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Editorial
It is with real pleasure that we introduce this collaborative volume of papers co-edited and realized across the two journals, Australian-Canadian Studies and the Canadian Journal of Communication. This partnership permits ACS to focus on communications for its largely Antipodean audience and for the CJC to showcase the work on Canadian communications scholarship executed in Australia and New Zealand as well as Canada. It is significant that communications has played and continues to play an important role in these national contexts, marking a point of departure for comparative discussions. To some extent these comparisons have sprung from similarities in demography, geography, and colonial heritage. On the other hand, differences also play a role, for example, the proximity of Canada to the U.S. and the distance of Australia and New Zealand from other Anglo-American countries.
There have been a number of exchanges and projects in communications between Canada and Australia /New Zealand in the relatively recent past. The West Australian-based journal Continuum has devoted an entire issue to the work of Harold Innis (Continuum 7, no. 1, 1995) and both national communication associations have invited prominent academics as keynote speakers to their respective conferences (ANZCA and CCA).
In response to a call for papers, six feature articles were selected. These are complemented by 13 reviews of recent communications literature. Paul Jones has written a detailed account of Raymond Williams's critical perspectives on McLuhan's work. McLuhan's work is enjoying a revival (see also a review of Modernism in Reverse in this volume) and Williams is foundational to the elaborated cultural studies project currently centred at many tertiary institutions (see also the review of Topia in this volume). Jones highlights the key concept of technology as the contested territory which Williams had critically theorized but which continues to be appropriated from McLuhan in often simplistic and fatuous arguments (see CJC special issue on Znaimer's TVTV [CJC 21, no. 1, 1996]).
Neville Petersen is an Australian media researcher who has studied the histories of the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC), the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). His extended project is focused on the organizational contexts for the production but also examines tensions between News and Current Affairs. Using the reporting of the Vietnam war as a case study, Petersen draws out the issues and concerns that drove the agendas of the CBC and the ABC at that time.
Debra Harker has written a study that uses regulatory policy in advertising from the Canadian context as a cautionary tale to inform emerging policy in Australia. As in other parts of social and cultural policy (e.g., indigenous land rights and autonomy), the emergence, implementation, and effects of government legislation can have substantial influence. Harker is enthusiastic about Canadian policy in the field of advertising regulation (despite imperfections) and draws attention to the lessons that can be learned as this policy is re-shaped for implementation in Australia.
Lorna Roth has canvassed another policy issue in Canadian communications: the question of non-white representation on television. In the context of Canada's Multiculturalism Act (1988), its 1991 Broadcasting Act, and current Ethnic Broadcasting policies, Roth argues that media portrayals continue to reflect an uneven and non-inclusive picture of Canadian society. This is of vital importance to the Australian context in which multiculturalism as a social fact and a government policy is under concerted attack. Roth carefully dissects the policy minefield and identifies the cleavages where structural and institutional policy stops short in the face of social reality.
The development of stereotypes, their commodification, evolution, and exploitation, especially in export markets, is intriguing, especially in the context of a joint Australian/Canadian issue. Christopher Gittings explores the singing Mountie and its evolution, mainly in Hollywood movies and its modern manifestations in the (successfully exported) television program Due South and the Disney capture of the exploitation of the Mountie image. He explores the paradox of the gentle-but-firm personification of peace, order, and good government (Canada's motto) and the media play surrounding this image.
Stuart McFadyen and his colleagues Colin Hoskins and Adam Finn have focused their research on the business dynamics of cultural industries, specifically, film and television. A number of their papers have been published in the CJC as well as other journals. McFadyen and his colleagues have explored co-productions which, while not immediately exciting from a socio-cultural perspective, have played a key role in transforming Canada from a production backwater to the second most active exporter of television programs in the world. The paper included in this issue reports the benefits and drawbacks producers in Canada, Australia, and Japan experience and traces those differences to the cultural characteristics of the various partners.
In overview, this special joint issue of the ACS and the CJC touches on only a few of the salient characteristics of communications in Canada and Australia /New Zealand. Perhaps the publication of this issue will stimulate further work in this critical field where an ongoing cross ferment of ideas could have considerable significance.