Sociology and Legal Studies

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This is the collection for the University of Waterloo's Department of Sociology and Legal Studies.

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Browsing Sociology and Legal Studies by Author "Dawson, Lorne"

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    Domestic Terrorism in the Canadian News Media: a Framing Analysis of Canadian-Connected Terrorism in 2013 Newspaper Articles
    (University of Waterloo, 2016-01-28) Campbell, Sasha K.; Dawson, Lorne
    Terrorism is one of the most politically and rhetorically significant issues shaping the world today, and a popular topic in the news media. Canada is no exception. Recently, the problem of domestic (or homegrown) terror has emerged as a complex and emotionally potent phenomenon, one seemingly on the rise. However, there is an absence of media scholarship investigating this issue from a Canadian perspective. This study examines the Canadian news media’s treatment of Canadian-connected terrorism. Central to the journalistic discourse are frames, which serve to define, assess, characterize, moralize, and contextualize terrorism for readers. Frames provide narratives for key aspects such as alleged suspects, arrests, plots, police activities, and legal/political responses. A qualitative framing analysis approach is employed to identify and discuss news framing of Canadian-connected terrorism via extensive inductive coding of 173 Canadian news articles from print and online media sources, spanning January 1st – December 31st, 2013. Recurrent frames are established using evidence from the articles and discussed in terms of the messages they send about the nature of domestic terrorism/terrorists, their usefulness for understanding terrorism as a multifaceted global problem, and, where feasible, theoretically informed explanations for the use of specific frames. Findings indicate that the Canadian news media favours terrorism as a topic, but does not provide particularly informative articles. The reasons for this discrepancy proved varied, complex, and intimately linked with the way the mainstream news media – and other powerful organizations – operate and interact.
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    Love in the Time of Caller ID: Understanding the Role of Smartphone Technology in Committed Relationships
    (University of Waterloo, 2018-08-23) Manji, Noorin; Dawson, Lorne
    Smartphones have changed the way our world works, and have had particularly unique impacts on the way human relationships function. Among the most important of those relationships are the ones that people form by choice through their romantic involvements. Love, relationships, and the pursuit of them both are deeply emphasized as life goals in cultures and societies, the world over. Despite the significance of these bonds, as well as the growing integration of smartphone technology into our daily lives, minimal qualitative research exists about the substantive intersection of these modern devices and committed romantic relationships. Based on an analysis of data collected through in-depth individual interviews with fifty-six participants, comprising twenty-three couples, an updated theoretical framework that bridges Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love (1986) and the core concepts of connection, communication, control, and constancy is proposed. Relying on the narratives provided by the participants of this study as evidence, it is clear to see that the social context in which committed relationships now exist, has been transformed by the use and integration of smartphones into people’s everyday experiences. Smartphones have altered the way committed relationships start, the ways in which people operate within them, and even the deeper meanings people associate with their own and others’ identities, among so many other social processes. These modern mobile communication devices, in giving people a source of connection, a channel of communication, a method of control, and an element of constancy have had qualitative implications on the daily experiences of people in committed relationships specifically, and in society more generally.