Multicultural media in Canada

Multicultural media in Canada, also referred to as “ ethnic media” or “third media” (as it may use languages other than Canada's two official languages, French and English), is media that responds to the needs of ethnic minorities of Canada. The objective of such media in Canada is to create a voice for a community of a particular ethnic background, challenge social injustices, and foster cultural pride for minority and immigrant Canadians.

Ethnic media do not always target new immigrants, though much of this particular media works to eliminate feelings of isolation in the dominant culture. Multicultural media also services Canadian-born individuals of a visible minority as well as diasporic ethnicities. Ultimately, multicultural media in Canada, whether it is delivered in English, French or the respective language of the culture, is to contribute to the cultural maintenance and ethnic cohesion of the culture in question but also help members of minorities to integrate into larger Canadian society. The third-language media are especially important for new immigrants, as they are usually the main source of information for those who have yet to become proficient in one of the official languages. Thus, third-language media provide crucial information on education, training, and job seeking for these immigrants.

Today, ethnic media is available across Canada from small newspapers to full-fledged broadcasting stations run by the private sector, such as OMNI TV.

History

The promotion of multicultural media began in the late 1980s as multicultural policy was legislated in 1988. In the ''Multiculturalism Act'', the federal government proclaimed the recognition of the diversity of Canadian culture. Thus, multicultural media became an integral part of Canadian media overall. Upon numerous government reports showing lack of minority representation or minority misrepresentation, the Canadian government stressed separate provision be made to allow minorities and ethnicities of Canada to have their own voice in the media.

Today, ethnic media is available across Canada from small newspapers to full-fledged broadcasting stations run by the private sector, such as OMNI TV. Due to the difficulty of acquiring licensing and space on the electromagnetic spectrum due to costs and threshold of the spectrum itself, many ethnic cultures in Canada have third-language channels through satellite television. However, this still creates exclusion of minorities from mass media as found in Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission's review of the 1999 Ethnic Broadcasting Policy found technological access and financial constraints hindered many ethnic minorities from accessing specialty television.

Policy and legislation

In 1971, Canada became the first country to introduce a Multiculturalism policy. By 1988, the policy became an act of Parliament known as the ''Multiculturalism Act''. The act proclaimed the federal government's policy to recognize the diversity of cultures in Canadian society. It also provided the overall framework for management of ethnocultural and racial diversity in Canada. Similarly the ''Broadcasting Act'' of 1991 asserts that the Canadian broadcasting system should reflect the diversity of cultures in the country.

The CRTC is the governmental body which enforces the ''Broadcasting Act''. The CRTC revised their Ethnic Broadcasting Policy in 1999 to go into the details on the conditions of the distribution of ethnic and multilingual programming. One of the conditions that this revision specified was the amount of ethnic programming needed in order to be awarded the ethnic broadcasting licence. According to the act, 60% of programming on a channel, whether on the radio or television, has to be considered ethnic in order to be approved for the licence under this policy. However, this quota does not specify which language this programming be in thus not considering the needs of the ethnic audiences.

Print media

Newspaper

There are hundreds of ethnic newspapers available throughout the country. These papers have become increasingly more high-level in both the way they are run and the stories they cover. The larger dailies are the Chinese-language ''Ming Pao'' and ''Sing Tao Daily'', and the Italian-language ''Corriere Canadese''.

Some other notable papers are ''Ghanaian News'', a monthly newspaper that focuses on news relating to Ghanaian immigrants now living in Toronto or Montreal, the cities the paper is distributed in. Its contents mainly pertain to news from Ghana as well as news on Ghanaian Canadians. Mostly ''Ghanaian News'' stresses cultural retention and investing back into the home country.

The ''Montreal Community Contact'' is another minority paper serving the black community in Montreal. Founded in 1992 by Egbert Gaye, the ''Montreal Community Contact'' contains stories pertaining to all black Canadians regardless of country of origin (unlike Ghanaian News). Ninety per cent of the paper is devoted to issues confronting foreign and Canadian-born black people in Montreal. The paper also reports stories on small business started by members of the black community as well as successful black Canadians. While the paper tries to promote a positive image of the black community, it does also report on conflict and crime within the community it serves.

