Military and the media examining the wartime framing of Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan

Abstract

Through a content analysis of 72 print news articles and 12 official sources disseminated following the 2010 troop surge in Afghanistan, this study contends that the relationship between the major print news media and the Canadian government in times of war is characterised by a broad and diffused array of media frames. The National Post, Toronto Star, and Globe and Mail were found to publish a variety of politically and thematically diverse articles. Robert Entman’s framing theory will be used to explain how the Canadian print media framed the war in Afghanistan. It will be shown that the Canadian print media is best described as heavily influenced by the official framing but free to offer dissenting options and divergent frames. These findings offer insight into the role of the press within Canada’s liberal democracy and contribute to the research surrounding the normative theories of the press and their applicability in Canada.