Guest post by Michael McCarthy, of the SLAIS LIBR 561 Information Policy class

With those words, Doyen of the Digital Domain, Michael Geist, flew into town last Thursday (October 23, 2008) and, among other things, explained how digital advocacy played a pivotal role in mobilizing Canadians against Bill C-61.

Geist began by reminding us how last October’s Throne Speech said that technology, and this copyright legislation, would “ensure a prosperous future.” It wasn’t an easy sell for the government. Within days, Geist had organized a Facebook campaign to mobilize opposition. Fair Copyright for Canada’s Facebook network grew from one hundred members on the first day to 92,322 today.

YouTube also played a starring role in the campaign. A competition was organized, the self-explanatory “C-61 in 60 Seconds.” (See the winning entry). Twitter, Google Earth, and a host of other web 2.0 networks meshed to galvanize the opposition. As Geist said, before the campaign, “People didn’t think these things affected them on a day to day basis.” (BTW, check out our local grassroots coalition partner, Vancouver Fair Copyright).

Canadians connected on this issue. Torontonians took to the streets in protest. Pancake Protesters showed up at the Calgary Stampede. Thousands of hard copy protest letters arrived on Parliament Hill. All of this seems, well, somewhat unCanadian in a country presumed to be apathetic on such issues. In retrospect, the opposition to C-61 seemed vaguely reminiscent of 1960s-style activism overlaid with the instantaneity of the Internet.

In some ways, C-61 served as a test case for how the Internet will play its role in the future of citizen engagement. Geist’s final slide read: “SILENT NO MORE.” Opposition to the proposed bill also seemed to tap into a latent nationalism: it was US vs. the U.S. Yet, the bigger question remains: Are we, in fact, already the “51^st State”?

Geist stated that the Conservative government “had a pretty clear media strategy,” and that they were confident On June 12^th when C-61 was introduced. They were also “very happy with the [media] coverage” (no surprise there). However, a week later, with the grassroots’ focus on individual rights, things started heading south for the bill.

A key point made was that it wasn’t until the grassroots had done the homework that the mainstream media took up the issue. This culminated in a Globe and Mail article, “Ottawa accused of caving in to Hollywood on Copyright.”

At this point in his presentation Geist asked: “How did copyright become cool?” In a classic understatement, Geist said “I certainly blogged about it.” Copyright became cool in no small way due to his effectiveness as a change agent. Geist reminded us that “This [copyright law] is driven by political choices, not policy choices.”

As Paul Whitney told our class during his visit on October 8^th, the CLA, due to differences of opinion within the association, doesn’t do enough on the issue. Michael Geist, on the other hand, can make a definitive statement. And he has. I can’t think of anyone who has done more to further debate on Canadian copyright law than Geist. In many ways, he is the public face of the issue. His 60-minute presentation took us on a whirlwind tour of Bill C-61’s convoluted history and ended on an upbeat prognosis for the future, at least as far a social networking and political change are concerned. I particular liked his take on what’s at stake here: “our digital future is about our creative future.”

Guest post by Tim McMillan, of the SLAIS LIBR 561 Information Policy class.

I was fortunate to participate in the discussion of media concentration in Canada and North America at “Jumpstarting the Public Sphere.”  Our group was lead by Dr. David Skinner, a professor of communications studies at York University.  The other participants included students from the Langara College library program, a journalism student and community radio organizer from Simon Fraser University, a librarian from Vancouver Public Library (VPL) and yours truly: a graduate student studying library science at the University of British Columbia and a part-time reference librarian at VPL.  Sean Connon, the editor of the Vancouver street magazine Megaphone, moderated.

David began by noting the steep decline in Canadians’ belief in the credibility of traditional news media; only 1/3 believes it to be fair and balanced.  Instead, the prevailing opinion is that big news serves big business.  One of the participants noted that thirty years ago Vancouver sported three independent news dailies, whereas today the Vancouver Sun and the Province are controlled by the same corporation.

David traced the history of media concentration in Canada from the concern expressed in 1970’s Davey Report to the apathy of the mid 1990s when the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) acquiesced to industry demands for cross media ownership.  With this latter decision, conglomerates could control media in a multitude of genres: television, radio, and newspapers.  This model made economic sense as resource pooling cut down on overhead and seemed to make Canadian media more competitive in a global market.  Of course the downside was the loss of a diversity of voices in Canada’s news media and a heavy blow to media democracy in the country.

