How Canadians Communicate IV: Media and Politics ed. by David Taras and Christopher Waddell (review)

This book arose out of a conference jointly organised by Athabasca University and the Alberta Global Forum, and is one of a series on the topic 'How Canadians Communicate'.

Newspapers are struggling to survive throughout the Western world: the financial bedrock of classified advertising has been eroded by online providers; competition from television and radio is increasing; the young prefer to avoid print journalism. As if that were not enough, newspapers made the fatal mistake of offering much of their own content online for free, and although most of them have now imposed charges, the damage has been done. And even if they had all imposed access charges from the start, the availability at no charge of broadcasters' news sites - for example those of the BBC and CBC - is a strong incentive to potential customers to avoid newspaper sites. The consequences of this situation in Canada are lamented by Florian Sauvageau, while Christopher Waddell demonstrates that cutbacks by newspaper companies and by the CBC (as a consequence of declines in government funding) have meant that there are simply not enough journalists currently working in Canada to provide the basic news services nationally, regionally and locally, which are essential for a functioning democracy. A chapter written by Waddell and his co-editor David Taras argues that the problem has been compounded by the way in which political journalists covered the 2011 election: the concentration on leaders' tours and opinion polls, to the exclusion of substantive discussion of the important issues facing the country, could only increase voter alienation and contribute to the low turnout, although the leaders' debates on television are regarded by the authors as useful and informative. In another chapter Robert Bergen offers a disquieting analysis of how the Canadian armed forces have developed a system where 'operational security' makes censorship unnecessary; he laments the decline in the number of reporters with specialist military knowledge.

Given the book's origins, it is hardly surprising that there is a significant emphasis on Alberta. Tom Flanagan, the Calgary University professor who has served as Stephen Harper's chief of staff, contributes a fascinating chapter on pre-writ advertising - much of it negative - and on the growth of permanent campaigning, which he attributes to the minority situation in which the first Harper administration found itself. The negativity of much campaigning is to be found also in online blogs and in the parties' use of the Internet generally. One is driven back to the obvious conclusion: democracy requires good professional journalists doing their job.

The Alberta aspect is pursued in a number of other chapters and the book's appeal is greatly strengthened by chapters on, for example, recent Quebec film and what it tells us about the shifting nature of Québécois identity, the changing nature of political biography in Canada, and -in a beautifully illustrated essay - Aboriginal story-work.

All in all, a stimulating and wide-ranging volume.