the Canadian media’s ruling class needs a state. It wants a strong state whose ultimate goal and function is to facilitate and legitimize capitalist accumulation nationally and internationally. To do so, media firms have proposed a new regulatory regime which intends to free them from existing “public interest” and “culturalnationalist” obligations. The new set of regulatory policies promoted by the media bourgeoisie is called neoliberalism – the purest ideological expression of class power in the media system. Neoliberalism has its origin in the United States. Since the early 1980s, the U.S. imperial state, on behalf of transnational media corporations headquartered within U.S. territory, has struggled to universalize neoliberalism. The neoliberal media policies of the U.S. have been gradually generalized as the media policies of most nation-states in the world system. Neoliberalism has facilitated global technological integration and digital divides, the speeding up of cross border flows of commoditized information and media, and the global corporate takeover of many local and state-owned broadcasting and telecommunication systems. There is a world neoliberal media framework in the making; it reflects the interests of globalizing U.S. media firms that have integrated with local media firms. Neoliberalism has been adopted by many states due to top-down pressure from the U.S. state and global media corporations as well as bottom-up pressure from local ruling classes. The U.S. is responsible for the export of neoliberalism, but neoliberalism has been locally embraced by Canada’s media elite. Neoliberalism means three things for Canada’s media system: deregulation (reducing or refocusing public oversight of the media on behalf of corporate interests), privatization (the privatization of publicly owned broadcasting, telecommunication systems and cultural industries), and liberalization (the relaxation of restrictions on foreign ownership caps and nationalistic content quotas for domestic media firms). Canadian media corporations are attempting to make neoliberal media policy ‘common sense.’ They dominate public discussion about media policies and attack the public policies and regulations that facilitated their original rise to power. Their control of the dominant means of symbolic production in society empowers them to promote points of view that support neoliberal ideology while ignoring views that do not. Neoliberal ideology is transmitted to the public through the channels media corporation’s control. “It’s time to deregulate the broadcasting system” Quebecor President and CEO Pierre Karl Peladeau told the CRTC at a recent panel meeting in Quebec. “Competition promotes quality and helps the broadcasting horizon in Canada” he continued. Leonard Asper, President and CEO of CanWest Global Communications, stated: “The Canadian TV system is the best in the world.” It is the best because “Canadians offered unparalleled choice and diversity.” CanWest Global, says Asper, “is determined to keep this diversity and choice a reality for Canadian consumers.” Ivan Fecan, President and CEO of CTVglobemedia said: “We [at CTVglobemedia] embrace the future.” “We look forward to working cooperatively with the CRTC to rebalance our regulatory framework to preserve real choice for Canadian consumers.” Rebalancing the regulatory framework means a neoliberal re-regulation of the media system on behalf of corporate interests.
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Media corporations, media owners and their speechwriters regularly disavow the public-ness of the airwaves. They make it appear as though the Canadian media system was never intended to serve public interests or play a role in protecting and promoting Canadian culture. They represent the Canadian media as though it is naturally a capitalist system. The form and function of the Canadian media system is being re-written, in public ideology and state policy, on behalf of present-day capitalist exigencies. This effort turns us away from Canada’s public media history and attempts to discredit democratic media policy-making practices. The very meaning of the media’s role in democracy is changing, being connected to market values. Media owners build consent to their un-democratic control of the media by lauding their commitment to the free-market and propagating their apparent eagerness to satisfy individual consumer choices with diverse commercial content. Media democracy is reduced to a media commodity, delivered “on demand” to the public through an efficient feedback loop which connects citizen-consumers and media corporations, demand and supply. The argument, however, is preposterous. The Canadian media has little to do with democracy or free-markets; it is an elite oligopoly protected and promoted by the Canadian state. Corporate lobbyists have attempted to form a neoliberal regulatory framework that legitimizes and facilitates the deregulation, privatization and liberalization of the media. Canadian media policy is influenced by the media’s ruling class through the elite staffing the state bureaucracy. Canadian state policy-making agencies and cultural apparatuses give the class interests of the media bourgeoisie public legitimacy. They coordinate and mediate intra-capitalist collaboration and conflict within the Canadian media system. Though still claiming to make policies on behalf of Canadians in general, the state increasingly serves the particular class interests of media owners. The Canadian state prioritizes and privileges capitalist media interests over public and cultural interests. Cultural-nationalist and public interests have been made tantamount to the de facto national and internationalizing capitalist interests of the Canadian bourgeoisie. With neoliberalism, public and national interests in culture and media (the interests of the many) have been articulated to capitalist accumulation interests (the interests of the few). The CRTC and the Heritage Department have implemented and enforced the neoliberal policies often at the expense of the public they are mandated to serve. In a recent review of broadcasting, the CRTC said it is conducting the hearings with a view to reducing regulation to the “minimum essential to achieve the essential of the Broadcasting Act.” Canadian media policy has not led to a media system comprised of diverse public interest media or a vibrant national culture. What has emerged, due to a combination of capitalist strategies and state policies, is a technologically integrated and globalizing media oligopoly. CANADA’S MEDIA OLIGOPOLY For much of Canadian media history, CRTC regulations limited media cross-ownership. News corporations, broadcast networks, and telecommunications firms were separate, occupying