Canada's political class is embracing ethnocultural news media with increasing zeal, highlighting the need to understand the role of these news organizations in the political process. This study investigated coverage of Canada's 2011 federal election in five Toronto-area ethnocultural newspapers. The publications, which carried campaign news to varying degrees, provided coverage that was distinct in many ways from mainstream media. Content such as the focus on ingroup candidates had the potential to strengthen community bonds while more general election news equipped readers with information that would facilitate participation in society through informed voting. Analysis of reporting about the Conservative Party of Canada, which pursued an aggressive ethnic media strategy, identified no clear pattern of stories with explicitly biased content. In most newspapers, however, the CPC did enjoy an advantage in that it received more coverage than the competition.

The quantity and subject matter of news coverage has been implicated in the success or failure of efforts to address social exclusion, poverty and other complex problems in disadvantaged city neighbourhoods. Using a methodology that combines traditional content analysis with computer-based mapping of geographic references in local news items, this study examines the Toronto Star newspaper’s news coverage of 13 troubled neighbourhoods in Toronto, Canada. The results indicate that the paper is making only a limited contribution to the story-telling practices that are key to the development of neighbourhood engagement. It also suggests that media coverage may be a significant contributing factor to negative stereotyping that shapes internal and external opinions of the neighbourhoods. Both results have the potential to undermine strategies aimed at addressing problems such as social exclusion and poverty.

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The quantity and subject matter of news coverage has been implicated in the success or failure of efforts to address social exclusion, poverty and other complex problems in disadvantaged city neighbourhoods. Using a methodology that combines traditional content analysis with computer-based mapping of geographic references in local news items, this study examines the Toronto Star newspaper’s news coverage of 13 troubled neighbourhoods in Toronto, Canada. The results indicate that the paper is making only a limited contribution to the story-telling practices that are key to the development of neighbourhood engagement. It also suggests that media coverage may be a significant contributing factor to negative stereotyping that shapes internal and external opinions of the neighbourhoods. Both results have the potential to undermine strategies aimed at addressing problems such as social exclusion and poverty.

The vibrant ethnocultural press in the Greater Toronto Area is a testament to the multicultural reality of a metropolitan area where visible minorities are expected to be the majority by 2031. The GTA's ethnocultural and racialized communities are served by more than 200 newspapers, many of them published in languages other than English or French. What role do these publications play in shaping how ethnic and racialized groups "see" each other? This case study examines how other groups are portrayed in the Chinese-language daily newspaper Ming Pao. With the exception of members of the White community, it concludes that other racial and ethnic groups are represented only to a limited extent and that, in some cases, they are also misrepresented. RésuméLa presse ethnoculturelle dynamique de la région de Toronto témoigne de la réalité multiculturelle de la zone métropolitaine où on prévoit que les minorités visibles seront majoritaires d'ici 2031. Les communautés ethnoculturelles et racialisées de la région de Toronto ont accès à plus de 200 journaux, dont plusieurs sont publiés dans des langues autres que l'anglais ou le français. Quel est le rôle de ces publications sur leur perception mutuelle les unes des autres? Dans cette étude, nous examinons comment le quotidien Ming Pao de langue chinoise dépeint d'autres groupes ethniques. Nous concluons que, à l'exception de la communauté blanche, les autres groupes ethniques et raciaux y sont peu et même, dans certains cas, faussement représentés.The debate and discourse appearing in these newspapers and other ethnocultural media have been characterized as overlapping "sphericules" or "smaller loci of social interaction" (Karim 2002, 231) that form the larger public sphere Habermas (1989) envisioned as a space for democratic debate. Scholars have examined various aspects of these sphericules, investigating how ethnocultural news media shape transnational ties and a sense of belonging to more than one locale (Cheng 2005; Lin et al. 2010), their role in forging a sense of local place (Lindgren 2011), and what part they play in helping newcomers adapt and integrate (Ahadi and Murray 2009; Ball-Rokeach et al. 2001; Lin and Song 2006).Investigations of the norms and standards of journalism practice in ethnocultural media are less common but these issues are beginning to garner attention. Punjabi media in the Greater Toronto Area came under fire recently for taking sides, often against women, in cases of alleged marriage fraud (Aulakh 2011). Members of the Chinese-Canadian community have criticized the quality of journalism aired on Canada's Chinese-language television stations (Yip 2010). And the prominent editor of a Toronto-area Punjabi newspaper told a recent conference examining press freedom in Canada that editors in the ethnic press often choose not to cover sensitive homeland-related issues for fear of retaliation by extremists (Fatima 2012).This study explores journalism practice as it relates to portrayals of other ethnic and racial groups in ethnocultural media, defi...