The Mass Media in Canada. Rev. ed.

Helen Holmes is Director of Communications Studies at the University of
Calgary.

Mary Vipond begins this readable introductory book with reference to a
cartoon that appeared during the 1988 free trade debate. It showed “a
sloppy middle-aged Canadian wearing a Miami Vice T-shirt walking down a
street adorned with McDonald arches, Coke machines, GM and Ford
dealerships, and a movie billboard advertising ‘Rambo XI.’
‘What’s really scary,’ he remarks to his wife, ‘is that we
Canadians could lose control of our culture.’” The irony of that
cartoon points to the central focus of this book: the tension between
the centrality of communications to the mythological definition of
Canada and the dominance of the American media in our lives.

Vipond discusses the development of media in Canada both
chronologically and thematically. This arrangement leads to an overlap
of some sections, and some topics—notably policy issues—appear to
receive short shrift in the chronological section, where you might
expect to find them, only to reappear in the thematic section, making it
sometimes difficult to find the information you are looking for.

But Vipond manages to deal with a wide range of topics—from mass
communication theory, media economics, the pros and cons of cultural
nationalism, and new technologies, to hard facts about the Canadian
publishing and film industries—all with remarkable concision and
lucidity. Although some might want fuller discussion of some issues, her
arguments are fair persuasive, and the revised edition has updated the
ample supporting data without overwhelming readers with masses of
indigestible figures in charts and tables or relying on “gee whiz”
facts to make her points.

My students loved the first edition, and I am pleased that Vipond has
brought it up to date. The Mass Media in Canada is clearly written,
broad in scope, informative, and persuasive, and goes some way toward
achieving the author’s goal: to make people “aware of the personal,
social, and national importance of all the millions of words and images
they absorb and thus to generate the public will necessary to one day
have Canadian mass media rather than just mass media in Canada.”