Canadian Newsprint Research Articles

A critical content analysis of media reporting on opioids: The social construction of an epidemic

BackgroundThe 2000s have seen a proliferation of media reporting about opioid use in North America. Given the significant role that popular media plays in shaping the public's perceptions and understandings of the issues that it represents, analysing the content of this media coverage can help understand public discourse about opioid use. MethodsWe conducted a critical content analysis of Canadian newsprint media reporting on opioids using a sociological lens. We performed a qualitative thematic analysis of these texts, coding 826 articles and applying a critical discourse analysis in our interpretation of the findings. FindingsOur analysis showed a slow transition from a conversation primarily about clinical pain care towards a discussion of criminality, especially the increasingly fluidity of boundaries between prescription opioid use and the illegal drug trade. Patients tend to be dichotomized as either innocently following physician prescriptions or drug-seeking, as an aspect of lives characterized by addiction and street crime. These depictions map onto characterizations of physicians as naively following pharmaceutical industry advice or becoming irrelevant once criminality is introduced. DiscussionThe social construction of the opioid epidemic polarizes individuals as good or bad with little attention paid to underlying institutional interests both in the creation of the problem or in the solutions that are proposed. We show that as concerns about harms from opioids become more pronounced, the narrative shifts to home in on illicit street-use with a corresponding uptake of stigmatizing references to so-called addicts. Concurrently, most references to the pharmaceutical industry disappear from view. This framing of the problem defines the kinds of solutions that then seem natural. For example, increased criminalization is suggested for people who use drugs and stigmatizing those who suffer with chronic pain becomes a higher priority than implementing safer and more effective therapies for managing their pain.

Conditional love; representations of migrant work in Canadian newsprint media

In Canada, the mainstream newsprint media contains dominant discourses of multicultural neo-liberalism. This paper explores how migrant domestic workers and migrant farm workers, as well as their citizen-employers, are represented within these discourses. Examined are the ways in which certain emotions are expressed and how these expressions shape certain conditions for migrant workers. A common tendency is that citizens, including citizen-employers of migrant workers, accept, and even claim to love migrant domestic workers and farm workers, so long as they exercise so-called good and obedient behaviour. In cases where migrant workers display any type of resistance, or rejection of the ideal multicultural, loving subject, the loving sentiment is absent. The love is therefore conditional. Lacking in the newsprint media are accounts of the historical and current realities of migrant work as an unfree form of labour. As a result, news coverage neglects a genuine call for solidarity with migrant workers. This paper seeks to deconstruct dominant representations of the subject and the other as a way to challenge them, and make way for anti-oppressive methods of representation.

Mystery Ships and Risky Boat People: Tamil Refugee Migration in the Newsprint Media

On October 17, 2009, seventy-six Tamil refugees arrived off the coast of Victoria, British Columbia. This study examines how the Canadian newsprint media portrayed this event and in which policy context this coverage occurred. We analyze articles published between October 2009 and January 2010 from the Vancouver Sun, the Toronto Star, and the National Post. A discourse analysis addresses issues of framing, representation, and identity to understand how the Tamil refugee migration was represented in media debate. Our results show that there was an overall negative representation of the Tamil refugees as the press emphasized issues of criminality and terrorism, and constructed the refugees as risk. The discussion established security—rather than human rights—as a focal point and portrayed the immigration system as both “failing” and “abused” by “bogus claimants.” This security-oriented framework provided a discursive background for the refugee reform Bill C-11 to be ushered through Parliament later that summer.

Bad aim: Separating the intentions and effects of American newsprint recycling legislation on landfill space, forest conservation and Canadian newsprint producers

This paper argues that the American newsprint recycling laws passed during the late 1980s and early 1990s not only failed to achieve their stated environmental objectives, but failed so spectacularly that they actually contributed to further environmental harm. These laws, which imposed a recycled content standard on new newsprint production, had three intentions: to decrease landfill space requirements, to preserve forests, and to encourage the recycling of used newsprint. Insofar as the first two intentions are concerned, this paper finds that the American newsprint recycling laws had a negligible effect on both landfill space and forest conservation. But by succeeding in elevating the amount of newsprint recycling far beyond what it would otherwise be, industry compliance with these laws may have actually increased environmental harm. From a Canadian perspective, these laws essentially encouraged Canadian newsprint producers to import American newsprint waste. In addition, by imposing compliance costs on American and Canadian newsprint producers in the range of several billions of dollars, these laws prevented capital from being productively spent on other environmental initiatives. Surveying alternatives to government mandated recycling legislation, this paper ends by concluding that if governments wish to improve environmental outcomes through newsprint recycling, their best option may be to extend the functioning of markets.

