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Tyson Kelsall
Culture Editor

ack in May, Harper's

Conservatives passed legislation
to give themselves complete control
over the working conditions, including
the salaries of workers, within crown
corporations. The CBC, Canada Post,
and Via Rail felt the greatest impact of
what is called Bill C-60. Parry Sound-
Muskoka, MP, and the President of the
Treasure Board, Tony Clement have
come out and said, “CBC is always
struggling to put out good content
at a time of sometimes declining
ad revenues and other revenues.”
So, does CBC require the financial
direction of the government, or does
that put CBC's journalistic integrity into
doubt?

A point that has come up as both a
topic of support and condemnation
has been CBC's historical beginnings.
In 1922, when CBC was first initiated,
it was with the rationalization that
Canada, as a nation, needed to
protect and promote their cultural
heritage, especially from the
neighbouring US's influence. Today,
some argue that Canada is a large
world power, a distinct nation, and no
longer needs the protection. On the
other end, there is encouragement to
continuously foster the culture within
Canada. This includes musicians and
artists, but also coverage at home
and abroad of what is important to
Canadians.

CBC: Lost Independence

Another clashing point has been
the CBC's role as an independent
journalistic body having the ability
to hold the governments’ and
politicians’ proverbial feet to the fire.
If the government has a tight grasp
on the purse strings, will CBC bite
the hand that feeds it? The question
becomes: who will be there for the
people if CBC continues to progress

towards being a state broadcaster?
And if CBC is taxpayer funded,

as it is, should it not be in solidarity
with the taxpayers? The right-wing
population maintains that privatized
media does stand-alone from the
government and will do the job just
fine. However, a private media outlet
will always have profit as one of its
principal values, and it is debatable
whether profit will always align with

what is fundamentally important to
society, and whether or not hard-
to-access information will be too
resource heavy to fund the research.
Another problem is that small, minority
demographics currently represented

by CBC will certainly not be a hot
pocket for investments. For example, the
Francophone community might receive
less concern from private media and,

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undoubtedly, less cultural protection.

There has been a little debate in the
House of Commons surrounding selling
the CBC. A petition was brought up
by some Conservative MPs stating
that some citizens believe the CBC

is overfunded at $1.1 billion annually
(roughly $31.5 per Canadian per year)
and that the CBC stagnates the flow
of growth from private sector media
because of the fiscal advantage. Sun

ulture

Media, for example, has had to cut
many jobs over recent years, and some
claim that is due to unfair competition
stemming from CBC's permanent
economic base.

Friends of Canadian Broadcasting
(wwwfriends.ca) have started a
website, partially dedicated to
Freeling] The CBC From Political
Interference’ and has many resources
on the subject. They have also created
a television advertisement, but it was
rejected from being put on-air by CBC
News. From the opposing angle, Sell
The CBC (wwwsellthecbec.ca) has a
petition based on its title; they state
three points to sell the CBC, including
“Canadians no longer require the CBC
for the production and dissemination
of Canadian programming.” Previously,
there was also a campaign for the
option of “opting-out” of CBC on

an individual basis. Needless to say,
there are strong feelings around the
nation when it comes to the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation; are there
enough positive cultural consequences
to having an independent, public
broadcaster, or is the CBC outdated
and overtunded? In any case, CBC
has a long history in Canada, featuring
many well-known personalities

such as Rick Mercer, Don Cherry,
Lorne Greene, Stuart Mclean, and
many others; there will be as much
emotion as there is empirical evidence
whenever the denationalization of the
CBC comes up in discussion.

Mind control (Part 1): Mass Media

Nahid Taheri
Contributor | Opinion

HH. you ever watched a movie
called The Truman Show? |t is
about an insurance salesman who
discovers that his entire life is actually a
TV show. The world he observes is just
a large set to record each second of
his life; even his wife is a hired actress.
The point of this movie is to understand
how isolating someone and providing
him or her with selective information
affects their lifestyle. This is a method
that some psychologists believe mass
media is practicing.

Mass media is any media form
designed to reach the largest
audience possible. This includes
television, movies, radio, newspapers,
magazines, books, music, video games,
and the internet. Many studies have

been conducted in the past century

to measure the effects of mass media
on the population in order to discover
the best techniques to influence it. From
those studies emerged the science

of Communications, which is used in
marketing, public relations and politics.

The TV shows we watch, the music
we listen to, the movies we see, and
the newspapers we read all influence
our lives and shape our minds. A
single piece of media often does not
have a lasting effect on the human
psyche. Mass media, however, by

its omnipresent nature, creates a
living environment we evolve in on a
daily basis. It defines the norm and
excludes the undesirable. The same
way carriage horses wear blinders
so they can only see what is right in

front of them, the masses can only
see where they are supposed to

go. One of the reasons mass media
successfully influences society is due to
the extensive amount of research on
cognitive sciences and human nature
that has been applied to it.

The drive to sell products and

ideas to the masses has led to an
unprecedented amount of research on
human behaviour and on the human
psyche. Cognitive sciences, psychology,
sociology, semiotics, linguistics, and
other related fields, were and stil

are extensively researched through
well-funded studies. The results of those
studies are applied to advertisements,
movies, music videos, and other media
in order to make them as influential as
possible. The art of marketing is highly

calculated and scientific because it
must reach both the individual and

the collective consciousness. In high-
budget cultural products, a video is
never just a video. Images, symbols
and meanings are strategically placed
in order to generate a desired effect.
Today's propaganda almost never uses
rational or logical arguments. It directly
taps into a human's most primal needs
and instincts in order to generate an
emotional and irrational response.

If we always thought rationally, we
probably would not buy 50% of what
we own. Babies and children are
constantly found in advertisements that
target women for specific reasons.

As a result, people must become
aware of mass media's influence, much
like Truman's revelation that his life was
fictitious.