An analysis of media content conducted on Monday, 27 August 2012, allowed us to quantify the online news production in Quebec. It appears that alongside with some very popular issues, we find a long trail of topics that were discussed in only one or two articles.
This study helps us understand an important element of the journalistic information ecosystem in Quebec and probably elsewhere: There is a remarkable consistency between the editorial choices made by the main actors of Quebec’s journalistic field during election campaigns.
It comes as no surprise that within the sample of 595 articles, the overall topic “Quebec elections” dominates the list of the most popular topics on 27 August 2012 with over 140 articles. The overall topic “aftermath of the student strike”, counting 25 articles, comes in second. 18 of these articles directly concern the fact that students went back to school after months of strike. The third most popular topics are the “Republican Convention” and the tropical storm Isaac (20 articles), followed by the “outbreak of legionellosis in Quebec” (13 articles) and the nomination of a new chief of defence staff of the Canadian Armed Forces (10 articles). We further find 10 topics addressed in 5 to 8 articles within a total of 64 articles, as well as 45 topics discussed 2 to 4 times within a total of 75 articles and finally 57 articles dealing each with different topics.
References:
Goyette-Côté, M.-O., & Rocheleau, S. (2015). Mythes et réalités du pluralisme de l’information sur le Web: le cas du Québec. In É. George (Ed.), Concentration des médias, changements technologiques et pluralisme de l’information (pp. 77–90). Presses de l’Université Laval.
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