Final Paper POL.8*2230 (01) This assignment is to be submitted online, using Dropbox on CourseLink, by 11:59pm on Tuesday, November 19, 2024. It is worth 30% of your grade. Your assignment will be a description and evaluation of the 2023 federal online news policy, namely the Online News Act (Bill C-18) and its accompanying regulations. The assignment should describe the existing policy; identify, using Peter Hall's framework, what you think the goals, instruments, and settings of the policy are; and evaluate whether you think the policy should change or remain the same. After your introductory paragraph (which should contain a thesis statement) and before your concluding paragraph, your paper should be organized into three sections, in the following order: A) Briefly describe what the federal online news policy does. This section should describe the main aspect of the federal Online News Act (legislation and regulations), including its implementation. Details on the existing policy can be found in the links under the section \"Required and Optional Readings\" on page 2 of this document. Your description should draw primarily from these documents, and if you refer to them directly, you should cite them. B) Describe the policy in terms of its goals, instruments, and settings using Peter Hall's framework. Refer to the document \"Hall Economic Policymaking in Britain\" in CourseLink, particularly p. 278, for a theoretical description of goals, instruments, and settings. Apply Hall's framework to the federal online news policy. What are the policy goals? What are the instruments? What are the precise settings? C) Critically evaluate the federal policy and, if necessary, recommend policy change. Either make a specific recommendation for policy change OR defend the current policy status quo. In either case, you should refer to the goals, instruments, and settings of the current policy. If you think the policy should change, you should identify which of the goals, instruments, and settings should change, and why. If you think the policy should remain the same, you should explain why the current goals, instruments, and settings are adequate. This should be the longest section of your paper. Please Note: The Online News Act is legislation passed in June 2023. The government also passed regulations pursuant to the Act in December 2023. Your description and evaluation of the federal online news policy should include both components, as well as Google's $100m agreement with the federal government (see Required and Optional Readings on p. 2). The readings are listed on p. 2 of this document are available on CourseLink under \"Final Paper (due Nov. 19).\" You must also draw from at least three outside sources (see \"Supplementary Readings on p. 2) when describing and evaluating the policy. Your argument should avoid political considerations and instead focus exclusively on policy considerations. The purpose of this assignment is not to test your ability to conduct original academic research. Instead, the purpose is to demonstrate your ability to read and describe a policy; to familiarize yourself with and apply Hall's goals / instruments / settings framework; to synthesize material in an organized manner; and to make an argument based on your evaluation of the existing policy. Final Paper - POLS*2230 (01) Required and Optional (in red) Readings - Legislation: 1. Parliament of Canada, Bill C-18: An Act respecting online communications platforms that make news content available to persons in Canada, June 22 2023 2. Brosseau, de Billy Brown and Menard, "Bill C-18: An Act Respecting Online Communications Platforms that Make News Content Available to Persons in Canada," Library of Parliament, Legislative Summary, October 2022. 3. Government of Canada (Canadian Heritage), "Government introduces a bill to ensure fair compensation for news media and the sustainability of local news," April 5, 2022. 4. Government of Canada (Canadian Heritage), "Backgrounder - Government introduces a bill to ensure fair compensation for news media and the sustainability of local news," April 5, 2022 5. Chris Pedigo, "Don't be intimidated, Canada, pass Bill C-18, the Online News Act," Toronto Star, June 12, 2023 6. Michael Geist, "A Reality Check on the Online News Act: Why Bill C-18 Has Been a Total Policy Disaster," michaelgeist.com, September 20, 2023. Required and Optional (in red) Readings - Regulations and Google agreement: 7. Government of Canada (Minister of Justice), Online News Act Application and Exemption Regulations, December 15 (updated December 19), 2023. 8. Government of Canada (Canadian Heritage), "Backgrounder: Final regulations for the Online News Act," December 15, 2023. 9. Daniel Thibeault, David Cochrane, and Darren Major, "Federal government reaches deal with Google on Online News Act," CBC News, November 29, 2023. 10. Christopher Nardi, "CBC/Radio-Canada largely excluded, written media outlets receive bulk of funding from Online News Act," December 15, 2023. 11. Michael Geist, "Bill C-18 is Dead, Long Live Bill C-18: Government Rewrites Online News Act With Final Regulations," michaelgeist.com, December 15, 2023. 12. Marie-Eve Martel, "We must not allow our country to become a news desert," Policy Options, February 19, 2024. Required Reading - Hall's "Goals, Instruments, and Settings": 13. Peter Hall, "Policy Paradigms, Social Learning and the State: The Case of Economic Policy-Making in Britain," Comparative Politics 25:3 (1993), pp. 275-297. Available on CourseLink. Supplementary Readings: In addition to the required readings, you should draw from (and cite) at least three additional sources that provide some form of commentary on the Online News Act. These sources do not need to be peer-reviewed academic sources (indeed, because the policy is so recent, there are very few peer-reviewed sources on the topic). Instead, it is recommended that you seek out news and commentary sources from newspapers, blogs, and websites such as the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Toronto Sun, National Post, Policy Options, CBC News, and The Hub. It is your responsibility to find these articles. A simple Google search of variations on "Bill C-18" or "Online News Act" plus the name of an online venue will find plenty of sources on the topic. The very best papers will draw from sources that include diverse ideological arguments - for example, by citing authors who think the policy is positive and citing authors who think it is negative, or by citing authors who think Canadian Journalism is under threat and by citing authors who think the issue is overblown. 2