Culture and Convergence
Studies in Canadian Media

Objective

Make connections

Description

This course offers an introduction to the historical development of major communications media in Canada and a chance to investigate the factors determining cultural production. The focus is on how questions of cultural policy are shaped by competing interests. In particular we will examine the impact of computing technologies on Canada's cultural industries.

The theoretical framework is provided by the view that culture is built out of replay. Culture is about the creation of audiences and of archives. This allows us to question how technological convergence, the merging of media, is also about the institutional control of the occasions for replay.

Readings

1 Intro

Definitions: content provider; carrier; regulator; convergence; culture; copyright; moral rights

Blomqvist, Åke and Chin Lim Copyright, Competition and Canadian Culture (Consumer and Corporate Affairs Canada , 1981)
Z565 B55 LIS
CA RG111 81S07 DBW govt
2 Book & Newspaper Publishing

Bröten, Delores and Peter Birdsall Paper phoenix: a history of book publishing in English Canada (CANLIT, 1980)
Z481.B76 LIS

Sotiron, Minko From Politics to Profits: the commercialization of Canadian daily newspapers 1890- 1920 (McGill-Queen's, 1997)
PN4907.S68 DBW
3 Radio

Frick, N. Alice Image in the mind : CBC radio drama, 1944-1954 (Canadian Stage & Arts Publications, 1987)
not yet in UWO system
4 Film

Lyon, S. Daniel and Michael J. Trebilcock Public strategy and motion pictures: the choice of instruments to promote the development of the Canadian Film production industry (Ontario Economic Council, 1982)
not yet in the UWO system

Globerman, Steven and Aidan Vining Foreign ownership and Canada's feature film distribution sector (Frazer Institute, 1987)
not yet in the UWO system
5 Television

Miller, Mary Jane Rewind and search : conversations with the makers and decision-makers of CBC television drama (McGill-Queen's University Press, 1996)
PN1992.65.M54 DBW

Peers, Frank W. The public eye : television and the politics of Canadian broadcasting, 1952-1968 (University of Toronto Press, 1979)
not yet in UWO system
6 Sound Recording

Canada. Industry, Science and Technology Sound Recordings (Ottawa 1991)

Canada. Industry, Science and Technology Sound Recordings: Industry Profile (Ottawa 1988)
CA1 RS1 88P041 DBW
7 Telephony

Babe, Robert E. Telecommunications in Canada: technology, industry and government (Univesity of Toronto Press, 1990)
HE7815.B32 DBW
8 Networks

Information Highway Advisory Council Contact, Community, Content: the Challenge of the Information Highway. Final Report (Ottawa 1995)
CA5 IH 95C51 DBW govt

Telecommunications: enabling Ontario's future: the report of the Advisory Committee on a Telecommunictions Strategy for the Province of Ontario to the Minister of Culture and Communictions (Ministry of Culture and Communications, 1992)
HE7818.O6O57 LIS
9 Software Development

Takach, George S. The software business in Canada (McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1997)
HD9696.C63C376 BUS
10 Media reporting on media

Dorion, Jacques "Make the Best of Quebec's distinct media culture" Marketing 97 (Nov. 16, 1992) 18

Chiasson, Gail "Ethnic media not invited to the advertising party" Marketing 97 (July 13, 1992) 30

11 Policy Debate: Access
12 Policy Debate: Archives

Assignments

15% Using Library of Congress headings conduct a search of another post-secondary institution's holdings. Consult a course catalogue for the institution and examine faculty research interests as well as what is taught. Consider library resources for cataloguing and cross-referencing. Prepare a 500 word report on your findings.
10% Choose one of the areas or mediums explored in the course. Conduct a Net search of resources (Note: do not limit your search to WWW). Prepare an annotated listing. Explain your selection criteria.
10% Choose a different area or medium. Conduct a search of periodical literature. Prepare an annotated bibliography. Explain your selection criteria.
35% Read Jean-Claude Parrot's Miniority Report (215-227) in the Final Report of The Information Highway Advisory Council (1995). Read Howard Rheingold's "Disinformacracy" in Virtual Community (276-300). TK105.5.R48 TAY

Use Rheingold's typology of three different kinds of social criticism to analyse the minority report and/or the channels of its distribution.
40% Group Work.

Prepare a dossier on the social issues concerning access to cultural production, including the preservation of cultural capital and its distribution.
Copyright © François Lachance 1997
All Rights Reserved
lachance@chass.utoronto.ca