While public advocacy groups and information policy watchdogs have pushed these negative aspects of media concentration to the CRTC and other policy-makers, the response has been that the commission is not in the business of putting businesses out of business.  As participants in our group noted, the government and its regulatory bodies shy away from restricting businesses’ rights to own private property and are all the more wary of interfering with opinion-makers for fear of creating a media backlash.

With this avenue for policy change seemingly blocked, our group looked at alternative methods for pressuring policy makers to step in and regulate the concentration of media.  It was suggested that the new media be utilized in order to draw attention to negative consequences of media concentration: the Micheal Geist Bill C-61 model.  This seemed a viable method, but complimentary action was needed as again and again the issue of financing cropped up.  In the USA, there are charitable foundations to be appealed to and media watchdogs are well represented in the public sphere on both the right and the left.  Here in Canada, there is less of a tradition for the former as the government has long taken the role of subsidizing Canadian media; media watchdogs are equally scarce.

One suggestion gained consensus as the most actionable: an online portal of alternative media outlets.  This would allow the multiplicity of independent voices to band together as a means of mutually increasing traffic to a variety of news sources.  Although this is a long way from counteracting the domination of a few media outlets, it represents a start in the right direction of encouraging media democracy.

Part 1 – The Facts

The second speaker in the first morning session at Jumpstarting the Public Sphere: Information Policy for the 21st Century was York University’s, David Skinner. His talk, “Medi-Ated: What’s on the Menu for Canada’s Big Media”? addressed some of the major issues surrounding the concentration of media ownership in Canada. Dr. Skinner is on the steering committee of the Campaign for a Democratic Media.

He began by setting the context within which media concentration arose. Canada traditionally has had three distinct and recognizable media ownership models: Government, Community, and Private. According to Dr. Skinner the market driven neo-liberal economic model and the commoditization of information has in more resent years fostered an environment that allows corporations to gain control over vast sectors of the Canadian media market. The corporations have been able to make a case that the other two sectors of media engage in exclusionary practices that undermine free market competition. In this way private corporations have managed to squeeze into sectors of the news media that had previously been unavailable. Remaining regulations concerning media ownership have little impact upon the reality either. In Canada all news media is owned and controlled by only three corporations. The worst is BC where 100% of the media is controlled by one corporation, CanWest.
The tri-opoly of corporate media interests have essentially divided up the market amongst themselves through horizontal ownership, vertical integration and cross-ownership even though the CRTC has recently moved (yet again) to limit cross-ownership. In fact two, CTV-globemedia and CanWest of the “big three” media dynasties in Canada dominate the national media market. Dr. Skinner talked about how this concentration is limiting the perspective of the media and negatively impacting the diversity of voices and opinions being disseminated.

Limits to perspective come from editorial interference. Instances of editorial interference can limit opinion and fact alike. Many times editors are afraid, especially in profit driven corporate sectors of losing advertisement or sponsorship and therefore refuses to run a piece or requires that the journalist alter it. The trade-off (less accurate or honest reporting) is justified by the market (keep advertisement or sponsorship).
The corporate buy-up of media has also lessened the diversity and localness of information. As companies acquire each other, the number of employees and other staff are cut. This leads to the mass syndication of a few journalists and a vacuum in communities of local coverage.

As mentioned previously the CRTC’s regulatory control of media is weak and has little impact on the erosion of government and community media at the hands of the corporate free market. With this in mind Dr. Skinner finished his talk with ideas about what is and can be done in order to restore balance to the media diet in Canada. He focused on citizen participation as a remedy for the affliction of media concentration in Canada. His 5 prong approach is simple:

1) Let the CRTC know that the rules that are in place are inadequate

2) Lobby for Canadian ownership rules not to be changed

3) Demand public and community media be included on basic cable and by satellite providers

4) Promote independent and alternative media

5) Support public interest groups that focus on media reform – like The Campaign for a Democratic Media

Part 2 – A small observation and a question

Dr. Skinner mentioned that the internet as a tool could prove helpful in assisting to balance media in the face of the overwhelming concentration that is taking place in print and TV. He praises the power of the internet for distribution but is perhaps uncomfortable with the lack of production that takes place. Because of this he showed great reservations about the use of this medium by “citizen journalists” in an effort to democratize the media. His opinion was that citizen journalists merely fill a gap and “lack the time and skill to create comprehensive work.” Therefore, he concluded that the best actions to take are ones aimed at systems correction.

However, if a long range plan is adapted to insure citizen journalists have these “skills” and presumably the time to cover the news then wouldn’t this be a more truly democratic model of media? Should perhaps some of the focus be placed in those areas? What about things like pirate radio, zines, blogs, and other non-mainstream methods of disseminating information - which makes possible all other rights.

