Slashdot Mirror
Outgoing CRTC Head Says Technology Is Eroding Canadian Culture
Patchw0rk F0g writes "Canada's outgoing CRTC head, Konrad von Finckenstein, has some choice words for his successor: Internet and wireless technology has disarmed federal regulators of their weapons to protect cultural identity. The retiring Finckenstein cites over-the-top broadcasting, new Internet technologies and (perhaps most importantly) the fact that the CRTC is antiquated and can't keep up with these emerging technologies as factors in the (still)-growing culture-loss of Canada to the U.S. 'We have now moved into an era where the consumer is in control, and where thanks to the Internet and mobile devices, you cannot control access any more,' he said in one of his last interviews."
"Technology is eroding the iron hegemony of Bell and Rogers! Sheeple Canadians are starting to wake up and realize they are being bent over a barrel and are getting restless!"
The CRTC is an unelected, largely unaccountable old-boy's club for power-players and lobbyists from Bell and Rogers. The CRTC's only mandate is protecting the duopoly of Rogers and Bell, nothing else.
This is a guy who's trying to stop the wheel of time from turning.
Why is the US pointed at as the reason for their culture loss? I'd agree that the internet is causing some culture loss, but you could also counter by saying it is causing culture gains. I know personally my life has been impacted by the culture of different nations due to the readily accessible nature of information on the computer. In my house you would think it more Asian than American due to the internet.
I also see this at my kids school. Both in style of dress and the behavior of the kids.
While I do agree that it is important to know where you come from, I don't think it is wrong to embrace other cultures. In essence isn't that pretty much where all culture stems from, the exchange of ideas?
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
The consumer ( aka normal people) are in control of their own decisions about information and culture?
Oh no, whatever will we do.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
I'm a native born white Canadian living in one of the most multicultural cities in the world and I can't stand the CRTC. Living here for 25+ years, I don't even know what Canadian culture is, let alone why we need a bureaucracy to defend it. The only people the CRTC are serving are hacky television writers whose shows get put on CBC and cancelled a year later. They are completely out of touch with reality and need to go.
If the dollar is an "I owe you nothing", then the Euro is a "Who owes you nothing." - Doug Casey
As a Canadian, here's the solution I'd suggest:
Stop trying to force Canadian content on Canadians!
If the content is good and provides something consumers want then it'll be a success. If it's Canadian-created filler crap then it won't, regardless of how forcefully it's stuffed down our throats.
And don't claim that Canadian content can't be successful on it's own because that's just bullshit. Just look at the music industry to see lots of Canadian content that's successful south of the border for the most glaring example.
'We have now moved into an era where the consumer is in control, and where thanks to the Internet and mobile devices, you cannot control access any more,' he said in one of his last interviews."
You say that like it's a bad thing, Konrad.
Trailer park boys.
Basically Canada is still going through issues trying to figure out what it means to be Canadian. A large part of how many Canadians seem to define themselves as as "not American" hence the "little brother" syndrome I talk about. They are like a little kid who is saying what they are is the things the big kid is not.
This isn't such a problem for the average man on the street, of course, but it is a big issue for the government and various folks. They have a real issue with trying to decide what it is to be Canadian and protecting that. There are even things like laws requiring a certain amount of content on TV and radio to be Canadian in origin.
Canadian what?
"We have now moved into an era where the consumer is in control, and where thanks to the Internet and mobile devices, you cannot control access any more,' he said in one of his last interviews."
Good. Out with the old, in with the new. Seeya, sucker.
I would like someone to define "Canadian culture" for me, because I can't seem to find a single one that you can call "Canadian."
Is it English Canada or French Canada, or is it Polish, Scottish, Chinese, or Malaysian?
That's not to even bring up Greek Town over by Queen St East.
Ouzo for everyone!
--
BMO
Battlestar Galactica, SG......
I'll back up your point about successful Canadian content here in the US. I've also noticed an interesting side-effect of the CanCon rules . . . There's a hell of a lot of CanCon on American TV. A lot of it is pretty good, and you wouldn't notice it except for the northern accents (which don't vary that much from northern states) and an occasinoal "eh", more frequent on documentary/reality shows (e.g. anything with Mike Holmes) than on works of fiction.
www.wavefront-av.com
Many governments around the world are trying to control the internet, to stifle the democratization of information and access. In the end they will lose.
Apparently I've been wrong since 2003. Kenny vs Spenny is somehow "culture."
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
There is more to it than that; we're more socialist, and less warlike. We have a smaller percentage of visible blowhards among our citizens travelling the world as tourists. We don't have isolationism or protectionism as a political philosophy. We don't (and honestly, couldn't if we wanted to) support puppet dictatorships to further our own ends.
Of course, the USA is a big place. So is Canada. Both countries have a wide variety of cultures within them, and I'm speaking only of the 'international persona' of the two nations.
Also, 'Eh' went out of style a long time ago. And we have milk in bags.
They aren't losing to American culture, American media makes "anti-culture" defined by self-interest, reactionary thought, celebration of ignorance, 0-empathy thinking, and vengeance over justice.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Did he actually manage to make that sound like a bad thing?
