Page - 162 - in Media – Migration – Integration - European and North American Perspectives

Augie Fleras | Ethnic and Aboriginal Media in Canada 162 holding their own in these trying times, according to the Canadian Newspaper Association, the outlook for newspapers appears bleak: Canadian newspapers continue to face challenges and competition in their role as bearers of news in the information age. While information itself proliferates at an astonishing rate in a variety of forms, methods of storing and distributing it have grown more encompassing and complex. Compounding media woes is a seeming inability or disinterest in cracking the ethnic market. Despite Canada’s Multiculturalism Act, its Broadcasting Act and Ethnic Broadcasting policies, newsmedia remain divided along a colour line between the normalized white and the racialized “other” – in the process forfeiting an opportunity to connect with a largely untapped demographic. Finally, ethnic media have expanded significantly over the last decade, playing a much larger role in the lives of the fastest growing ethnic groups (Chinese and South Asian Canadians) than traditional media measurements would indicate (Karim 2006). These media range in size from small newspapers printed in home basements to well established and professionally run broadcast stations. Hundreds of ethnic newspapers publish on a daily, weekly, or monthly cycle, including some that are increasingly sophisticated in operation and quite capable of competing with non ethnic papers. There are those that speak to specific groups (Share – Caribbean and African), while others are directed at immigrants in general (New Canada). Some are printed in English, many in native languages, others in both. Foreign based services are available as well, either through specialty cable channels or satellite television, thus reinforcing how ethnic media quickly adapt to new communication technologies to secure access to often small and frequently scattered audiences (Karim 2003). Of particular note is the emergence of the internet as a vital media option and communication tool for ethnic groups, possibly contributing to a diminished reliance on traditional media for major ethnic groups in Canada’s MTV cities (Solutions Research Group 2006). Of course, Canada is not alone in the ethnic newsmedia sweepstakes. The United States has also seen a major spike in the number of ethnic radio stations both local and national, newspapers, magazines, web portals, and public and cable television stations (Hsu 2002). (Scholarly interest in ethnic media as an instrument of assimilation by shaping immigrant worldviews and sense of belonging goes back to 1922 and the publication of Robert Parks The Immigrant Press and its Control). In contrast to mainstream newsmedia which are experiencing a decline in readership, revenues, and stock prices, ethnic media continue to expand (Annual Report 2006). Admittedly no concrete figures are