Canada's Propaganda Machine Bleeds into the Internet

 In my first official blog post, I talked about Canadian YouTuber and former Canadian political pundit, J.J. McCullough and his stances on Canadian insecurities about their national image and reputation. This week, I wanted to cover an ongoing saga in his channel as my topic directly affects J.J. and shows his involvement in the issue thus far. Nicholas Seles covers part of the issue in his short article "Why Bill C-11 - the Online Streaming Act - is bad news for Canadian YouTubers like Myself." He begins by stating Bill C-11 is legislation designed to promote exclusively Canadian content, or "CanCon" in the world of streaming. The federal government plans to do this by putting internet media under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. This commission is in charge of ensuring television and radio companies promote pro-Canadian content in terms of content itself, contributors, and location. The commission will be responsible for enacting and enforcing an arbitrary rubric that will determine if content is "Canadian" enough. 

The issues and critiques of this bill has me thinking about the work of Dunaway and Graber and their perspective on the role of media, which is that it will “often serve as attitude and behavior models. The images that media create suggest which views and behaviors are acceptable and even praiseworthy and which are outside the mainstream” (Dunaway and Graber 5). It feels like Canada takes this to a degree that will inadvertently harm online Canadian creators as a result. YouTubers already have to navigate through a fickle algorithm, and their content will be further hidden by the restrictions of the Canadian Government. Many believe that it is also not the role of the government to dictate the nature of cheap, independent content in the country. It is also not evident that promoting Canadian content over others will boost revenue for Canadian content creators, but instead will hurt their revenue as they take a hit in international views as well. J.J. has testified before the Canadian Parliament and Senate, and the bill is close to passing both chambers to be eventually signed into law. More Canadians accept the Dunaway and Graber perspective to be the standard role of Canadian media than Americans would about their media, but it is thanks to people like J.J. that there is resistance to this narrative.

Signing off,

Jake Hughes

References

Dunaway, Johanna L., and Doris Appel Graber. Mass Media and American Politics., CQ Press, 2022.