The Media Analysis of the Canadian Navy Centennial

This paper reports on comparative study of the treatments of the Canadian Navy Centennial celebrations of 2010 in selected Canadian military and civilian press, with the intent ofrevealing similarities and differences between the two information sources. Employing a content analysis protocol I developed for this purpose, I analyzed a sample of 50 articles from selected civilian and military publications. My intention was to identify the elements that comprised the news discourse in both information sources. The quantitative data revealed significant differences in treatment, especially with respect to amounts of'hard" and "soft" news reported respectively by military and civilian news sources.The high frequency ofpoliticians quoted as sources and news actors reveal that civilian publications have a stronger political standpointas reflected in news when compared to military publications. The study also showed that the historical context ofthe navy was reported with a higher percentage within civilian publications. The similarities between military news publications and civilian publications brought forth to the discussion of how the Canadian Navy's Centennial navy was represented as a public relations campaign by the Canadian Armed Forces. The similar ways on how primary topics are presented within time frames, the equal amount of mentioning of military wars and operations, and the prominence of regional news being presented, were all examined within the research to observe the strategies involved in promoting this national commemorative ceremony. A range of topics surrounding journalism discourse were discussed which includes the following: nationalistic discourse, discourse ofreporting future news, targeted representation, media framing, and hybrid promotional news discourse.