CIHR Café Scientifique and UBC Centre for Health Services and Policy Research present…

As Seen on TV!

Risks and benefits of direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs

Monday, March 3, 2008 – 7:15 – 8:45 p.m.

Junior Ballroom, Sheraton Wall Centre

1088 Burrard St. Vancouver

Should prescription drugs be advertised like breakfast cereal?

Three quarters of adults will fill a prescription this year, at a cost of nearly $25 billion. The use and cost of medicines may increase significantly if manufacturers are allowed to advertise prescription drugs directly to consumers as they do in the United States.

CanWest MediaWorks is challenging laws that prohibit direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) in Canada. Come discuss important questions with leading experts.

What is known about the effects of DTCA: What justifies the ban on advertising? What can we learn from other industries? How would DTCA affect the doctor-patient relationship?

Admission free; RSVP required by Friday, Feb. 29

rsvp@chspr.ubc.ca or 604-827-4472

Arrive early! Discussion starts

at 7:15 p.m. sharp. Refreshments served

Please circulate widely to friends and contacts, especially general public/community members who might wish to take part

Panelists:

Dr. Barbara Mintzes

Assistant Professor

UBC Therapeutics Initiative

Dr. Rick Pollay

Professor Emeritus (Marketing)

Sauder School of Business UBC

Dr. Andrew Wilkenson Q.C.

Partner, McCarthy Tétrault, Vancouver

Former Deputy Minister

British Columbia Ministry of Economic Development

Dr. Alan Katz MB CHB, MSC, CCFP, FCFP

Family Physician

Associate Professor

Departments of Family Medicine and

Community Health Sciences

University of Manitoba

Moderator:

Dr. Colleen M. Flood

Scientific Director,

CIHR’s Institute of Health Services and Policy Research

Canada Research Chair in Comparative Health Law and Policy,

University of Toronto

The CRTC has ordered Vancouver Co-op Radio to attend a public hearing next month or risk losing its operating license.

The CRTC ordered Co-op radio to appear at next month’s hearing after the regulator calculated that Co-op radio broadcast 32.8 percent Canadian content in the category of “general music” during the week November 5 to 11, 2006. The station is required to broadcast 35 percent Canadian content in this category. […]

“It is unfortunate that the Commission’s resources only allowed for one spot check during our 4-year license term,” the station stated to the CRTC in one document. “As such, the week that was chosen for the spot check did not accurately reflect our regular programming.”

The station also claimed that the regulator did not consider “spoken word poetry pieces” and “sound art pieces” to be Canadian content even though they were “entirely Canadian productions”. […]

Co-op radio informed the CRTC in one document that less than 10 percent of its programming focuses on the category of “general music”. Almost half (47.5 percent) of its airtime is allocated to locally produced spoken-word programming. Another 37 percent is music that doesn’t fall into the CRTC category of “general music”.

“So there is a disproportionate amount of focus on the Canadian Content of this relatively small portion of our programming,” the station stated.

Back in June, a group of activists in the Lower Mainland distributed a parody issue of the Vancouver Sun, highlighting what they saw as the paper’s strong pro-Israel bias. As you can see, it was extremely well-executed. When I saw a copy at a local cafe, it took me a few moments (and a closer examination of the content) to realize that it was a parody. This press release from the Palestine Media Collective has more details.

Unfortunately, the giant media corporation that owns the Vancouver Sun is suing the parody’s creators.

A writ of summons filed by CanWest Mediaworks Publications alleges that long-time left-wing activist Mordecai Briemberg, other unidentified activists and Horizon Publications conspired to produce and distribute a phoney edition of The Vancouver Sun on June 7, 2007. […]

The suit said the defendants were “motivated by hostility to the principal shareholders of the plaintiff and by a desire to undermine, or hurt, the business of the plaintiff and its principal shareholders.”

The plaintiff’s writ, submitted by lawyer David Church, said Briemberg and six other unidentified people are involved in anti-Israeli, pro-Palestinian media activities.

The writ alleges that the defendants “harbour antagonistic views towards the plaintiff, its principal shareholders and the reporting and editorial opinions expressed in the plaintiff’s publications, including in The Vancouver Sun.”

Just as a reminder, CanWest owns the Vancouver Sun, the Vancouver Province, the Vancouver Courier, the Victoria Times-Colonist, the National Post, the Ottawa Citizen, and a few dozen other major and minor Canadian newspapers — not to mention Global (one of the major Canadian television networks) and several cable TV channels. Clearly they have trouble with the concept of dissenting opinions.