All the posts I'm reading are "Canada has no culture". Seriously?
Of course Canada has a culture; Quebec has a more unique example, but for English Canada there are a lot of cultural similarities between their culture and the United States' culture, so most of those characteristics are subsumed under the US cultural umbrella. Canada's resulting perceived culture is more fragmented, less in your face than other cultures. We could easily lose these fragments and become more 'international' (though most English speaking Canadians get information from english speaking countries, so that means the US and UK mostly). All nationalist cultures will face this in the coming years.
The question, really, is does this constitute a problem? It's a question of identity: 'what cultural groups do you identify with?'. Nationalism has a very real hold on our identity. We need that feeling of belonging to something, and everybody is born into a nation. However, online experience has already show us that 'virtual reality' provides that feeling of belonging and the groups with which we identify and to which we belong have changed drastically. This is a fragmentation of previous groups, and of course the previously established cultural groups are going to fight back.
Of course, the results of this fragmentation remain to be seen. Maybe it's better to belong to a group that all your neighbours belong to so that we share something in common with them, and some weak nationalism has a greater value then we currently understand. Maybe the explosion of smaller groups will allow a stronger connection within the group while a weaker without. I personally think that both are useful, and that Canadians should want to understand their culture, just as all other nations should want to understand their own culture. Having to legislate it in fear of losing it shows mistrust on one side and disinterest on the other, an ugly combination.
It would appear that the Canadians are eroding Canadian culture by choosing American products(is it even logically coherent to be able to erode 'your' own culture? Is it even logically coherent for a population as large and geographically dispersed as Canada to have 'a' culture?).
Lest my opening mislead, though, I would argue that the technological developments that the CRTC flunkie is complaining about are eroding the CRTC's ability to 'protect' 'Canadian culture'; but they are also eroding any need(we can argue about whether there ever was one; but there is a framework for arguing that there was) for that ability at the same time and by the same means.
Traditionally, 'culture' came in two flavors: small-scale, organic, locally-produced stuff, which is produced spontaneously, for basically nothing, for some mixture of pleasure and local consumption. Interaction with any broader market is limited; but capital costs are virtually zero, and operating costs are subsistence level. The other flavor, substantially newer, was the 'national culture' which really only existed in a coherent sense with the advent of modern printing technology, reliable mail, radio, TV, national distribution networks for recorded media, etc. This stuff is almost exclusively produced as an economic matter(even if some author or violinist or something does it for the love of the art, it ain't getting printed, taped, or mass-distributed unless some bean-counter says so). Its production and distribution tend to be moderately to heavily capital intensive, fairly centralized, and with considerable economies of scale.
Now, if you give any credence to the argument that the preservation of 'national culture'(to the degree that such an animal exists, and to the degree that such an animal is seen as "authentic" rather than as a bland, homogenous, destroyer of small-scale local cultures within the nation), Canada had a problem: traditional broadcast media and mass-market printed matter all reward capital investment and economies of scale(marginal cost of a paperback or an additional listener, fuck-all. Fixed cost of media empire or initial production, huge). Since the US is much larger, population wise, and modestly wealthier, it makes overwhelming economic sense that most of the 'culture' companies would be large US conglomerates producing 'American'(whatever that means in this context) culture tailored to appeal to American customers, and sold incidentally to anybody else who was interested. Thus, a competition between the 'Canadian' and the 'American' mass-culture businesses would likely favor the 'American' ones(the scare quotes are because, as businesses, the locations barely matter, they are probably both Delaware corporations operating as subsidies of multinationals headquartered at a P.O. box in the Cayman Islands, their 'location' just refers to their intended market). Now, America happens to have been historically superb at such contests(being reasonably populous, quite wealthy per-capita, and good at grabbing creative people from various messy collapses into war and mayhem of the 20th century); but the phenomenon isn't uniquely American, the same outcome would hold between any two nearby countries of sharply dissimilar market size with competing mass-culture industries.
However, the various effects of the internet(which do weaken the CRTC's abilities) also weaken the traditional dynamics of mass-culture sale. If the only way for something to hit the radio is because ClearChannel decides to put it there, Canadian music might have a problem. If technology radically reduces the cost of production and distribution of mass culture, it suddenly becomes much easier for the organic, local, semi-recreational, Canadian grassroots cultural producers to spread their stuff far and wide. Even if the means by which they do so are scary American companies, those scary American companies now exert much less cultural pressure. An American record label isn't going to
I'm happy to see that the CRTC has failed in their mission to shove their vision of "Canadian culture" down our throats so far. I'm even happier to see the CBC sweating as they are getting grilled by Sun News as to how they account for the billion + a year they get from taxpayers.
But I suppose since I'm not First Nations or Quebecuois, I'm just not good enough to be considered part of Canadian culture in their eyes.
If it were up to these guys, all that would be on Canadian tv would be Road To Avonlea and Corner Gas.
No but in Canada it's great to have many options available:
- Indian .....
