Abstract

What little research that is available on dissent in the mainstream news media, for the most part, has suggested that not much room exists for alternatives; the "media barons" do their jobs in a consistent and unfaltering manner. This hypothesis places an exaggerated emphasis on individual or institutional "bias" while overlooking the systemic treatment of social movements. What is more, a blindspot becomes apparent when spaces do open up for oppositional voices. Such is the case for the Canadian Centre For Policy Alternatives and the 1997 Alternative Federal Budget. The question of how the 'economy' is socially constructed remains inadequately addressed. This thesis attempts to expand on the theory of news as discourse, which looks at how the representational codes of news work are situated within the neo-liberal cultural map of the social world. The thesis ends by pointing out that ideology is never monolithic and all-encompassing. Through contradictions within news organizations, the media themselves generate openings of change. Social movements cannot simply be more accessible to the news net; they must instead organize the media like any other constituency, making it a site of struggle.