Americanization Of Canada

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The Americanization of English Canadian Media Throughout the past century, American media has gained world-wide strength and it’s consequences have been felt in Canada. In North America, American media has been strongly prevalent in all sectors in which Canadians have felt that their culture has been undermined and underappreciated. In order to combat this, several commissions took place that apparently seemed to have piqued Canadian’s interest in maintaining a strong national media in place. However, the lucrative and prevalent American media has attracted Canadian broadcast moguls in which idealize profits rather than the dissemination of Canadian identity. In this paper, several issues concerning the Americanization of English Canadian …show more content…
Through several commissions, Canadians have been putting safeguards in terms of media quotas in order to protect Canadian identity. However these quotas have not been always welcomed by private broadcasters since profit has always played a large role in determining what is broadcasted (Lorimer et al 223). The Aird Commission determined that Canadians preferred Canadian broadcasting since the “report is full of attributions to public opinion” (Lorimer et al 195). Even though the Aird Commission points out that Canadians prefer Canadian content, it is evident that there has been “no public appetite for reducing in any way Hollywood’s stranglehold on the Canadian market.” (Lorimer et al 232). Though the Aird Commission claimed that public opinion was a major catalyst in the choice to consume Canadian media, according to Catherine Murray, there has been no way to monitor the benefits of the CTRC in which have been clearly subjected to the ideals of private broadcasters (as cited in Edge). With media quotas, private broadcasters in conjunction with the government, maintain their greater profit margin by catering to Canadian media consumers by claiming to have their best interests in mind, and by broadcasting American …show more content…
French Canadians for example, produce and consume their own media since there is no competition with the American market. French Canadian stars for example, have star status because they possess their own market in which “five of the top seven most popular Canadian TV series were French-language productions” (Lorimer et al 224). On the contrary, English Canada constantly has to compete with a stronger and more publicized American media. This competition however is concentrated on very few powerful hands that control English Canadian media