Diversity in media
Canada is a multicultural country, and its media should reflect its diversity, according to communications scholars and media workers at the first Annual Lecture on Diversity in Canadian Media last week.
The Montreal-based Center for Research-Action on Race Relations organized the lecture in partnership with Concordia’s Communications Studies Department and the Concordia-UQAM Chair in Ethnic Studies.
Jean LaRose, CEO of the Aboriginal Peoples’ Television Network, was one of the guest speakers.
He said that APTN was born to create a space for aboriginal people, who usually play a marginal role in Canadian media.
“How often do you see aboriginal people on the screen?” he asked. “The vision we have at APTN is to get Canadians to understand our reality.”
APTN, the first national aboriginal television network in the world, was launched in 1999. Most of its material originates in Canada, with 60 per cent of the programs broadcast in English, 15 per cent in French and 25 per cent in a variety of aboriginal languages.
LaRose, an Abenaki citizen from the First Nation of Odanak in Quebec, said the TV network aims to create more program-ming for youth that can be used for educational purposes in schools.
The lecture was preceded by a reception to celebrate the APTN’s renewal of license for a second seven-year term .
Tom Perlmutter, Director General of the English Program of the National Film Board, was the keynote speaker at the event.
He said the role of the NFB is to produce and distribute culturally diverse audiovisual work with a unique Canadian perspective.
To illustrate, he showed excerpts from recent NFB documentaries. Trudeau’s Other Children (2005) by filmmaker Rohan Fernando examines the life and work of three Canadian musicians, Vineet Vyas, Mei Han and Asif Illyas.
“Diversity is central to the meaning of Canada,” Perlmutter said, “and media are central to the formulation of that meaning.”
Dean of Arts and Science David Graham and Communications Studies Associate Professor Lorna Roth, author of a recent book on First Peoples TV, represented the university at the lecture.