The Importance Of Media Laws In Canada

The rules and regulations of the Canadian media market are currently enforced by the CRTC, an agency whose main concern is preventing one company from monopolizing the media market. As a part of the enforcing of rules, the CRTC ensures that media companies maintain a minimum of 60% of Canadian content in their programming. The upholding of this law is integral to the continued production of Canadian content; media that regularly receives a much smaller audience than American-produced shows would certainly be pulled from air without such laws in place. This is a staple of the Canadian media environment: it has allowed the talent of many Canadians to be recognized by the world, which without the enforcement of Canadian content laws would not

Ever since the 1950’s more of the American culture has been known to influence Canadian ways of living through the media.

Canada is a nation that is at risk of losing its own unique culture as a direct result of the globalization of popular culture. Canadian identity is defined by Canadian culture, but as Canada becomes increasingly international, it becomes more and more difficult to maintain a specific, distinctive Canadian identity. The spread of popular culture has proved to be challenging to Canadian identity as Canadian culture is being eroded due to the forces of globalization. Canadian books, magazines, songs, films, radio, and television are slowly fading into the background as they are taken over by more mainstream media. Specifically, much of the media that is taking over Canadian content originates from the United States.

Newspapers are rooted together with the public sphere, globalization, and mass media. The newspaper and the public sphere give citizens an opportunity to examine public concern and global matters. Does this mean that those involved with the Canadian ownership and newspaper industry ultimately wield the power in Canadian society, by exercising this influence to mold the Canadian opinion of readers (Wagenberg & Soderlund, 1975)? Historically, multiple independent newspapers existed, but this had significantly lessened over time with the rise of concentrated ownership in the newspaper industry. Canada has the most concentrated ownership of any country in the free world, meaning that the ownership of newspapers are left into fewer and fewer hands. For example, there are 42 daily newspapers across Canada owned by PostMedia. This raises concerns about concentrated ownership, and if this impacts a Canadian society in having a free diverse range of voices in our national and local media in order to sustain a healthy democracy. The current issue is whether or not concentrated ownership is causing distrust in mainstream Canadian newspapers, creating a climate of insecurity, and if there is an effect on the quality of journalism.

However, multiculturalism in Canada allows the people to exchange what they have. Although due to rapid expansion of technology and mass media people are aware of certain things through media but “coverage of public affairs information

Based on the conclusion of Canadian governmental Committee on Mass Media that "magazines constitute the only national press we possess in Canada. Magazines, in a different way from any other medium, can help foster in Canadians a sense of themselves." It is possible to draw a conclusion that this area plays a significant role for Canadian culture despite of its relatively small volume. The desired result for Canadian Government, I suppose, is an increase of the share of local magazines. But this could be real only in case of protection and making additional privileges for local

Canadians should absolutely be able to buy and support whatever magazines they prefer. I do not believe that a government should be able to censor what people are exposed to in any way. Contrarily, I also do not think it is unfair for the government to levy extra taxes on foreign publications. These taxes are always passed down to the purchaser. Most foreign magazines cost double domestic magazines in Canada. The money from these taxes pours back into our economy, so from an economic standpoint, I do not mind paying them if and when I choose to read foreign

When one is pushed to great lengths they tend to make uneducated decisions with only their wellbeing in mind. Canada saw that the majority of the revenue spent on magazine periodicals surged more than with their domestic ones, therefore placed very strict regulations on those items in order to gain back some of the lost revenue. I believe they did it more for money than cultural preservation.

The common argument for protectionism was that in Canada's market of 26 million people has become saturated by American culture distributed by cultural industries in the US and Canada. In Canada between 60 and 95 percent of film, television, music and publishing markets are controlled by Americans. Four in every five magazines sold in Canada are foreign publications. (Rinaman, 1996)

Media regulations currently regarding the control and diversity of Australian media are regulated by the Broadcasting Services Act 1992. This act places limits on the concentration of ownership of radio broadcasting licences, commercial television and newspapers. Australian media regulations go back to the 1930’s when the government started to issue radio licences and the 1950’s when TV licences where introduced. It wasn’t until the 1980’s that newspapers fell under government regulation too. The 1992 Act was designed and then again reformed in 2006 with the aim to “encourage diversity and quality of media services, controlling access to the market and the services that are offered”. Penned in a pre-internet era, these laws are outdated by

Corporations are in positions to exert tremendous pressure on the media, which they virtually finance through their advertisement. As the companies duel, countries and communities often find themselves in the crossfire. Like all conflicts, the media war leaves a trail of victims and marginalized individuals. The corporate media give inordinate weight to the views of powerful people in business and people in positions of authority. But they pay meagre, and almost never positive, attention to people from less powerful groups, such as the poor, white-collar workers, unionized workers, feminist groups and environmental organizations. The result is that organizations representing the interests of millions of Canadians have little if any voice in

“To what extent do you think the U.S.-Canadian magazine dispute was motivated by genuine desires to protect Canadian culture?”(Uopeopleedu, 2016)

Since the beginning of the digital era, technological advancements have dramatically increased the capability of media and decreased the barriers that one may experience to participate in said communication. Although these advances have created several opportunities for the majority of the Canadian public to participate in communications, there are still several obstacles faced by minority groups: making participation difficult or impossible. In order to counter these barriers, the Canadian government has been taking steps to provide all Canadians with national access to communications services, catering to the needs of a few to benefit many. This is because in taking steps to provide the communication services to all Canadians increases the ability of all citizens to participate in the public sphere the internet creates. Moreover, increasing the communication services availability strengthens the ethnic identity of minority peoples in Canada, reinforcing the ideal of Canada being a Cultural Mosaic. Lastly, creating possibilities for these ethnic and cultural minorities to represent themselves in the media nationally allows for positive perceptions of these groups to be developed. Although members of the cultural majority may disagree, the actions taken by the Canadian government to provide communications services to all Canadians is a good thing as it benefits the entire country.

Finally, the social ramifications of corporate media control contradict the culture of democratic institutions in American culture and society. This has become a major issue in the clash between government regulators and the corporate institutions that are continuing to consolidate into larger, and more powerful companies in the 21st century. In this manner, the regulation of corporate media organizations tends to deny the existence of “democracy” in the U.S., which continually makes claims about the freedom of expression and diversity of its populations. This is also true of the reduction of government regulation, which continues to allow the consolidation of corporate media into a small group of transnational corporate owners. One of the

- As known magazines nowadays plays and important role in delivering information and news and they helps people to be updated with the latest trends , fashion, sports and political issues and therefore magazines plays an important role in identifying the culture. And due to the huge foreign magazines in Canada there was a genuine desires by the Canadian government to protect these magazines in order to protect the Canadian culture in the future. The government new that it would be a huge problem in the future and that’s is why it became a huge priority to deal with this issue and motivate high power people to do something about the issue.