Communications     from TCE Standard

Communications have been the key structural element in Canadian society since the time when canoes slipping down rivers were the connecting links between villages. Communications by water and land made Canadian federation possible; electronic communications today make possible the conduct of business, the political process and the sharing of culture and information.

It is no accident that the most renowned commentator on communications in the world this century, Marshall MCLUHAN, was a Canadian. He spent his life in a country obsessed by communications. He was born in Edmonton, then an isolated prairie city connected by the railway, telephone and telegraph to the rest of Canada and the US; and he died in Toronto, the hub of English-language communications in Canada, where at the time of his death more TV channels were available than anywhere else in the world and where the social control of mass communications was a subject of comment in the daily press.

Communications influence all societies, but Canada in particular takes its shape and meaning from communications systems. Since Confederation, Canada has been a landmass much larger than most empires in history; governing its distant settlements and bringing them together in some form of political, social and cultural unity has been primarily a problem of communications management. A communications system is an attempt to offset distance between human beings, whether by railway, aircraft, telephone or post.

The building of the CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY in the 1880s, as part of the political arrangement that created Confederation, was an attempt to counteract the disintegrative effects of Canada's enormous space and to prevent the absorption of western Canada by the US. A similar impulse was behind the building of radio, television, TELEPHONE and TELECOMMUNICATIONS systems.

Since Canada's inception governments have recognized the importance of communications in Canadian life, and communications systems usually have been developed under government sponsorship and always under government control. Since 1932 the federal government has been directly involved in BROADCASTING (see CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION), first radio and then TV.

Since the late 1930s it has had its own filmmaking agency, the NATIONAL FILM BOARD, which produces and distributes films. Since the 1920s the government has regulated broadcasting and telephone systems; today it is a partner in SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS.

Private business has played an increasingly large role in broadcasting, particularly since the early 1960s. But many communities, especially in the North, would not be reached by mass communications without the active participation of the government (see COMMUNICATIONS IN THE NORTH).

ADVERTISING is a major component in almost all media and, within the business structure of Canada, consumer advertising is the main role of the media. The media have made the consumer society possible by providing fast, widespread dissemination of information or impressions about products and services.

Experience has taught advertisers that TV is one of the most effective ways of selling products. Typically, a TV commercial sets out not to sell a product directly but to surround it with exciting or pleasing images and thereby to insert the product comfortably into the world view of the consumer.

Thus, beer on TV is associated with good fellowship, long-distance telephone calls are associated with family feeling, clothing is associated with youth and beauty. A careful study of TV commercials provides a series of clues to the values held by most people at the time when the commercials were made.