Full Description
Digital Media has transformed the way Canadians socialize and interact, conduct business, experience culture, fight political battles, and acquire knowledge. Traditional media, including newspapers and conventional TV networks, remain the primary link to Canada's political sphere but are under concerted attack. YouTube, blogs, online broadcasting, Facebook, and Twitter have opened new and exciting avenues of expression but offer little of the same "nation-building glue" as traditional media. Consequently, Canada is experiencing a number of overlapping crises simultaneously: a crisis in news and journalism, threats to the survival of the media system as a whole, and a decline in citizen engagement. In Digital Mosaic, David Taras both embraces and challenges new media by arguing that these coinciding crises bring exciting opportunities as well as considerable dangers to democratic life and citizen engagement in Canada.
Contents
Acknowledgements 1. The New Architecture of Media Power Understanding Media Shock Media Change and Canadian Public Spaces Looking Ahead 2. Identity and Citizenship in Canada.ca The Unlikely Country The Public Participation Scorecard Turbulent Times: the Effects of Economic and Media Change 3. The Ownership Juggernaut The Powers That Be The Power of the Powerful Corporate Rules: Values, Ideology, and the News Democracy Insurance 4. Me-media and Political Connectedness (or Not): Cable, Blogs, and YouTube The New Debate about Media Effects The Cable Explosion The Blog Hierarchy YouTube and Video Politics The Politics of Me-media 5. Connecting and Disconnecting on the Social Media Frontier Is Facebook Your Friend? "Put Down Twitter and Slowly Back Away?" Welcome to the New World 6. Falling Stars: The Future of Newspapers and Conventional Broadcasting "Every Newspaper Reader That Dies Leaves No Heir" The Great Canadian Television Crisis Music and Radio: Hits and Misses Are the Traditional Media Doomed to Extinction? 7. The Ever-shrinking World of Public Broadcasting Triple Jeopardy: Budget Cuts, Hockey Night in Canada, and Big TV Re-imagining the CBC 8. Are Journalists and Politicians Abandoning the Public? Blind Spots, Cutbacks, and the Decline of Political Reporting Totally Scripted: Avoid, Bypass, and Stick to Your Message Nowhere to Hide: The Value and Politics of Debates The Last Disconnect 9. Finding Citizenship in the Digital Mosaic It's Time to Do Better Bibliography Index



