Communication History in Canada

by Robinson, Daniel J.

• ISBN13: 9780195419290
• ISBN10: 0195419294
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-10-28
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

A distinctive blend of history, geography, government, economics, and biculturalism meant that communication systems and the mass media evolved differently in Canada than in either the United States or Europe. Bringing together twenty-six articles that range in subject from colonial newspapers in the early 1800s to music television in the 1980s, Communication History in Canada provides the historical foundation for a thorough contextual analysis of modern-day media and communication in this country. From Marshall McLuhan and Harold Innis to Mary Vipond and Will Straw, the authors in this volume represent a wide cross-section of disciplines, including history, communication studies, sociology, journalism, political science, and film studies. Their essays are grouped in five sections: Time, Space, Technology, and Nation, which explores the relationship between media, society, and human thought; Postal Systems and Telecommunications, which centres on the telegraph, the telephone, and computers; Print Mass Media, which describes the origins and diffusion of newspapers and magazines, with a particular emphasis on commercialization through advertising and market research; Broadcast Media, which charts the rise of radio broadcasting in the inter-war years and of television broadcasting from the 1950s through the 1980s; and Cultural Industries, which examines film and sound recording.

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Section I Time, Space, Technology, and Nation	1	(40)
Interpreting Aboriginal Cultures	4	(9)
Gerald Friesen
From Empire and Communications	13	(5)
Harold A. Innis
Thinking about Technology	18	(4)
George Grant
From Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man	22	(6)
Marshall McLuhan
Technological Nationalism	28	(13)
Maurice Charland
Section II Postal Systems and Telecommunications	41	(46)
Lowering `the Walls of Oblivion': The Revolution in Postal Communications in Central Canada, 1851--1911	44	(9)
Brian Osborne
Robert Pike
Back to the Future: Telecommunications, Online Information Services, and Convergence from 1840 to 1910	53	(13)
Dwayne Winseck
Communication and Social Forms: The Development of the Telephone, 1876--1920	66	(11)
Michele Martin
Prophets Without Honour? Canadian Policy Makers and the First Information Highway, 1969--1975	77	(10)
Laurence B. Mussio
Section III Print Mass Media	87	(76)
`The Most Powerful Engine of the Human Mind': The Press and Its Readers	92	(12)
Jeffrey L. McNairn
Public Myth and Private Reality	104	(10)
Minko Sotiron
Newspapers, Advertising, and the Rise of the Agency, 1850--1900	114	(12)
Russell Johnston
Polling Consumers: The Rise of Market Research Surveys in Canada, 1929--1941	126	(13)
Daniel J. Robinson
`I told you so': Newspaper Ownership in Canada and the Kent Commission Twenty Years Later	139	(5)
Richard Keshen
Kent MacAskill
The Special Role of Magazines in the History of Canadian Mass Media and National Development	144	(7)
Peter Desbarats
`Mrs Chatelaine' vs `Mrs Slob': Contestants, Correspondents, and the Chatelaine Community in Action, 1961--1969	151	(12)
Valerie J. Korinek
Section IV Broadcast Media	163	(62)
`Who is to Pay for Broadcasting?'	168	(9)
Mary Vipond
Graham Spry and Public Broadcasting	177	(10)
Robert W. McChesney
Constructing Community and Consumers: Joseph R. Smallwood's Barrelman Radio Program	187	(10)
Jeff A. Webb
Public-Service Broadcasting as a Modern Project: A Case Study of Early Public-Affairs Television in Canada	197	(10)
David Hogarth
`And Now a Word from Our Sponsor'	207	(7)
Paul Rutherford
Rock the Nation: MuchMusic, Cultural Policy, and the Development of English-Canadian Music Video Programming, 1979--1984	214	(11)
Ira Wagman
Section V Cultural Industries: Film and Sound Recording	225	(40)
John Grierson and the National Film Board: The Politics of Wartime Propaganda	228	(6)
Gary Evans
A `Featureless' Film Policy: Culture and the Canadian State	234	(10)
Ted Magder
The English-Canadian Recording Industry since 1970	244	(9)
Will Straw
`Dream, Comfort, Memory, Despair': Canadian Popular Musicians and the Dilemma of Nationalism, 1968--1972	253	(12)
Robert A. Wright
Appendix Government Documents	265	(1)
Report of the Royal Commission on Radio Broadcasting	265	(12)
From Report of the Royal Commission on National Development in Arts, Letters, and Sciences	277	(4)
The Marriage of Computers and Communications	281	(7)
Contributors	288	(2)
Index	290