Defunct newspapers:

* ''The Canadian Western Jewish Times''
* ''Canadan Sanomat'' (Finnish)
* ''Canadian Jewish Review''
* '' De Nederlandse Courant'' (Dutch)
* ''The Jewish Star''
* ''The Jewish Tribune''
* ''Keneder Adler'' (Jewish; Yiddish-language)
* ''The New Republic'' (Chinese)
* '' Tai Hon Kong Bo'' (Chinese)
* '' Today Daily News'' (Chinese)
* '' Vapaa Sana'' (Finnish)
* ''Vapaus'' (Finnish)
* '' Vochenblatt'' (Jewish; Yiddish-language)
* ''Voice of the Fugitive'' (Black)
* '' The Windmill Herald'' (Dutch)
* '' World Journal'' (Chinese)
Hala Canada Magazine
(Arabic)

Periodicals

Issues

The need for ethnic newspapers is high as the representation of ethnic minorities is low in mainstream Canadian newspapers. The newsgathering staffs of 37 newspapers from across the 10 Canadian provinces only have 3.4% non-white individuals. In fact, 22 out the 37 newspapers have an all white staff. With no diversity in ethnicities the stories being presented through the mainstream papers do not present issues of interest to minorities or present an accurate picture of minority culture to the mainstream audience. This is in part due to the lack of structure in funneling minorities into the reporting and editing sphere, a structure that is present in the United States. As such the black community in Montreal, for example, receive limited coverage in mainstream papers. This coverage is usually around “black” events such as Black History Month in February or during summer for Nuit D’afrique and Carifestival. This “calendar journalism” presents a very limited view of these communities and only further removes them from being included in to mainstream discourse as this coverage further perpetuates otherness. If the black community does get coverage in the mainstream English papers of Montreal, it is to highlight a black athletes success at a sporting event, or to highlight a violent crime. This only further perpetuates stereotypes of the black community both good and bad. The reductionist coverage of black individuals in the cities mainstream print publications is undoubtedly related to the lack of diversity in the newsrooms. Ultimately the Multicultural Policy, which was created to avoid this under and misrepresentation, does not address the racism that causes these structural inequalities in the media.

Thus the ''Montreal Community Contact'' has not changed the mainstream coverage of the black community in their city. Once one looks at the numbers, this is not hard to understand. Despite the 159,000 black people in Montreal in 2001, the ''Contact'' only had a circulation of less than 8,000 papers. Only 7% of the community read the paper that year. Furthermore, there is limited mainstream access to the paper. The ''Montreal Community Contact'' is distributed by being left at ethnic stores or black community centres. This is a common distribution strategy for many ethnic newspapers in Canada. This is problematic as by making the paper only available to the ethnic audiences, little impact is made in changing the image of minorities to the mainstream population. Furthermore, the papers cannot impact the community’s image of itself as it is not accessible to all members of the community.

Radio

In most major Canadian cities, ethnic radio is available. Whether it is an ethnic designated time slot on a commercial station, on community or campus radio, or a 24-hour multilingual operation, ethnic radio is accessible.

An example of the latter is CHIN radio. Created by Johnny Lombardi in 1966, CHIN radio has become the largest multicultural and multilingual radio station in Ontario. The station is delivers programming in more than 30 languages to 30 different cultural communities in southern Ontario and the Greater Toronto Area. Having branched out to the Ottawa and Gatineau region, CHIN also delivers programming in 18 languages there as well. The success of the station can be credited to CHIN’s method of providing quantitative research about their audiences to advertisers. Using custom studies and current demographic records provides CHIN the accurate numbers behind their audiences, making advertisers support the ethnic broadcaster. Due to the success of CHIN, many companies have begun to specialize in ethnocentric demographic and lifestyle data to help predict not only the media preferences of ethnic audiences but also their spending habits. No longer merely relying on Statistics Canada for information on minorities in the nation gives a more of a well-rounded look at the complexities of Canadians of various cultural backgrounds.

Recently, CHIN Radio has been reaching out to the official language speaking audiences. This includes the children of immigrants who grew up with English and French as their dominant language but want to learn more about their heritages traditional music, cuisine, and fashion. To reach to this segment of the population, CHIN has added a few English shows to their airwaves. CHIN also holds the popular CHIN Picnic every year to further attract non-ethnic listeners.

Multicultural and ethnic radio stations in Canada:

* ATN-Asian Radio

* CJCN-FM

* CFMB
* CFMS-FM

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