A royal debate The rebranding of Canada s military: a media analysis

Transcription

1 A royal debate The rebranding of Canada s military: a media analysis October 2011

2 Table of Contents Introduction & research questions... 3 Methodology... 4 Key findings... 5 General coverage... 5 Tone of media coverage... 6 Authors... 6 Top Authors... 7 Outlets... 8 Top outlets... 8 Online... 8 Print... 9 Top Regions Top Tweeters Tweeters by influence Twitter tone Most prolific tweeters Top web links posted on Twitter Conclusions About

3 Introduction When on Aug. 15, 2011 Althia Raj broke the story of the re-branding of Canada s navy and air force to include the Royal moniker, she most likely knew it would stir a hornets nest. of debate. But it would have been difficult for even the Huffington Post Canada s Ottawa bureau chief to realize just how passionate the arguments would fly from either side. Some notably, many with past or current links to Canada s military embraced it as a return to tradition. Others, such as preeminent Canadian historian Jack Granatstein, soundly rejected the exercise as abject colonialism. This got us wondering a few things on just how well the rebranding had gone over not only with the traditional media, of course, but also with those who shared their opinions on Twitter. To get to the bottom of all this, we asked the following questions: Was the rebranding perceived positively or negatively by the Canadian print and online media? Was the rebranding viewed positively or negatively by users on Twitter? Who were the key players and/or outlets driving or leading the debate in both traditional and social media? Were journalists and media outlets more likely to be retweeted than a typical Twitter user? What links were most used in Twitter postings, and were they mostly from news organizations? Photo courtesy Department of National Defence/Captain Maxime Renaud 3

4 Methodology Using keywords, MediaMiser selected a random sample of 421 print and online news articles (including syndicated articles and columns) during the week of Aug. 15 to , along with. 2,339 tweets. News articles were toned on a five-point scale (from -2, or very negative, to +2, or very positive) using the following six themes: History: Of previous name changes, of Royal moniker in the military, etc. Colonialism/tradition: Historical links to monarchy, etc.; Modern Canada: Place of the monarchy, republicanism, etc.; Respect for/opinion of veterans; Respect for/opinion of those in active service; Direct commentary on the name change itself. When one of the above was presented in favour of the rebranding, a point was added. A point loss was incurred when one of the above themes was presented unfavourably. For the purposes of toning, favourable was defined as: pleasing, encouraging or approving of the name change. Unfavourable was defined as discouraging, disapproving, or critical of the. name change. Scores were added for each article, and translated according to MediaMiser s coding rationale to obtain final article tone. Tweets were toned using MediaMiser s automated toning engine. The truth is that they asked the sailors one by one about a year ago which name we would like to have. Overwhelmingly we chose the Royal Canadian Navy. It was our choice. We are proud to continue the legacy passed down to us from the days of the Battle of the. North Atlantic. - Letter from Petty Officer Second Class RCN Dwayne Albert (Montreal Gazette, Aug. 22) 4

5 Key findings General coverage Media coverage and Twitter chatter followed a strikingly similar pattern out of the gate both exploded after the initial Huffington Post Canada story, filed Aug. 15 at 12:45 p.m. eastern time. Dozens of stories and tweets were published during the afternoon of Aug. 15 and all day Aug. 16, with Twitter posts and news article volumes peaking that day. Print and online news levels received a boost on Aug. 21 thanks to a syndicated Associated Press story, which ran in several Canadian and international newspapers. Coverage trends: Twitter vs. online and print media 5

6 Key findings The move can also be seen as a retrograde step, harking back to an era when Canadians were viewed in Britain as second-class citizens from one of the empire s dominions. Military historian Jack Granatstein called the change appalling and abject colonialism. - Montreal Gazette editorial, Aug. 18 Publication types that covered the story Tone of media coverage Most positive author: Michael Den Tandt, freelance Most negative author: Jack Granatstein, historian Most positive media outlet(s): Ottawa Citizen, Kingston Whig-Standard, Victoria Times Colonist Most negative media outlet: Edmonton Journal COVERAGE TONE. What did the media say? Positive 57.3 % Neutral 34.4 % Negative 8.1 % The overwhelming majority of online and print news articles regarding the rebranding were positive (57.3 per cent). Just over 34 per cent of stories were neutral, while 8.1 per cent of stories surrounding the name changes were negative. Authors Of all authors, Michael Den Tandt (11 positive stories) had the most positive average along with the Waterloo Region Record s Mike Bechthold. The Guelph Mercury s Brent Davis,Toronto Star s Allan Woods and the Canadian Press s Michael Tutton also all averaged a high positive tone in their stories. Canadian historian Jack Granatstein wrote the most negative stories and had the lowest overall tone of any of the top ten authors. 6

7 Top authors Top journalists/authors Journalist Media outlet # of stories (including syndicated) Tone avg. Bryn Weese Sun Media Michael Den Tandt Freelance 11 2 Robert Hiltz Postmedia News Rob Gillies Associated Press Allan Woods Toronto Star 4 1 Michael Tutton Canadian Press 3 1 Jack Knox Postmedia News Brent Davis Toronto Star Jack Granatstein Freelance 3-2 Mike Bechthold Waterloo Region Record 2 2 7

8 Top outlets Of online publications, the Ottawa Sun and Pembroke Daily Observer featured the most positive overall coverage. Of print outlets the Kingston Whig-Standard, Ottawa Citizen and Victoria Times Colonist had the largest amount of positive coverage. The Edmonton Journal was the only print newspaper to write a large volume of stories and have a less than neutral tone average. By contrast, the least positive online outlets were CBC News, The Globe and Mail s website and MSN Canada. Top news outlets Online Outlet # of stories Tone CBC News Winnipeg Sun Kitchener Record MSN Canada Pembroke Daily Observer Ottawa Sun The Globe and Mail Moncton Times and Transcript 5 1 Welland Tribune 4 1 Chatham Daily News

