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Chapter 4 | Michael S. Cross (continued) Canadian cultural policy has embodied an inchoate sense of the issues. For eighty years, successive Canadian governments have sought to protect and promote domestic media, on the understanding that purely market-driven media would undermine Canadian culture and Canadian values (Foster, 1982; Thompson, 1992; Vipond, 1982; CRTC, 1997). Much of that effort was in vain. Attempts to protect Canadian magazines in the 1920’s and again in the 1970’s had little effect on the dominance of American publications in the Canadian market. Canadian content regulations for television were first introduced in 1960, compelling stations to meet a minimum standard of 55 percent Canadian programming, a figure later raised to 60 percent. Despite the regulations, English-Canadians continued to watch American shows on cable television. More, the regulations, and indeed Canadian television broadcasting itself, were introduced long after the patterns of television production had been established in the United States. The style of television, from its pace to its advertisements, was American, whether programs were produced by Americans or Canadians. Only the regulations for music had some force. The Canadian Radio-Television Commission, an agency of the federal government, in 1970 introduced a requirement of 30 percent Canadian content in the music played on radio, “Canadian content” meaning that at least two of the aspects of the music — the composer, the lyricist, the performer, or the performance/recording venue — had to be Canadian. The regulations helped to create a modest recording industry in Canada and to nourish some pop stars. The Tragically Hip are the most striking recent example of a phenomenon that was hardly dreamed of before 1970. This band from Kingston, Ontario, which frequently uses Canadian places and themes in its songs, has enjoyed an extended and profitable career, without performing the once inevitable trek to the greener pastures of the United States. Perhaps more important are the regional musicians who have been able to find an audience, in part because of the broadcast rules. Eastern Canada has felt an explosion of homegrown musical talent. Some of it was pop music, enough to win Halifax, Nova Scotia, the nickname of “Seattle East,” a rival to Seattle’s famed “grunge scene.” Much more was rooted in the region’s real, or imagined, Celtic past2 (McKay, 1994). The success of East Coast music reminds us of several important issues in the age of electronic media. McLuhan had little to say about music, although he did love bagpipes and might then approve of East Coast Celtishness. Yet music suggests the validity of his contentions about the decentralizing tendencies of electronic media, tendencies which pull in quite different directions from the more apparent globalizing tendencies. The music experience also shows how modern media can operate horizontally rather than vertically. Paolo Mancini, a professor of communications at Perugia, explains the diversity and vitality of Italian public life, and the high level of participation in public affairs, as partly due to the fact that the media has encouraged horizontal communication. The media have permitted citizens to debate with each other, to exchange ideas with each other, rather than simply operating as conduits between decision-makers and the public, as most Western models of the media contend (Mancini, 2000). It would be utopian to believe that most Canadian media have played or will play such a role. The press has been highly concentrated in Canada, and interlocking media giants such as Rogers Communications have asserted control over both print and broadcast media.3 Government policy and regulatory practice have encouraged centralization of television services in networks that provide minimal regional or local programming. Yet music seems to be an exception. Non-Canadian sources provided nearly 90 percent of new popular music releases in Canada in 1995-1996 (Statistics Canada). That statistic disguises another reality, however. Lively and growing regional musical scenes have emerged. Small-scale recording studios have allowed musicians and public to communicate, at least within the regional boundaries. Local radio stations have often aided in publicizing indigenous musicians. All this happens despite, rather than because, of national policies. English-Canada’s public broadcaster, the CBC, has sharply reduced local programming and become as centralized as private broadcasters. Yet more and more regionally-based musicians are able to be heard and to earn a living as artists. National cultural values may be no less coercive than transnational ones. The struggle of the Zapatistas in Mexico illustrates this reality. So, too, does the continuing disagreement in Canada between Québec and Ottawa over communications policy. The Liberal government of Québec issued a position paper on communications policy in November 1973 which pointed out that “To confuse national unity and national uniformity by centralizing the decision-making powers inevitably creates a factor of discussion and rupture.” The Secretary of State in the federal Liberal government, Gérard Pelletier, responded that assertions of provincial authority in communications would “undermine the cohesion of the Canadian state, which ... was born from communications in the era of the railways...” (Foster, 1982). Pelletier’s comment reflects the preoccupation with communications that springs from proximity to the United States, and from a sense that Canada is, in the words of two media scholars from Colorado, “a nation which has a technical, but little social, being” (Tracey and Redal, 1995). This preoccupation has been a valid one, but in so far as it has produced policies which discourage regional cultures, it has also been self-defeating. |
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