Throughout the history of mass media in Canada, the industry has emerged as weak and easily susceptible of the dominance of American media. Canadian mass media began from a need for national communication and yet now serves as a fragmenting, regionalizing entity. This article will examine some of the many forms of cultural fragmentation that take place due to the structure of Canada's mass media industry; such as English / French separation, multicultural separation, provincial / regional alienation, and foreign influence. As well, this article will identify the cultural bonding aspects of communication in Canada such as: the overcoming of geography, and bilingual access to media.

The Canadian mass media includes books, newspapers, magazines, radio, film, television, E-mail / Internet, and other industries which serve to provide information to people on a large scale, at a rapid pace. The mass communications industry provide entertainment, information and education, organization, culture values and beliefs, and advertising. The ability of the mass media to reach all Canadians has made this industry an integral and essential part of Canadian life. National culture is found through the social acts of a country. Canada, before the emergence of mass media, had many social customs, traditions and rites. The participation in mass media (the act of reading a book or watching television) is time consuming and directly stops us from participating in other social events. Mass media is mostly an individual experience. Though we may watch television or films in groups, the impact is largely unique to each viewer. In this way we become more fragmented then pre-mass media society, that actively interacted to communicate.

Canada is a vast country with a strong multiculturalism policy, many distinct regions, and heavy foreign influence. The size of Canada has shaped much of Canadians' way of life. Communications could not develop easily or naurally in Canada and therefore Canada relies greatly on technological innovations to bond the country in a communicative society. Canada has been divided into Provinces and Territories which have extremely different terrains, climates, economies and cultures. These differences create conflicting interests and misunderstandings. The location of population in Canada also causes a regionalistic, isolated identity between Canadians. Canadians predominantly live in southern Canada, stretched along the United States border. Much of Canada's land is empty and there are a few very small pockets of people residing in small towns in central and northern Canada. Canadians who do not live within the masses along the border are very isolated and rely heavily on mass media for contact.

The sheer size of Canada is not the only hindrance to creating a viable and healthy communications system. The distance between rural areas are expensive to give access to the various mass media. In the beginning of the newspaper industry in Canada it was easiest to have a newspaper printed in each region instead of attempting to create a national newspaper that would be expensive to distribute accross all of Canada. Presently there is still no popular national newspaper, though the Globe and Mail has attempted to be one. It appears that instead of a national newspaper Canada has invested in many regional newspapers that are owned by a few individuals. The result is similar to national newspaper presence in that a small amount of newspaper owners are making all the money from sales, but each regional newspaper caters to the specific needs of their regions, and information may change drastically from paper to paper.

Television offers a more national perspective. Each region has a number of television stations but each is a participant in a ntional network. This allows shows to be seen in all areas of Canada and has contributed to televion becoming the number one source of media generated culture in Canada. Television still has a fragmenting nature about it in Canada due to bilingualism and more recently in specialty channels which cater to our multicultural population.

The English and French people of Canada each have distinct stations which cater to their needs and provide support structures for their observations and opinions regarding regional, provincial, national and international events. Information and value judgements made on television vary directly with the cultural group being aimed at. This cultural targetting through language occurs in all mass media industries. It seems to fragment Canada yet simultaneously it preserves our nation as a multicultural country and provides support for some cultural identity ona regionalized or provincial level.

Providing mass media services in the two official languages of Canada is a costly process. As we know it was already expensive to hook up Canadians because of the geography and population distribution, but to provide servic ein both languages requires double the stations, newspapers, etc. and still the remoteness must be conquered in each area.

Foreign influence of mass media has contriibuted greatly to the fragmentation of Canada. There are many factors behind how America began to dominate Canada's mass media industry. As most Canadians live closely to the Canadian / American border, the American readio stations and later the television stations were able to produce strong signals over many frequencies. The American mass media developed quickly and gained much capital due to the economies of scale found in the United States. Their programming was tradionally more exciting then the lower buget Canadian equivalents. Canadians who have access to American programming (which was and still is many) consistently chose it over Canadian.

In some corcumstances purchasing American pre-made programming is substatially cheaper then creating Canadian programming. Often viewership is higher for American programs; advertising is more plentiful and thre are no production costs other then the purchase price of the program. Canadians have attempted to create orignal works to show and sell to foreign media but this industry has not proved to be successful. For the most part Canadian productions are cheap imitations of American shows.

The purchasing of outside programming continues to be problematic for Canada. According to the Association of Canadian Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA) in 1978's CTV liscencing renewal hearings for the CRTC...

CTV was Canada's first private owned network. Through out its existence it has ignored the CRTC's suggestions as well as taken them to court in attempt to nullify their jurisdiction.

Canada has traditionally had trouble describing its national identity. Canada does not seem to express itself due to the cultural imperialism produced by the American dominance of our mass media.

Canada has sought to overcome its difficulties through legislation and technology. The problems of geography and size have been minimized through our natural support of the mass communications technology industry. We use space and time binding methods for all communication to all parts of Canada (yet also the world) instantaneously, originally through the telegraph and most recently through E-mail and the internet. Communication is constantly becoming bigger, faster and cheaper for Canada.

Canada has introduced a number of legislative procedures to protect Canada's mass media. Most of this legislature recognizes that Canada's national culture and identity must not only be protected through mass media regulations but promoted as well. The creation of the CRTC and the CBC stemmed from this need. The CRTC has initiated Canadian content requirements which have been largely ineffective in the television industry but not in the popular music industry. In other mass medias the Canadian industry has been retarded by the swamping effect of American productions. In the Canadian popular music industry, there simply wasn't much of a pre-existing industry so CRTC's Canadian-content regulations actually stimulated the industry. I've heard anecdotal evidence that when the Canadian content rule first came out, radio stations had only Anne Murray songs to play!

The CBC seems to be the only Canadian television station that plays Canadian programming. It has been criticised for being less exciting and entertaining as its private counterparts. Still most Canadians see the value the CBC brings to Canadian culture. It provides the potential outlet for all Canadian programming. Lately the CBC has been given smaller budgets to work with and I fear this trend of reducing financing for public work is yet another example of American influence.

The Canadian government has not always been the best protector of Canadian culture but the Canadian private business owners seem to be the worst offenders. Profit always seems to be the most important factor and there's never a limit where they've made enough money.

The most effective protection for Canada's cultural industries has come from government legislation which prevents foreign ownership of Canadian mass media. Our extensive communications system has allowed international flooding of foreign culture which is by far the most threatening to our loss of culture and the fragmenting nature of this same commincations system has kept us aware of each other and bonded in such a way as to always search for a truly Canadian identity.