Impact of TMP refining line interruptions and reject refiner operations on pulp and paper variability

This article develops a method for correlating TMP operations with pulp quality, and ultimately with paper quality, by focusing on process fundamentals such as specific energy and refining intensity. The case study is an Eastern Canadian newsprint mill that experiences variability in paper strength and porosity. Frequent interruptions in the four refining lines greatly affect the reject refining specific energy and other key parameters, many of which are not measured directly and must be calculated from other variables. Using multivariate analysis and other statistical tools, it was possible to link pulp quality back to the TMP and reject refining operations, taking into account the number of lines in operation, plate age, and process lags. Furthermore, it was possible using multivariate analysis (MVA) models to correlate roughly half the variability in final paper quality with the refining operations.

The law of one price in the United States and Canadian newsprint markets

The paper presents an econometric analysis of spatial integration of the United States and Canadian newsprint markets as reflected in newsprint prices. It applies the Johansen multivariate cointegration procedure to test the law of one price for five regional markets (British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, US east, and US west) of newsprint using monthly data for 1988–2004. Preliminary data analysis shows that all price series are nonstationary I(1) processes. The hypothesis that the law of one price holds for all five regional newsprint markets simultaneously was not supported by the Johansen multivariate test. The law of one price was also tested for national markets, and it was found to hold between US west and US east newsprint prices. The results suggested that there is a single newsprint market in the United States, whereas there are several distinct newsprint markets in Canada.

Spatial and Temporal Resolution in Data-Driven Process Modeling of an Integrated Newsprint Mill

Like many globalized industries, the pulp and paper sector finds itself with an increasingly demanding clientele, who continually expect a better and cheaper product. An important design strategy being employed to address this objective is through an analysis of the vast quantity of process and product data accumulated in plant-wide data historians, in order to improve operations. Mill processes are multivariate, meaning that the interactions between the variables are as important as the variables themselves. Process relationships must therefore be modeled as a group, using an appropriate simulation technique like Multivariate Analysis (MVA), with suitable data pre-processing to account for process upsets and other disturbances. In a previous paper, using an Eastern Canadian newsprint mill as an industrial case study, we showed that it was possible to find statistically significant correlations between wood chip refiner operation, intermediate pulp quality, and final paper quality using data-driven models. This was true even though some important process parameters went unmeasured, process lags changed with time, and the operation of key equipment items changed gradually with use. The present study compares the use of different timescales and combinations of unit operations to determine which ones yield the best MVA simulations. Because plant operating data were used, and experimental design was not practical, it is possible that some of the correlations found could be attributable to coincidence. We therefore added and removed variables and time periods to explore the validity of the models. The best MVA models were obtained by using a shorter (1-hour) data timescale, although use of a weighted-average filter helped to bridge the gap between these faster readings and the slower paper quality trends.

Corporate "Bail-Outs" and Local "Buyouts": Pathways to Community Forestry?

In the early 1990s, two Canadian newsprint mills formerly owned by large corporations were purchased locally through management or employee/management buyouts. This effectively established local control and decision making over mill and forestry operations for substantial amounts of land in Ontario and Manitoba. Over the last decade there has been considerable discussion in the literature regarding community forestry. Local ownership and control appear to be the most important criteria for determining whether community forestry exists. Our question is, "Do these examples of locally owned and operated forestry operations constitute community forestry?" We review definitions of community forestry, describe the circumstances of the two cases, and analyze qualitative interview data from both communities. Some criteria of community forestry are fulfilled in these cases, while others are not. The local buyouts did not last more than 6 years, but interestingly, the new corporate owners maintained some elements of community forestry.

Product Diversification in the U.S. Pulp and Paper Industry: The Case of International Paper, 1898–1941

During the years 1918 to 1941, International Paper (IP) launched a massive product diversification effort. Engineered by three successive presidents, diversification turned the company from a newsprint producer based in the northeastern United States into an international manufacturer of southern kraft grades, Canadian newsprint, hydroelectric power, and specialty papers. With the exception of kraft paperboard and converted products, however, the new product lines failed to provide IP with a firm foothold in markets for consumer nondurables, where nimbler competitors thrived even during the 1930s. IP and firms in other “maturing industries” that clung to traditional products and stagnant markets contributed to the length and severity of the Great Depression.