- Chinese
- Vietnamese
- German
- Mexican
- Nepalese
- Malaysian
- Brasilian
- Korean
- Ukranian
- Peruvian
I know there are more, but those are the ones I have tried here in Vancouver and just in a radius of 3 to 4 blocks from where I live.
Only in Canada we are fortunate to have these options.
Wanna bet?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Globalization for the past couple thousand years have seems to be a factor in changing cultures for quite a while.
And there are always people who get pissed off by this natural effect.
You get those crazy Romans who take over a culture, if they didn't kill every man, woman and child, usually caused a portion of their culture to rub off to the entire roman empire, although the conquered people usually get the biggest culture shift. However if the mighty Roman Empire could be switched to Christianity, which has been a small sect in an outskirt territory. Putting all debates about religion aside it shows how globalization effects all cultures involved.
So now in the 21st century We have near instant globalization of ideas and products. So cultures are changing. They are not going away but they are changing and are being effected by outside sources. Americans know about the music and shows available in Japan, or in India, we can talk to people from these areas and make friends of them. Also vice-verse a lot of countries that are newer to globalization feel more threaten then others, because their culture has been isolated for so long that their culture has been the same for a long time, however forces are causing it to change. Ideas on morality, politics, and stereotypes are becoming more diverse and the culture is changing to either accept these new ideas or reject them... But these new ideas are out there to be thought about, and they are changing culture more rapidly then what everyone was used to.
Many Americans are threatened by the ideas from Asia and the Middle East, as well these groups are threatened by Western ideas. They put to call our ideas of morality and what is right and wrong.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Canada could have had British Culture, French Cuisine, and American Technology. Instead, they settled for American Culture, British Cuisine, and French Technology.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
It would be a grim irony if obsessing about your object of scorn brought about your untimely demise. Perhaps yoga or mild sedatives might be an option?
What's really funny is, the US has long since lost it's various cultures. When I was a kid, traveling meant meeting people who spoke differently, thought differently, people with different histories and cultures.
Today? There is little variance between a fast food restaurant in New York or LA, and there is little difference in culture along any route between the two cities.
I wouldn't be smug about any nation becoming like America, because we've lost much more than we gained in the last 50 years.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
I have never seen a US city consider making public services free on a holiday
Maybe you should look harder?
http://totaltrafficla.com/2011/12/31/free-bus-train-rides-for-new-years-eve/21231
http://www.sfmta.com/cms/malerts/SFMuniNewYearsEve.htm
https://www.google.com/search?q=free+new+years+taxi
Well, I'd say we gained a lot in the last 50 years. It's just that it's in the waistline due to horrible food lobbying (not for me though, thankfully), which people are grossly unaware of.
Meanwhile, the US's culture is an amalgam of other cultures. That by definition, is their culture. Want to create $culture in an area? Go do it. Simple.
In all honesty those locations and other highly populated cities have the broadest variance in food versus the rest of the country, so I respectfully disagree on concept. Big cities are the definition of melting pot and where culture diversity tends to be the highest, even statistically. On this, you are backwards.
I sincerely pray that more and more countries rebel against the US - not through violence but outright rejection of our politics, because I don't see the US fixing that matter anytime soon, even when Lawrence Lessig and others points it out directly.
Actually I think the funny part is complaining that CANADIANS are eroding their own cultural by exercising their personal choice.
When an entire culture makes a choice, why would anyone presume to object?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Everything's derivative at best. I would argue that The Colbert Report and The Daily Show are derivative of This Hour Has 22 Minutes. I also wouldn't call shows like Kids in the Hall short lived when it aired for 6 years.
Saying Canada has no culture and that anyone of sufficient talent ends up in the US and effectively becomes more "American" than their country of origin is a pretty nonsensical statement. The NHL is filled with primarily Canadian players but most of the teams are American. Does that make all those Canadians playing in the US more "American"? Does it make hockey more "American"?
Canada's culture is one of individualism, tolerance and acceptance. The nation needed bilingualism to survive from it's very early stages and because it was much slower to be settled than the US, the native populations thrived much longer and had much more influence on Canada as nation. Multiculturalism is built into the foundation of the country, which can't be said of most other countries in the world (especially not the US which aimed to be a giant melting pot that assimilated other cultures into their own rather than preserve and nurture individual cultural groups).
The British aren't known for lumberjacks, beavers, poutine or long harsh winters the last time I checked. They had no Terry Fox, Tragically Hip, RCMP or Anne of Green Gables. For such a small nation Canada has produced a wealth of artists, musicians, authors, comedians, athletes, television shows and film. If you're blind to it, then that's a shame but Canada has culture and it's a lot deeper and more complicated than you seem to realize.
Actually, Military Historian John Keegan said in Fields of Battle: The Wars for North America, that the spread of chain establishments has done a lot to create a single unified American culture that strengthens the US and makes it less likely to splinter like it did in the 1860s or the Balkins did in the 1990s.
A person born in Mississippi who joins the Army and goes to Kansas and then Washington and finally to Alaska during their deployment have the familiar stores and restaurants so they don't feel as much like an outsider.
Keegan is a British historian and he observed how that ubiquity of chains in the US is so alien to a European that he saw it as a strength.