Maryam Aman

Running Head: SOUND & VISUAL MEDIA Students Name Teacher’s Name Course Name Date 1 2 POLITICAL ECONOMY OF MEDIA Political Economy and Alternative Television in Canada Canadian media these days is more concerned about pleasing the American government and promoting their agenda instead of providing information to their people about the on-going situation in their region about stocks, property dealings, sports, business, entertainment and so on. Canadian media has somehow now become a profit-oriented business for the status quo. They have no concerns about public interest, but instead, they are more anxious about their rate of profit from the business they are running as they actually serve the share-holders instead of the listeners or readers. Apparently Canadian press is said to have freedom of speech but the three most important pillars of their media, namely, crossownership, convergence and concentration is weakening its influence over the people with every passing day. Out of 102 daily newspapers only six of them are free and autonomous in the true sense. Rate of ownership of media is the highest in Canada than any other nation of the world. The purpose of this study is to take into account the factors that are involved in weakening the role of media. What role can Political Economy play in revitalizing the role of media? Is alternative media the solution for this problem? These issues need to be investigated and addressed because in this age of technology every person should be able to reach out to media, gain knowledge about their nation and its socio-economic situation, share their problems, ask for help and make them heard. Many social issues can be addressed with the help of media; be it newspaper, radio, internet or any other form, as long as it serves its purpose. The Canadian people would have no idea about the events of the world had their only source of information been their own media because their national media makes every effort to serve the United States of America and its beliefs and morals. But most Canadians do not seem to follow this path. Although the media has shown no inclination towards educating its people about the risks that entails empowering a few media owners and giving them the POLITICAL ECONOMY OF MEDIA 3 authority to govern the local people. We all aware of the fact that the concept of democracy is incomplete if the media is devoid of a distinctive and self-governing means of information and knowledge channels that serve the purpose of educating people about the social set-up they are living in. Independence of media and broadcasting regulations are taken more seriously in European countries like Germany, the United Kingdom and France as compared to Canada and its high time they do the same if they want to rescue their media from the claws of the status quo. During the past few decades, the concept and idea of independent television, newspapers and radios stations have been lost in Canada and have become a part of cross-owned, converged and concentrated media organizations. This has resulted in rarer and distinct sources that provide information about regional issues. This, in turn, has resulted in an even lesser public participation which is going to damage the Canadian democracy even more. A solution to this problem could be seen in the form of an alternative source of media. Even though the domination of corporate media of Canada makes the influence of alternative media seem smaller and not very influential but with the passage of time it has grown and is still growing. Alternative media offers the prospective of a prominent public participation as compared to the corporate media whose main concern, from day one, has been that of pleasing their shareholders and the U.S. Additionally, alternative media also offers participation of local people in decision making and media production which cannot be expected from corporate media of Canada that is so bent on keeping the actual information hidden from its local people who have every right to access information related to their country (Kozolanka, et al, 2012). Alternative media has the ability to question the concentration of media power and demand a more independent and autonomous media whose prime focus would be provision of actual information to the people as corporate media tend to alter and misrepresent important issues of the society such as business, education, sports, entertainment, stock market, religion, current affairs. These are the issues people are actually POLITICAL ECONOMY OF MEDIA 4 concerned about. People tend to turn to media to educate themselves about these issues but instead, all they can get from corporate media is the U.S. version of stories about Iraq and its nuclear weapons, Muslim extremist activities in Asia and so on. The problem, however, is that regulatory framework does not encompass the alternative media practice as the setting of a regulatory framework is not in favor of public participation which is why political economy and corporate Canadian media-scape is perpetually affected by this regulatory framework. Cultural and communications industry of Canada has been hugely affected by global political economy as witnessed its decline and affluence of global economy. The fact that English and French heritage of Canada is rather unstable which has affected Canada’s unique immigrant experience has played a major role in setting it apart from other similar nations of the world. Moreover, the geographical location and size along with its unique geological features have also contributed in playing its part in promoting the trend of alternative media. As far as alternative media in any region is concerned, it can be in any form, radio, print or electronic, as long as it serves its purpose and educate the masses about the issues that they need to be educated about. But its progress has been affected negatively due to some reasons, a few of them are: nearness of the United States and its subsequent influence in Canadian affairs is one of the most significant and substantial factor that is hindering the progress of alternative media over corporate Canadian media-scape. Furthermore, alternative media has three main features that set it apart from conventional means of media, these features are; activism, structure and participation. These features help in provision of a systematic framework which help in understanding the whole mechanism as to how these media are shaped in the overall media-scape and how they work harmoniously in the whole set-up. ‘Structure’ of the alternative media implies the pace and shape of development of alternative media in the overall system which also encompasses its collaboration with local and international guidelines and strategies as well as its economic POLITICAL ECONOMY OF MEDIA 5 association. ‘Participation’ of the alternative media implies the ways and methods through which the media can play its part in extending the democracy in telecommunication and broadcasting and the ways in which it can be enabled for their international organizational and conversational practices. As far as ‘Activism’ of alternative media is concerned, it mainly emphasizes on active involvement in mediating and transforming the conventional methods of visualizing the functions of media and their operation in the world and to enable the society of which they are an integral part (Kozolanka, et al, 2012). These