A Non-ionic Retention System Based on Polyethylene Oxide for Paper Grades Containing Mechanical Pulp and DIP

Investigations were carried out recently in three Canadian newsprint mills where a cationic dual polymer retention chemistry was in use for years. Several enhancer/PEO combinations were evaluated on bench scale to determine any possibility for replacing the existing retention system for reduced chemical cost and improved machine operating efficiency.The PEO with 10 million molecular weight was more effective than that of 7 million molecular weight. New enhancers produced from bisphenol-S. especially EnhancerB were much superior to the traditional phenol-formaldehyde resin in promoting PEO retention performance. The effect of stock aging on retention appeared to be stock dependent.The non-ionic retention chemistry improved stock drainage more than the mills cationic dual polymer system even at much lower dosage levels, as determined with a Vertical sludge press. The new enhancer/PEO combination was proved once again to be excellent for pitch removal and was considerably better than that of two cationic dual polymer systems studied.

In Search of Competitive Efficiency: Labour Process Flexibility in Canadian Newsprint Mills

This paper focuses on the strategies for production and work reorganization pursued in the Canadian newsprint industry during the 1990s. Many newsprint mill managers view new pulping technologies and increased labour process flexibility as the important keys to success in their never-ending quest to remain competitive in the U.S. market. These strategies are discussed in the context of two underlying themes: the nature of the particular competitive pressures faced by Canadian newsprint producers in the early 1990s and the specific nature of the labour process in newsprint mills. Evidence points to the central importance of achieving functional labour flexibility in newsprint mills and to the fact that numerical labour flexibility is not a viable strategy, given the continuous-process nature of the industry. The Economics of Production, Technological Change, and Cost Competitiveness in the Newsprint Industry Work Practices and Labour Conventions in the Newsprint Industry Flexibility and the Quest for Competitive Efficiency in Canadian Newsprint Mills

Restructuring in the Canadian Newsprint Industry

This special issue of the Canadian Geographer presents five articles examining the wave of restructuring and the associated changes in the labour process that have swept through Canada's pulp and paper industry in recent years. The allocation of an entire issue to this topic is, we believe, justified by the importance of the industry to the Canadian economy, by the dramatic restructuring that has occurred to it since the early 1980s, and by the centrality of geography to an understanding of these events. During the period covered by these articles, there have been major changes in the location of pulp and paper operations, in their inputs to production, in the organization and technology of production within the mills, in the relations between production units, in the nature of work and employment, in the products produced, and in the markets served.

High-Performance Organizations and Employment Flexibility: a Case Study of in situ Change at the Powell River Paper Mill, 1980–1994

Throughout virtually all mass production industries in North America, including the Canadian newsprint industry, a significant theme of restructuring involves a transition from ‘Fordist’ to more ‘flexible’ methods of production and employment. In this paper, shifts towards smaller, more flexible employment conditions are assessed from the perspective of a model of ‘high-performance organizations’. In this model, employment flexibility is defined in terms of the blurring of the boundaries between management and workers and by continual investment in skill promotion in the pursuit of a polyvalent workforce. In practice, such issues are subject to labour-management bargaining, the outcomes of which are uncertain. Empirically, this paper provides a case study of bargaining over employment flexibility, specifically at the Powell River paper mill, to assess the extent to which the standards of the high-performance model are being achieved.

昭和初期日本の新聞用紙カルテルと外紙輸入

In Japan, the newsprint manufacturers founded a cartel for the cooperative sales of newsprint in 1901. It intended to control the domestic market. But the newspaperdom succeeded to curtail the import duties on newsprint in 1906, and so sometimes was able to import cheaper foreign-made newsprint easily. Consequently, the cartel couldn't control the market satisfactorily.Under those market structures, plenty of cheap newsprint began to be imported from Northern Europe and Canada after 1930; it was regarded, especially about the Canadian newsprint, as dumping among the Japanese persons concerned in those days, and it induced industrial reorganization of Japan's paper manufacturing in 1933.But that commonly accepted understanding as dumping overlooked the influence of exchange fluctuation of those days. As the concluding remarks, after the Japan's lifting of the gold embargo in 1930, yen revaluation served to reduce the yen basis imported prices. So the importation wasn't dumping. But after the final gold ban in 1931, yen devaluation didn't raise prices, because several foreign manufacturers began to dump on the Japanese market. However the dumping was begun after the informal decision of the above-mentioned industrial reorganization.

Canadian Newsprint, 1913–1930: National Policies and the North American Economy

This study uses supply and demand analysis to interpret the expansion of Canadian newsprint production and exports after World War I. Canada and the United States played complementary roles in this expansion, and by 1930, 90 percent of Canadian production based on relatively abundant natural resources went to satisfy U.S. demand. At the same time, U. S. tariffs against Canadian newsprint were relaxed, and Canadian provinces imposed a manufacturing condition on Canadian pulp and paper producers prohibiting the export of pulpwood cut from Crown lands. The analysis shows that the growth of U.S. demand and Canadian supply conditions can account for almost all the Canadian newsprint expansion, whereas policy initiatives generated at most two years of growth.

