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How does one define the ideological workings of a television news broadcast ? The authors try to go beyond the beaten path of television broadcast seen as the interpreter or maker of "events". They try to define the news broadcast as a meeting place between producers and viewers rather than a bridge between news production and social realities. Their observations have led them to identify a "code de reconnaissance" (recognition code) which the production of news utilizes and which creates a situation of automatic communication between producer and viewer. Such a code places blinders on both producer and viewer to a degree that news bear the mark of self-evidence. The content of news then becomes so many "natural" things, no longer the product of a Society's history. Therefore, the ideological trappings of a television news broadcast consists in showing events as being so self-evident that they, in turn, become the priviledged foci of social construction of reality. This construction of reality is uncritical in nature since it is based on self-evidence.

For the last several years we have witnessed mounting sources of opposition to American information supremacy and imperialism. While safeguarding national sovereignty, the industrialized market econo¬ mies of Western Europe and Japan have adopted protectionnist policies in matters of informatics in order to assure their national industries a competitive edge over the American giants. Reviewing the Nora/Minc Report and the Vienna Conference on Transborder Data Flow, the author identifies the major preoccupations of these industrialized market economies and tries to evaluate their lines of defense. Newly-aroused interest and concern with computer communications found expression in a meeting convened on Strategies and Policies for Information (SPIN) in Torremolinos, Spain, in mid-1978. The author concludes that the developing (Third) world, whose economies are being computerized, are rapidly becoming aware of the dangers of this new form of neo-colonialism all the while accepting it as inevitable and beneficiary. Under the cover of official policies, which are themselves vague and contradictory, we find that the argument of national sovereignty and industrial protectionism serve to reinforce the dominant local power elites which represent a source of opposition to the almighty transnational societies in their bid for a new world information order, order which the Americans fully support.

Advertisement is defined as a system of communication whose ressources and organization are well identified with the media and the economy. This is a working definition derived from an analysis of the quantitative data found in Advertising Age and related publications by Statistic-Canada on the advertising industry and on the links between advertisement, mass media and the economy. The author first describes the modes of production and the means of distribution of the advertising messages. He then shows that if the economic activity which each individual agency directly generates is isolated, one must conclude that the advertising agency plays a relatively small economic role. However the effects of the advertising industry on the whole of the economic activity is of a much larger magnitude, owing mainly to the : -commercial nature of the mass media. The origin, organization and pursuits of the media are so closely identified with those of advertising that the two are almost indissociable ; -political clout of the advertising industry. Their high degree of organization permits the mounting of effective lobbies in matters of economic policies. At the present state, nobody can effectively, and with any degree of precision, measure the economic impact of the advertising industry. Too many variables still escape any form of experimental control and of scientific investigation. For the moment, the author concludes that the relationship between advertising and economics is mainly psychological. Governmental intervention in the consumer-advertiser battle has, so far, favoured the stronger or, in other words, the better organized. — political clout of the advertising industry. Their high degree of organiza¬ tion permits the mounting of effective lobbies in matters of economic policies. At the present state, nobody can effectively, and with any degree of precision, measure the economic impact of the advertising industry. Too many variables still escape any form of experimental control and of scientific investigation. For the moment, the author concludes that the relationship between advertising and economics is mainly psychological. Governmental interven¬ tion in the consumer -advertiser battle has, so far, favoured the stronger or, in other words, the better organized.

The rapport between political power and media reveals the social evolution which has taken place within Quebec society. The years which span the Quiet Revolution and Daniel Johnson's premiership (1960-68) were marked by a consensus which the government and the progressive elements within the society had reached as to the goals to be pursued. At that time, the media took the position of a benevolent watchdog. During the eight years that followed, the media became wary of the legislators. An association of mutual admiration had come to an end and one Of suspicion had begun. This attitude was to spread throughout Quebec society under the government of Jean-Jacques Bertrand's Union Nationale party (1969-70) and Robert Bourassa's Liberal party (1970-76). The author picks up an observation made by Louis Martin, well known television journalist, whereby the present government of René Levesque's Parti Québécois has ushered in a new rapport between media and political parties : journalists and legislators have struck an alliance, or better still have become members of the same inner circle within a society whose progressive forces remain divided and opposed.