are the three most important features which when come together, can make the best use of alternative media. These features can enable the media in changing the social and political perspective of the people and lead them towards new horizons which would eventually help them in achieving their goals. We all are aware of the fact that concentration of ownership and commercialization is increasing at an alarming rate with every passing day all around the world, what needs to be understood explicitly is the variety and multiplicity of media practices that have been adopted in different regions of the world, and the part that is being played by every media and the purpose that it serves so to develop the communication system for public so that they can actively take part in the decision making and policy making for their society as we all know that instant means of communication is the most integral part of our fast-paced lives. This alternative media concept when coupled with the political economy approach can do wonders for Canadian people as they are striving to take active part in shaping their society according to their norms and values and are aiming at using the media in their favor. Canada’s most important zones of economy are supervised by external organizations through proprietorship of industries and investment in them. United States have played its part in controlling the economy of Canada by dominating its technological industry. Mass communication and telecommunication has been the focus of this dominance. Therefore, POLITICAL ECONOMY OF MEDIA 6 satellite industry has also been the prime focus of the United States for controlling Canada’s economy from a distance as this industry incorporates the production of high-tech goods that are innovative and very useful for development of media in Canada which can eventually help in improvement of broadcasting service coverage. Upon close scrutiny of the physical dimension of this whole aspect, it can easily be determined that it is the federal government that is encouraging the technological expansion of the satellite industry. The federal government is also responsible as to who can and cannot become a share-holder in this industry which forms the structural dimension of the entire system. As far as cultural dimension of this set-up is concerned, it has the power to spread one central interpretation of the world to all the people that were out of their domain before the advent of technology and advancement of satellite industry (McNulty, n.d.). In conclusion, it can be stated that the present situation of Canadian media has forced public participation to take a backseat instead of coming forward and making themselves heard in corporate set-up of media-scape that has dominated the Canadian media and are so bent on gaining profit from their business that they are not the least bit concerned about the quality of information that is being provided to the masses. There only a few locally-owned and autonomous media remaining who actually provide some valid information about the ongoing situation in the region. Public dialogue is the last thing that can be expected from these concentrated and consolidated media groups whose prime ambition to gain profit from the business that they running. This can be understood from the fact that majority of the Canadians were against the U.S. invasion of Iraq but majority of the newspapers printed stories that supported this invasion. Similarly, when World Peace Forum was held in Vancouver in 2006, which was attended by approximately 5,000 representatives from 78 different nations, the press coverage was almost non-existent. There were no positive comments from any newspaper as most of them gave negative feedback and dismissed the POLITICAL ECONOMY OF MEDIA 7 forum completely. The character of a country can be changed by altering the way they perceive themselves and that can, very effectively, be changed with the help of local media. But if media is playing their part in clouding the actual issues of their nation and highlighting the views, ideas and accomplishments of other, superior nations, then very little can be done for such a nation with the help of media. A tough political leadership is needed for taking some bold steps for improving the role of media in Canada. This issue can be solved to some extent by introduction of an alternative media which would help in promoting a totally innovative range of different outlooks and viewpoints that will help in public participation which is not promoted and encouraged by the corporate media of Canada. But the question remains, this media would be alternate to what exactly? Should it challenge the status quo or should it take into account the type of media that can be used for changing the perspective of the people about media and its use. Also, it should promote media in both French and English so that everyone can benefit from it. Alternative media would also play a major role in relaying the news segments that are important for the people and may be too scandalous for the corporate media to share with their people. Editorial policies that prevent the news to reach the people can also be changed in the new alternative media which will strengthen it. Alternative media would also let the local people contribute and participate along with the qualified journalists which would give them indepth knowledge of the issues that needs to be addressed. These needs may be based on the interests of the local people who are serving in the alternative media or may be a controversial or debatable issue which the corporate media failed to highlight in their newspapers. This is why the viewpoints of alternative media and corporate media are so different from each other. As mentioned earlier, alternative media strive to provide information that is usually left out by corporate media as it might not be useful for their profit-oriented business. As concentration of ownership is on the rise in corporate media of POLITICAL ECONOMY OF MEDIA 8 Canada, development of new and reliable media sources is vital for survival of actual and reliable media sources. Internet may be considered a likely alternative source of news but it cannot be trusted completely as internet cannot be accessed and used by everyone in the country. Gaining access to internet is still a problem for people who have low income jobs. Furthermore, production of good quality content on websites is a responsibility that cannot be entrusted to any website operator in the country. A lot needs to be done for developing and evolving a reliable source of news for an alternate media so that the corporate media can be sidelined and discarded for good and reliable sources of news can prevail. Also, knowledge related to use and operation of alternative media is much needed so as to make these media economically practical in addition to devising policies and strategies that would help in making these media the prime source of information for the local people. This is only be done by proper understanding of the tools that are required for smoothly running these media and produce an framework required for maintenance of a lively and varied avenue of public communication. 9 POLITICAL ECONOMY OF MEDIA References Kozolanka, K., Mazepa, P. and Skinner, D. (2012) Alternative Media in Canada. UBC Press. McNulty, J. (N.d.) The Political Economy of Canadian Satellite Broadcasting.