Our media shapes our values by giving a platform to certain values and worldviews. Through a variety of forms - film, TV, music, books, and arts - they help shift what is called the Overton Window, defining the range of acceptable policies within a population.
This is helpful in understanding the recent controversy over comments by a representative from the Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA) at a convention. The CMPA’s president said his organization and its members ‘have the back’ of the Prime Minister.
These comments were immediately seized upon as a controversy, with some commentators misrepresenting the role of the CMPA as speaking for the Canadian news media. Those critics were partially correct, as some news-producing organizations like the CBC are CMPA members. But, by and large, this is an organization of members who produce cultural content like entertainment shows, not news.
In that sense, it’s not the controversy critics are making it out to be. It’s worse, actually.
Biases in news media are well known and documented, and have been made worse in recent years thanks to federal funding interventions. Fortunately, Canadians have some choices as far as news information sources, including sources which don’t take federal funds.
However, suggesting that our federally funded entertainment content producers are willingly beholden, perhaps even enthusiastically so, to the federal government’s agenda should actually be much more distressing to us than our news media’s cheerleading. Our news media occasionally rely on political connections for access to news stories and scoops, and must fend off a large body of communications professionals and others vying for control of their agenda - challenges our entertainment sector doesn’t have to the same degree.
While a large segment of our traditional arts and culture sector relies on federal largesse for its continued survival, this embrace of the federal government seems self-inflicted. And it has consequences.
In 1992, US President George H.W. Bush complained that he wished American families would learn more from the example set by the Waltons rather than the Simpsons. His advice went unheeded, and The Simpsons were soon followed by Beavis and Butt Head, South Park, and Family Guy - all shows that built on what it accomplished and pushed the envelope further. They moved the Overton Window.
In the 80s, musicians performing in women’s clothing was a controversial novelty requiring US Senate hearings - now it’s tame (and even worthy of a Superbowl halftime show) and yet the even more bawdy lyrics that accompany some modern music do not prompt a similar response.
Could anyone imagine 50 Shades of Grey being published 20 years earlier than it was, and becoming a bestseller and household name?
Our media can have a real impact on our values. So, with these examples as well as the CMPA’s president’s comments in mind, it’s fair to ask: will these CMPA member organizations, who receive federal funds and apparently ‘have Mark Carney’s back’, decline to parody or lampoon federal government personalities and policies? Will they only propose, produce, or fund content that aligns with government narratives and values?
How many documentaries, entertainment programs, and other forms of Canadian content will they produce which celebrate traditional family values, promote positive views of Canadian history, present alternative narratives to government messaging (and not simply more extreme versions of the same message), or basically do anything that Mark Carney, his Cabinet, and his bureaucrats might personally dislike, recognizing that Carney’s values only reflect, at best, 45 percent of the Canadian population?
Sure, this issue of being beholden to the government isn’t a problem that affects most new and independent media, which is both prolific and thriving. However, it should concern us all when our tax money is being used to prop up certain voices over others, when those voices are being given a profile and platform (perhaps on places like the CBC) on the basis of their government funding and support, and when all those benefits have been obtained because they have pledged allegiance to the government and its narratives.
So, yes, it is a big deal when media producers of any kind pledge allegiance to a government or a Prime Minister. Their only allegiance - the only ‘backs’ they should have - should be to Canadians of all persuasions and perspectives. The critics are right to be concerned that yet another element of Canadian culture and values is becoming further subject to partian whims and self-censorship.