Economic Consequences of Recycling for the Canadian Newsprint Industry

The probable future structure of the Canadian newsprint industry is outlined and the likely economic consequences to Canadian newsprint producers of the increased consumption of newsprint made within the United States from recycled fiber is demonstrated. The overmature nature of the Canadian newsprint industry is shown. Old mills and plant capital, stabilized markets, asset fixity, and real cost increases are given as major short-run structural weaknesses, especially for eastern Canadian mills, which make the industry susceptible to marginal market shifts such as competition from recycled newsprint paper.Densely populated areas adjacent to eastern Canada are shown to attract not only the output from Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritimes but also the secondary fiber newsprint mills. Such an intrusion in the market, while marginal in effect, only magnifies the structural weaknesses of a mature industry.Two factors much more critical to the structure of the Canadian newsprint industry appear to be the probable movement up and to the right along the industry's long-run cost curve (real cost increases) and mill capacity increases within the United States. Changes in these two factors should overshadow the influence of recycling at least through 1985.

The Canadian Newsprint Industry

The Canadian Newsprint Industry

Outlook for Newsprint (Canada)

M A Y FUNCTION TODAY, I assume, is to help your members assess the future of the Canadian newsprint industry. The best way to begin, I believe, is to lay before you certain facts, both of yesterday and today, about the financial, market, and growth positions of my industry. Perhaps the most important fact is that half the world's newsprint supply comes from Canada, and half the world's supply is consumed in the United States. Consequently, the future of the newsprint industry in Canada depends very largely on events in the United States, where the domestic mills provide only 20% of the supply, with almost all the remainder coming from Canadian mills. These mills have had varying fortunes. Not so long ago, one could buy Canadian paper stocks for a song. In 1946, for instance, leading issues were selling at around four to seven times earnings. This was well below the average of most industrials at that time, despite the fact that industry prices and profits were rising, paper and pulp were in short supply, and the general business climate was very healthy.

The Pulp and Paper Industry

The pulp and paper industry has fallen on evil days since 1929. It is still our largest manufacturing industry both in value of output and amount of payroll, and still ranks second only to wheat among the export staples on which our economic life is built: in the calendar year 1934, wheat provided just over 20 per cent, of the value of our exports; pulp and paper, 17¼ per cent, a gain of 4¼ per cent, since 1930. Unhappily it is also second only to wheat in the calamities which have overtaken it. In 1933, its salary payments were barely 68 per cent, of the pre-depression figure, its wage bill not quite 50 per cent., its bond and debenture interest payments less than 15 per cent., its dividends about 9 per cent. Mr. C. P. Fell, in his valuable chapter in The Canadian Economy and its Problems, says that “mills having 58 per cent, of the total Canadian [newsprint] capacity are in bankruptcy or receivership, or are passing, or have recently passed through, some form of reorganization; … they include five out of eight of the larger newsprint manufacturers in North America.”The general decline in prices and consumption will explain only a small part of the disaster. It is tempting to dismiss the rest as no more than an instance of the common plight of all export industries; especially as the only section of the pulp and paper industry in a reasonably satisfactory financial position is the small group of firms producing fine paper and specialty goods for the protected home market. But this explanation also is hardly adequate. The Canadian wheat grower has had to contend against the vagaries of nature, against foreign tariffs, quotas, and other such restrictions, against a considerable expansion of home production in his chief markets, and against the formidable competition of exporters from countries with depreciated exchanges. The Canadian newsprint manufacturer, on the other hand, faces no such obstacles. On the contrary, he has free entry into the United States market, and, until the worst of the depression was past, enjoyed the advantages of a depreciated exchange, netting him at times as much as $8.00 a ton, and an average of $3.00 in 1933. It is necessary, therefore, to look deeper to discover why the industry has suffered such exceptionally severe losses.

The American-Canadian Newsprint Paper Industry and the Tariff

Previous articleNext article FreeThe American-Canadian Newsprint Paper Industry and the TariffConstant SouthworthConstant Southworth Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of Political Economy Volume 30, Number 5Oct., 1922 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/253467 Views: 148Total views on this site Citations: 2Citations are reported from Crossref PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Clyde Weaver, Peter Richards Planning Canada's Role in the New Global Economy, Journal of the American Planning Association 51, no.11 (Nov 2007): 43–52.https://doi.org/10.1080/01944368508976799Trevor J. O. Dick Canadian Newsprint, 1913–1930: National Policies and the North American Economy, The Journal of Economic History 42, no.33 (Mar 2009): 659–687.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022050700027996