9 Top outlets Print Outlet # of stories Tone Edmonton Journal Ottawa Citizen Kingston Whig-Standard Waterloo Region Record Victoria Times Colonist Sudbury Star Brantford Expositor North Bay Nugget National Post Moncton Times and Transcript

10 Top regions Ontario led the pack in the number of stories published at outlets with a regional readership, followed by B.C. and Alberta. 10

11 Top Tweeters Have had Royal put back into the name of the Canadian Air Force and Navy, mainly to annoy the French. Aug. 16, 2011 (retweeted 845 times) Tweeters by influence User Retweet ratio # Retweets # These rankings are determined by engagement based on a user s retweet ratio (how many times a user is retweeted, compared to how many original tweets they ve posted). Of the top ten most influential Twitter users, five were either journalists or media while recording one of the highest numbers of retweets of all users (37), had a relatively low retweet ratio of 2.85 thanks to his high volume of original tweets. The top tweeters by followers (28,774), CTVToronto (25,497), (La Presse journalist Patrick (25,378), (19,466). 11

12 Top Tweeters Overall Twitter tone Positive tweets: 30.7% Neutral tweets: 60.6% Negative tweets: 8% Most positive Twitter user: Andrew Coyne of Maclean s 76.9% positive The tone of the debate on Twitter mirrored very closely that of the traditional media, leaning much more positive than negative. No influential user was overly negative in their tweets. It is noteworthy that one negative tweet by MediaStyle s Ian Capstick, which described the rebranding as shameful, was retweeted 14 times. Positive tweets typically celebrated a perceived return to tradition on behalf of the Canadian military. A large number of positive tweeters seemed to have a connection to the military either through themselves, friends or family members. The high proportion of neutral tweets can partially be attributed to fact-based tweets from news organizations, as well as the much-retweeted post which was rated neutral and retweeted 845 times (accounting for 36 per cent of all tweets collected). s tweet and its retweets removed, the percentage of positive tweets regarding the rebranding jumps to nearly 50 per cent. David Warren has said exactly what I have been thinking since the announcement that Royal would be restored to our military: I wish my father was alive to see this. - Letter from Donna Moorhead Meek (Ottawa Citizen, August 20) 12

13 Top Tweeters Most prolific tweeters (Philippe Lagasse) - assistant professor of public and international affairs at the University of Ottawa (Andrew Coyne) - Maclean s national editor (Mike Sneddon) (Emmett Macfarlane) - political scientist and educator at the University of Victoria. (Daly de Gagne) - therapist, chaplain and writer. (Althia Raj) - Ottawa bureau chief at Huffington Post Canada - Canada-related news source. (Monarchist League) - Promotes understanding of and loyalty to the Crown. Huffington Post Canada. (Kris Sims) Reporter with Sun News Network s parliamentary bureau. As the debate simmered during the week of Aug. 15, the top mentioned hash tags on Twitter were #cdnpoli, #rcaf, #rcn, #royal and #canada. Top web links posted on Twitter 1) Canadian Navy, Air Force Royal Again With Official Name Change from Huffington Post Canada, Aug links 2) Canadian armed forces to be royal once again from BBC News online (bbc.co.uk), Aug links 3) Peter MacKay hails royal renaming of military from CBC.ca, Aug links 4) Department of National Defence/Canadian Forces official press release on restoration of historic identities of the Royal Canadian Navy, the Canadian Army, and the Royal Canadian. Air Force, Aug links 5) Canadian Navy, Air Force Name Change Divides NDP Caucus from Huffington Post Canada, Aug links 6) Navy and air force to be royal once again from CBC.ca, Aug links 13

14 Conclusions Was the re-branding perceived positively or negatively by the Canadian print and online media? The re-branding seemed to be perceived very positively by the Canadian print and online media, with nearly 60 per cent of stories appearing to cast the move in a favourable light. Was the rebranding viewed positively or negatively by those on Twitter? Overall the rebranding was, as with the traditional media, viewed positively on Twitter. Interestingly, when one particular tweet is removed from our Twitter analysis s popular quip that was retweeted more than 800 times - the percentages of positive, neutral and negative tones break down nearly identically to that of print and online media stories. Who were the key players and/or outlets driving the debate? Please see pages 7 to 10. Were journalists and media outlets more likely to be retweeted than a typical Twitter user during this news event? Yes. Of our list of the top 10 tweeters with the highest retweet ratio, five were either journalists or media outlets. What links were most used in social media postings, and were they mostly from news organizations? Far and away the most frequently posted link on Twitter was the original story, by Alicia Raj, on the Huffington Post Canada web site. Five of the six most tweeted links were news stories from media outlets, with the lone exception being the official press release of the rebranding released by the Department of National Defence and Canadian Forces. Photo courtesy Department of National Defence/ Cpl Tina Gillies 14

15 About MediaMiser clients, from Fortune 500 companies to startups to government departments, trust our media monitoring and analysis solution. They count on us for timely traditional and social media analytics generated by our patented software, the customized reporting options provided by our responsive and proactive client services team, and our 24-hour technical support. We turn news into knowledge for clients based in Canada, the United States, Europe, and Australia. All media analysis by director of content Jim Donnelly, using MediaMiser s patented software; media monitoring for this report was done by Jen Hogan. You can contact Jen at jen@mediamiser.com, and Jim at jdonnelly@mediamiser.com. 15