MEDIA INTRUSION AND THE CHANGING NATURE OF THE ESTABLISHED PARTIES INAUSTRALIA AND CANADA

Media intrusion theory holds that the advent of electronic media, espe cially television, has accelerated or even precipitated party decline. This is evidently borne out by the declining membership of, and weake ning support for, the two major Australian parties which each enthusia stically embraced new forms of political communication. However, ''med ia intrusion'' has arguably strengthened rather than weakened Canada's already frail brokerage parties. This different experience may be exp lained by the dissimilar legislative, federal and media environments i n which Canadian and Australian political parties operate. Curiously, although the new forms of political communication have had different i mpacts, these have triggered changes in Australian political parties w hich have increased their resemblance to their Canadian counterparts.