political psychology approaches as well as a subtle exploration of the interplay between the individual and the social. ; peerReviewed ; publishedVersion
The core focus of "Political Psychology: Critical Perspectives" is an interrelated set of European-based theories and perspectives that emphasize both the social context of the individual and the capacity of citizens to engage in strategic discursive and rhetorical agency. Through an explanation of social representations, social identity, self-categorization and other theories, Tileagă raises questions about mainstream methodologies in political psychology and offers alternatives. The core achievements of the book consist of the integrated presentation of a range of critical European-based political psychology approaches as well as a subtle exploration of the interplay between the individual and the social.
This article is a critical assessment of Canadian perspectives on the role of the media in electoral behaviour, notably on the roles media play in setting or responding to the agenda in the heat of election campaigns. Research into the role of the media in election campaigns has been conducted within the broadly behaviouralist tradition of political scientific research. The article begins with a brief contextualization of the behaviouralist research tradition in Canada. Within the specific context of Canadian history and its social structure, the introduction explains how the very questions that Canadians have posed regarding media/campaign interactions have been undertaken in a range of research traditions that problematize fields of causality with greater complexity than is possible in the largely positivist behaviouralist paradigm. Three such research traditions are those of "Culture, Ideology, and Discourse," "Political Economy/Technology," and "Legal-Institutional Analyses." The second section of the article highlights important Canadian methodological and empirical contributions to behaviouralism. The general importance of campaign effects, the impact of leader-centred media priming, the methodological innovation of the rolling cross-section sample design, and advances in agenda setting research are identified in this section. The third section of the article, on Culture, Ideology, and Discourse, illustrates general patterns of contrast between the Canadian and American political cultures through an exploration of the comparative role of negative and attack advertisements in election campaigns. This section illustrates instances of how the limits established in the Canadian political culture influence media decisions and how the discourses of media coverage reflect cultural realities. The fourth section of the article illustrates how facets of the Political Economy of Canada exert an impact on media/ campaign interactions. This section explores the media/campaign interaction from both sides. First, the changing impact of campaign financing/campaign spending on media reportage is assessed, and then the implications of shifting patterns of media ownership on campaign coverage is considered. Do either set of changing relations affect the shaping of the media agenda? Finally, the political economy of the new Information and Communications Technologies is investigated in the context of the Toronto School of Communication. The fifth and final section of the article undertakes the task of situating media/campaign interactions within the Legal-Institutional regulatory context of the Canadian state. The impact of the Canada Elections Act and other legislation is undertaken around matters such as freedom of expression, access to information, advertising, spending, and public support for political parties and candidates.
Although a number of political psychologists are active in Canada, there has been relatively little self‐conscious development of the field. This article brings together contributions from political science and social psychology in Canada in an attempt to identify aspects of Canadian distinctiveness in the field of political psychology, notably the balance between mainstream and eclectic tendencies.
While it remains a diffuse field of enquiry, political psychology has established itself as an important approach to the analysis of political life. In the United States, political psychology is offered as an optional programme in a number of leading graduate schools and is a recognized subfield of the American Political Science Association. Despite the existence of a number of active political psychologists in Canada, there has been relatively little curiosity about the status of the field. This article offers an account of research in the field. Central to this exploration is an evaluation of the ideological, cultural and substantive research in political psychology in Canada.
While it remains a diffuse field of inquiry, political psychology has established itself as an important approach to the analysis of political life. In the US, political psychology is offered as an optional program in a number of leading graduate schools & is a recognized subfield of the American Political Science Assoc. Despite the existence of a number of active political psychologists in Canada, there has been relatively little curiosity about the status of the field. This article offers an account of research in the field. Central to this exploration is an evaluation of the ideological, cultural, & substantive research in political psychology in Canada. 133 References. Adapted from the source document.
