Some Reflections On The Theoretical Discourse On Communications In Quebec and Canada

ion from specific conditions is inscribed within the very project of an objectivizing science and of the mathematization of the real. Drawing on Husserl’s interrogations, William Leiss has acutely posed the paradox of contemporary science: “This is the resulting paradox: the methodical abstractness of modern science, its discovery that all matter possesses a uniform hidden structure and that the principles of its behavior are universally valid and can be expressed in mathematical formulas, is precisely the source of its astonishing productivity in its on going interaction with technology. Necessarily, however, this very abstractness means that the scientific understanding of nature and the scientific methodology this model of a silent, colorless universe of matter in motion -in the final analysis remains mute in the theater of human behav i~ r . “~ Even more than through its aims, science is linked to capitalist society by the types of organization within which scientists work. We are no longer in the era of the solitary humanist researcher. Modern researchers are grouped within vast organizations whose financing is dependent upon an alignment of the questions asked, the directions taken by research and development, and the economical-political objectives of the ruling class. Science has been closely linked to the development of private or state capitalism since its beginnings. In addition, as Schiller has clearly pointed out, “the necessary connection of the domination of a quantitative and predominantly mechanical view of nature and the soul (which takes all qualities from bodies) with the increasing domination of industry and technology … and the simultaneous connection between the same quantificating view of the world and the money-and-acquisitioneconomy in which goods, stripped of all qualities, become a ‘cornm~dity”‘~. The primary intellectual foundation of communications theory in Quebec and Canada is its participation in that scientific ideology which makes quantification and mathematization the measure of all worthwhile knowledge. The primary characteristic of our theoretical work exists, not on the level of our differences, but of our resemblances to other work. It would be astonishing if this were otherwise, given that we live in a country whose economy and culture are under foreign domination. Cultural domination: the final stage of imperialism In 1978, the Quebec government issued a white paper entitled “La politique qukbkcoise du dkveloppement culturel” (The Quebec Policy on Cultural Development). Culture is defined therein as “the life-environment, the meaning that citizens give to their lives, ways of conceiving their existence, of interpreting it, and of envisioning for it a f ~ t u r e ” . ~ The white paper recognizes that culture “today supposes costly accoutrements”, but does not make clear enough that, in Western capitalist economies, it has become industriallyproduced merchandise, put on the market according to the laws of commercial marketing and massively consumed as goods and services. Culture can be spoken of less and less as the abstract opposed to the concrete, as the work of the soul opposed to the material world, as the universe of meaning opposed to the universe of the technical, the useful and the efficient. Culture is less and less free of merchandizing. The site of the creation of meaning, of explanations of the world and of ideological rationalization, cultural production more and more obeys the laws of the market, with its imperatives of rationalization and profitability. The culture industries have become an important sector in the western economy. The French economist, Jacques Attalis, finding in education, culture and health new spaces for capitalist investment, speaks of self-surveillance industries, following upon and adding to the travel and home-life industries. Others speak intentionally of the consciousness industries. The increased industrialization of culture has made it a crucial site of economic and political struggles, a new ground for the exercizing of hegemonic relations. For sociologists Susan Crean and Marcel Rioux6, cultural domination constitutes the final stage of imperialism. The conception of cultural industries in terms of ideological state apparatuses is an outmoded one. The culture industries are not simply apparatuses for the reproduction of the dominant ideology. They are sites wherein contradictions develop, sites where domination is not a given, but at stake. The media are more than an instrument of power; they are one terrain among others wherein power constitutes itself.’ It is a secret to no-one that the Quebecois and Canadian culture industries are dominated by Americans. Quebecois and Canadians consume more American films, records and television programs than they do similar domestic productions. Film distribution throughout the country is controlled by Famous Players Universal, Columbia, Fox, Warners, etc …. According to the most recent statistics published by the CRTC (12), the average Canadian spends 23 hours every week in front of his television screen. Of this total, the Anglophone consumes 70% in foreign programming, the Francophone, 46%. By all appearances, the pay television which the CRTC is preparing to authorize will increase the cultural dependence of Quebec and Canada8, by offering a wider range of foreign productions. The imaginary of Canadians and Quebecois will suffer even more from repeated assaults on the part of the American entertainment industry. Technical and scholarly culture is not free from this American strangle-hold. According to the Canada Science Council9, Canadian businesses draw increasingly upon American data banks, and the situation in Canada, which was relatively good a few years ago, is steadily deteriorating. Another sign of dependence is the fact that Quebec scientists publish the majority of reports on their work in English. I would be curious to know the proportion of Anglophone Canadians who prefer to publish their work in the United States rather than in Canada. It is in this overall context of cultural dependence that theoretical work on communications takes place in Quebec. It would be surprising if it itself did not borrow from foreign models. And, in fact, Quebec researchers make great use of American, French and German theorists. However, it would be simplistic to reduce the effect of Quebec’s socio-historical context on the theoretical work of communications researchers to mimetism. The specific situation in Quebec renders them more sensitive to certain dimensions of communications, conditions the formulation of questions and colours the approaches privileged by communications theorists. Communications theory and the Quebecois context We have already stated that all the major currents of communictions theory are represented in Quebec. Quebec and this has already become a cliche -is situated at the crossroads of the great English and French intellectual traditions. All the new ideas originating in one or the other thus find themselves being combined or opposed there. However, neither American behaviorism nor European Marxism have succeeded in imposing themselves as dominant theoretical models, even if they have greatly inspired many Quebecois scholars. Nor has semiology succeeded in making its mark as strongly as in France. In Quebec, communications theory has drawn its inspiration more from sociology, anthropology, political science and education studies than from psychology, linguistics or social philosophy. Reasons for this can be found in specific aspects of the sociohistorical situation in Quebec. Among others, we would suggest that the influence of the following factors should be noted: the importance of the reform of the educational system in the 1960’s; the Federal-Provincial jur isdict ional conflicts over communications; the minorityculture situation of Francophones in America; and American cultural domination. It is not necessary to dwell at length on the large geographical expanse of Quebec and its low population density to become convinced ‘of the place occupied there by communications technology. We would prefer, instead, to emphasize the role played by the reform of the educational system in the 1960’s. Experiments such as TEVEC, M;!ti-Media experiments, the invasion of schools by audio-visual equipment and the creation of the UniversitC de QuCbec and S.G.M.E. (Service gCnCra1 des moyens d’enseignement) networks by the Ministry of Education have stimulated reflection by numerous pedagogues and scholars in the human sciences onwhat is called educational technology. Education has been one of the main sectors for experimentation with communication techniques and for theoretical developments in communication. Two concepts, among others, emerge from this reflection: the conception of the person being trained as “self-educating”, and the elaboration of educational strategies in terms of multi-media networks. The ideology of participation played a major role in the evolution of Quebec throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s. The notion of “self-education” is part of that ideology. In communications, this is translated into a radical critique of the passive role of the spectator and the call for an active role in the communication process. All of these educational experiments were motivated by an objective of generalized access to education, especially on thepart of adults and the under-privileged classes. In Innis’ terms, one could interpret these efforts as an attempt to break an older monopoly of knowledge, one based upon writing and inhabiting an elitist educational system. In certain respects, the so-called community media experiments have built upon these experiments in the field of education (which on a small scale is confirmed in the case of TEVEC and the first CTV in Normandin).