Mass Communication in Canada

Ross Willmot is Executive Director of the Ontario Association for
Continuing Education.

This pioneering introductory textbook in communications was written by two academics with complementary experience yet with a similar basic perspective. Rowland Lorimer is with the Department of Communication and is Director of the Centre for Canadian Studies at Simon Fraser University. Jean McNulty left there to teach mass communications at York University’s Division of Social Science. Their conclusions are backed up by their critical examination of primarily Canadian studies of the influence of media in the development and survival of Canada and its culture.

The writers join in affirming that the media are a crucial part of Canada’s fabric, and are responsible for maintaining such elements we hold dear as bilingualism, regionalism, heterogeneity, and provincial educational systems. Our combination of a private / public broadcasting system places us at an advantage in facing the “U.S. cultural barrage.” The CBC, they recommend, could be used for the development of technology, programming, delivery, and co-production.

The U.S-Canada free trade agreement makes the book’s message even more timely. Canada should have the capacity to take information produced by the world and analyzed according to national needs and priorities. Canada is already committed to hardware development and hence technological sophistication in communication.

As well as broadcasting policy, the book covers such topics as advertising, the film industry, media ownership, semiotics, content analysis, global news agencies — and how to read Donald Duck.

“Information and its manipulation are changing our world,” the writers conclude, “and far from being a victim of such change, Canada is one of the few nations of the world in a position to guide and design these changes.”