Communicating in Canada's Past: Essays in Media History

Through the years, there has been an extensive amount of research devoted to the history of media and communication in Canada However, the research has been quite narrow in focus, as suggested by [Gene Allen] & Daniel J. Robinson, the editors of Communicating in Canada's Past: Essays in Med...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Canadian journal of communication 2011, Vol.36 (4), p.677
Main Author: Bonin, Geneviève A
Format: Review
Language:English
Subjects:
Advertisements
Advertising
Advertising campaigns
Allen, Gene
Broadcasting
Brochures
Canadian history
Communication
Complex systems
Culture
Elections
Empirical analysis
Essays
Media
Media coverage
National identity
News media
Nonfiction
Robinson, Daniel J
Television programming
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Summary:Through the years, there has been an extensive amount of research devoted to the history of media and communication in Canada However, the research has been quite narrow in focus, as suggested by [Gene Allen] & Daniel J. Robinson, the editors of Communicating in Canada's Past: Essays in Media History. Most of what has been written about media history has been built around a variety of technologies and has primarily looked at the content of their outputs. The objective of this book, therefore, is to emphasize the wide-ranging scope of current and future research in this field by providing the first collection of original papers on Canadian media history that surpass the notion of media as "end products or content" to present media as "integrated, complex systems involving production and dissemination" (p. 5). Although the book's content is diverse, there is a continuous discourse that unites the texts, as illustrated by empirical and theoretical evidence of a so-called "cultural shift." Daniel Robinson's paper on Seagram advertising campaigns promoting moderate drinking seems a bit out of context after reading the preceding papers, which are primarily about news and broadcasting. Nevertheless, given the book's objective, it is fitting. Furthermore, advertising does have an important link to broadcasting that one could tap into if so inclined. But, in its own right, studying the art and meaning of Seagram ads opens a window onto the Bronfman family and the Canadian social dynamic of the times. This paper is timely as it comes on the heels of a dissertation called "Known by the Company It Keeps: Popularizing Seagram in the Canadian Imagination" by Lisa Sumner (McGiIl University). In a similar fashion, James Cairns' paper (the seventh in the book) not only captures the look and feel of election campaign pamphlets in Ontario, but also provides a useful theoretical and empirical framework for analyzing these media.
ISSN:0705-3657
1499-6642