Media of Canada
The media of Canada is highly autonomous, uncensored, diverse, and very regionalized. Canada has a well-developed media sector, but its cultural output—particularly in English films, television shows, and magazines—is often overshadowed by imports from the United States and the United Kingdom. As a result, the preservation of a distinctly Canadian culture is supported by federal government programs, laws, and institutions such as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the National Film Board of Canada, and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.
Canadian mass media, both print and digital, and in both official languages, is largely dominated by a "handful of corporations". The largest of these corporations is the country's national public broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which also plays a significant role in producing domestic cultural content, operating its own radio and TV networks in both English and French.
In addition to CBC/Radio-Canada, the provincial governments of British Columbia, Ontario, and Québec operate their own public broadcast services, which play an important role within their respective markets. These include Télé-Québec in Québec, the Knowledge Network Corporation in British Columbia, and TVO Media Education Group and Groupe Média TFO in Ontario.
The 1991 Broadcasting Act declares "the system should serve to safeguard, enrich, and strengthen the cultural, political, social, and economic fabric of Canada". The promotion of multicultural media began in the late 1980s as multicultural policy was legislated in 1988. In the Multiculturalism Act, the federal government proclaimed the recognition of the diversity of Canadian culture. Thus, multicultural media became an integral part of Canadian media overall. Upon numerous government reports showing lack of minority representation or minority misrepresentation, the Canadian government stressed separate provision be made to allow minorities and ethnicities of Canada to have their own voice in the media.
Non-news media content in Canada, including film and television, is influenced both by local creators as well as by imports from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and France. In an effort to reduce the amount of foreign-made media, government interventions in television broadcasting can include both regulation of content and public financing. Canadian tax laws limit foreign competition in magazine advertising.
Media consumption
According to data from the 2020 General Social Survey on Social Identity, Canadians use various news sources, including newspapers, magazines, television, radio, and the Internet. The Internet is the most popular method for following news at 80%, followed by television at 67%. Other sources include radio, newspapers, and magazines.People with a university degree are more likely to use the Internet, newspapers, and magazines for news. Specifically, 90% of university graduates use the Internet, compared to 46% using newspapers and 17% using magazines. Among immigrants, media usage for news increases the longer they have been in Canada. The survey shows that daily news consumption varies: 39% of immigrants who arrived in Canada 0 to 5 years ago, 40% for 6 to 10 years, 58% for 11 or more years, and 60% for those not immigrants.
Internet use is higher among younger individuals at 95%, while those 55 years and older prefer television, with 88% following news on this platform. In the younger demographic, there are no gender differences for Internet use; however, in older age groups, more men use the Internet compared to women. Among those aged 55 and older, 67% of men and 59% of women use the Internet. Television viewership is higher among women in all age groups.
History
The history of Canadian media performers goes back to the first days of radio. In the 1940s, the Radio Artists of Toronto Society was formed. Radio performers in Montreal, Winnipeg, and Vancouver also organized to fight for artists' rights, working conditions, and better fees. In 1943, the Association of Canadian Radio Artists was formed as a loose national coalition of actors' groups. Over the years, ACRA evolved into the Association of Canadian Radio and Television Artists, followed by the Canadian Council of Authors and Artists, then the Association of Canadian Television and Radio Artists, and, in 1984, to the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists, its present name.The Canadian Broadcasting Act, historically and in its modern conception, is based on the fact that, since the start of the 20th century, it was important for broadcasters to ensure that information flowed freely and reflected the diversity of Canadian points of view, as opposed to the classic approach, which gives media owners more freedom to express their views. The Canadian broadcasting system as it exists today "would probably not exist if we had allowed the marketplace to regulate ownership rights."
In August 2015, the Canadian Media Guild, the union representing CBC journalists, became a registered third party in order to campaign for increased taxpayer funding of the CBC in the 2015 election. After the Liberal Party of Canada won the election, it increased taxpayer funding of the CBC by CA$150 million. In 2017, the federal government announced a five-year $50-million program to help struggling local newspapers. In 2018, it announced $595 million in tax credits to help struggling newspapers and television networks adapt to competition from online news sources.
In 2013, Maclean's wrote an article noting the influence that Quebecor and owner Pierre Karl Péladeau have on the Quebec media system. The article noted that Quebecor behaves like a counterpart to the federalist La Presse, owned by the Desmarais family. In November 2018, Unifor, the other major union for Canadian journalists, announced that it would campaign against the Conservative Party of Canada in the 43rd Canadian federal election. In February 2019, former Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould gave testimony to the House of Commons Justice Committee raising further speculation of political interference from the Liberal Party in journalism. As part of the testimony, Jessica Prince, the Wilson-Raybould's chief of staff revealed that Katie Telford, chief of staff to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, said: "If Jody is nervous, we would, of course, line up all kinds of people to write op-eds saying that what she is doing is proper."
Postmedia has faced questions from both Maclean's and Canadaland, regarding whether recent changes to their editorial staff was singling a shift that they were pushing "conservative views" onto their audience. In 2019, Kathy English, the public editor for the Toronto Star, admitted that The Star has failed to meet its journalistic standards by stating "call for reporting fairly and accurately and reflecting the pertinent facts and diversity of views on matters of public debate."
English defended The Star, arguing that there is "no such a thing as objectivity in journalism."
A report released from the Digital Democracy Project, a joint venture between the Public Policy Forum and McGill University's School of Public Policy revealed that non-partisans with high exposure to traditional media gave roughly 50% more wrong answers than those with low exposure. "Strong partisans", however, gave almost twice as many.
The Electronic Age and Marshall McLuhan
In The Gutenberg Galaxy, Marshall McLuhan writes that:if a new technology extends one or more of our senses outside us into the social world, then new ratios among all of our senses will occur in that particular culture. It is comparable to what happens when a new note is added to a melody. And when the sense ratios alter in any culture then what had appeared lucid before may suddenly become opaque, and what had been vague or opaque will become translucent.
He gives great importance to the introduction of electronic media into the realm of people's everyday lives. According to McLuhan, the introduction of electronic media was one of the main media revolutions. He claims that technology evoked an emotional response from audiences although it technically had no moral bias. Technology in the electronic age shapes an individual's self-realization. In other words, McLuhan writes about three major revolutions in his various works and gives great importance to the electronic one. Electronic mass media clearly have a large impact on Canadian society and affect audiences in a variety of ways.