The Spaces Between Grassroots Documentary ... - Ezra Winton

operating with an assumption that the mass media are sites of public interest and public
discussion, or, in short, of the public sphere which Habermas (1962) details as an
essential element of rational and democratic government.” (Van Couvering, 2006, p.4)
Increasingly the market is dominating the mediascape and more and more mediated
experiences are shaped, defined and to some extent controlled by commercial interests.
(Schiller, 1989; Yudice, 1999; Thussu, 2000) In the context of cinema distribution and
exhibition in Canada, this has amounted to spheres that are lacking diversity in content,
(see Appendix A) as well as democratic participation.
Several factors have led to a Canadian cinema with next to no Canadian content,
very little genre diversity, and virtually no variety in the way of foreign programming
(other than American of course). (Dorland, 1998; Feldman, 2001; Melnyck, 2004; Beaty,
2006) Fraser writes that “participatory parity is essential to a democratic public sphere
and that rough socio-economic equality is a precondition of participatory parity.” (1992,
p.23) With this in mind, it is no great stretch to theorize a Canadian cinema industry
dominated by a small handful of corporations (LaPierre, 2002) as one in somewhat of a
democratic deficit. (Barney, 2005)
Counterpublics are sites of resistance and community-building. They are physical
and discursive spaces that – regardless of socio-political and/or cultural affiliation –
construct opportunities to address and resist inequities of power. In the realm of media
these counter-spaces of community-building have been many, from citizen’s radio
projects in Columbia (Rodriguez, 2001, p.109) to underground film festivals in major
urban centers (Tyler, 1995; Gamson, 1996) to independent television projects. (Halleck,
2002) By grounding our understanding of counterpublics in the previous assumptions,
41