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Reviewed by:
  • Alternative Media in Canada ed. by Kirsten Kozolanka, Patricia Mazepa, and David Skinner
  • James Winter (bio)
Kirsten Kozolanka, Patricia Mazepa, and David Skinner. eds. Alternative Media in Canada. University of British Columbia Press. x, 338. $90

Given that I created Flipside, an online alternative medium in the 1990s, and have created and taught courses on alternative media, it’s quite clear to me that more books and research on alternative media are sorely needed. So this text is a welcome contribution. It has several interesting and informative chapters.

The chapter on Indigenous media by Marian Bredin at Brock University, for example, provides historical, regulatory, political economic, neo-colonial, and cultural contexts, as well as exploring case studies of such organizations as Igloolik Isuma Productions, Canada’s first independent Inuit production company for films and TV series, and the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network.

Barbara Freeman of Carleton University writes on the legacy of long-running feminist periodicals, such as Vancouver’s Kinesis, Toronto’s Broadside, and Pandora in Halifax, and their attempts to counter the lamestream media’s neglect or negative view of women and feminism.

Karim Karim, also at Carleton, ponders the question of whether ethnic media are alternative. His answer? Yes, “where they engage with issues relating to social justice.” Along the way, Karim provides an intelligent discussion of issues revolving around ethnicity, multiculturalism, and diasporic media.

The editors have, however, made some curious decisions, such as the inclusion of a full chapter on The Real News, an American news operation based in Washington, DC, and New York, with one or two token Canadian stories monthly. Why not include Z-Communications, a leader in North American alternative media, with Canadian contributors such as Justin Podur? Meanwhile, Straight Goods and Prairie Dog aren’t mentioned, while Rabble gets one paragraph, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives gets one sentence, as does Canadian Dimension (celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year). Likewise, Briarpatch, The Tyee, and The Dominion are only very briefly mentioned. The Canadian Forum, a historical stalwart, is missing altogether. Michel Chossudovsky and his Global Research website (globalresearch.ca) are significant omissions. [End Page 475]

Here’s the point: to a considerable extent, these are the alternative media in Canada. So how can one write a book on this topic and barely mention them?

The editors set out a number of critical questions about alternative media that they propose to answer: What conditions inform and sustain them? How does policy affect their survival? How do their practices and structures contribute to society? How do they challenge, subvert, circumvent, and undermine the power of dominant media?

Why not interview the people working at these media and ask them these questions in a chapter? How about several chapters on these media?

The editors list alternative media as “newspapers, radio, television, film, and magazines.” But what about books? Ralph Klein is mentioned but not Naomi Klein. There is no mention of Linda McQuaig, the icon of alternative journalism, who fled the lamestream to publish her own books, and virtually nothing on documentary films, aside from Bredin’s chapter.

In addition, we read here about Mattelart, Bourdieu, Foucault, and Lacan but not Chomsky: a curious omission for those ostensibly studying power. As Chomsky said in Understanding Power, “when I read … Derrida, or Lacan, or Althusser, or any of these – I just don’t understand it. It’s like words passing in front of my eyes: I can’t follow the arguments, I don’t see the arguments, anything that looks like a description of a fact looks wrong to me. So maybe I’m missing a gene or something, it’s possible. But my honest opinion is, I think it’s all fraud.”

This book is welcomed, and needed. Perhaps, like Chomsky, I’m missing a gene. But it’s very difficult for me to fathom these highly significant omissions. A second edition or another book is required to do justice to the topic.

James Winter
Department of Communication Media and Film, University of Windsor
James Winter

James Winter, Department of Communication, Media and Film, University of Windsor

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