Freshly Squeezed

Hello friends! I have had a long, but very interesting and rewarding week, complete with one thing I feel is worth reflecting on- the value of a democratic system of media production in this country (and everywhere...but I'll try to narrow my focus for the time being). Last year, I had the supreme pleasure of working with an organization called the Pacific Cinematheque in Vancouver, a not-for-profit cinema appreciation and education group that screens "essential cinema," hosts vibrant discussion groups and allows young people access to the world of filmmaking through numerous education and outreach programs. A few classmates and myself were put in touch with the head of the education department at the Cinematheque as part of a project that worked to increase media exposure of the organization among primary-school aged children, elementary teachers, parent organizations and community institutions such as the Vancouver Public Library. Being quite new to the world of not-for-profit business and grant funding, I jumped into the project with big ambitions and even bigger britches. Quickly, I realized that this was no easy world to operate within. Budget constraints are a constant battle, and where money is available, it is subject to the whims of grant requirements, private donors and governmental restrictions. The upside of this challenging structure is that, wherever struggle is present, innovation flourishes. The Cinematheque relies on unorthodox labour and promotion solutions such as heavy use of new social media like Twitter and Facebook, and volunteer staffing. Nonetheless, working with a non-profit arts organization is an exercise in perseverance and optimism, constantly striving for more in the presence of less and less.

I feel that there is a sense among many, many people in this country that cinema is "just cinema," that music is "just music," that the publishing industry is "just magazines." So when push comes to shove in the production of cultural artifacts in this country, the people and organizations invested in them, always seem just shy of total success. This is, of course, excepting the large, powerful corporations such as CanWest, that can afford to produce media and enter into acquisition deals with American and international firms. Independent media production in Canada, while vibrant, diverse, and absolutely worth cherishing not only for it's beautifying properties, but for it's economic benefits (I won't go into them here, but they are many, to be sure). As a result, we end up in a situation where media selection becomes less and less democratic. That is, the principle of 'voting' with one's dollars on which media products to consume and which to pass by, becomes baseless. What does dollar voting matter when we are ultimately voting for the same party, over and over again, regardless of what ballots we cast? In a 500-channel universe, we are presented with a multiplicity of media products, not a true diversity. How many reality television programs are continually among the most popular shows on the tube? How many of them are ostensibly and functionally the same?

This is where the concept of media democracy becomes crucial to maintaining a vibrant cultural community in Canada. Media democracy is a vision of cultural production that looks to redirect it toward diversity, and away from homogenized multiplicity that has become tied to large-scale, industrialized chains of media manufacturing. It is a vision fought for and promoted, in large part, by the very non-profits and volunteer-based organizations that struggle so consistently with funding and the structural biases of a marketized cultural industry. In many places in Canada, this vision has come to fruition. The Polaris Music Prize, for example, an annual music prize given out to one Canadian album (based solely on artistic merit and the opinions of a massive panel of music journalists and cultural figures), selects its nominees from the enormous and diverse cultural landscape that this nation has to offer. One need simply look at this year's shortlist of nominees to discover the value of cultural products from beyond the bastions of the corporate multitudes. The list celebrated art-punks Fucked Up (winner), hardcore bluegrass trio Elliot Brood, Francophone dream poppers Malajube, Somalian-born rapper K'Naan, avant-garde multi-instrumentalist Chad VanGaalen, and folk singer Joel Plaskett's brave, high-concept triple-disc tribute to the open road, Three, among others. By contrast, this summer, I switched between four radio stations and heard nothing but Lady Gaga. Regardless of whether or not you enjoy this music on an aesthetic or artistic level, there is something important in the divergence between industrially produced music, and that music made by amateurs and self-producers. They are two aesthetically and functionally different spaces, and speaking as a musician of sorts myself, I can attest to the sense of support and community, and the explosive creative energy that exists within the realm of the amateur. There is something to be said for true choice, not just mutiplicity, for energy as opposed to forumla, and it must be said.

Luckily, there are many people in this country devoted to screaming it from the rooftops, despite funding and staffing challenges. Celebrate them and help them out which ever way you can.