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THE EXTENT AND &PACI' OF COMMUNICATIONSCARTELS ON PUBLIC EDUCATION:1980 - 2000

Beverley Moore

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Cumculum, Teaching and Learning Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the

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The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fkom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or othewise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son pernission. autorisation. THE EXTENT AND IMPACT OF COMMUNiCATIONS CARTELS ON PUBLIC EDUCATION: 198012000 BEVERLEY MOORE DOCTOR OF PHILA)SOPHY DEPARTMENT OF CURRICULUM, TEACHING AND LEARNING UNIVElRSITY OF TORONTO WW

The phenomenal growth, consolidation and influence of corporate wntrol in the communications sphere is changing the very nature ofour systern of public education. In this thesis, 1examine the extent and impact that the transnational communications cartels have on Our access to information and the resulting implications for the public education systern. 1take an historical approach by outlining the main tuming points which have cantributed to the increasing concentration of communications systems. These include an examination of government policies of deregulation and fiee trade agreements. 1 argue that the notion of access to a diverse wmmunications system, which I maintain is necessary for a dernomtic society to exist, is being eroded and it is a corporate elite who more and more shape the way we see the world-from a right-wing, neo-liberal point of view. 1 clah that education is undergoing a radical transformation due to the powemil and persuasive forces of the global marketplace. Our midents have become clients; they are being trained to be consumen as the race for private profits gains momentum in the globai economy and we begin to lose a liberal education which would prepare students to bear the obligations of citizenship and to begin the exploration of an intellectual life. 1focus on ways the transnational communications cartels undennine public education. I examine the commerci~tionof ùiformation and knowledge, the corporate incursion into public schools by looking at the business partnerships ofChanne1One and Athena Educational Partners' Youth News Network, and the applications of business directives such as Outcornes-Based Education and the move to charter schools. 1 also look at information technologies and trace the development of the information highway as it moves fiom public control to control by private corporations thus limiting access to those who have the ability to access or pay for it. My research is theoretical, drawing on the works of established academics, populm press and fiom my own expenences as an educator in the field of idonnation sciences during the past twenty-five years. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 1 would Iike to th* my cornmittee mernbers Jack Miller and Les McLean for their encouragement and support. 1 am especidly gratetiil for the patience and guidance of my supervisor, Johan Aitken. In addition, 1thank John McMurtry7my extemai examiner, William Kennedy, fiiend and political activist, and Ruth Moore my proof-reader-she will soon be 84! 1 was extremely fortunate to have the understandimg and support of my fiends and family7 especially my sons John and James. Thank you Sandy Semeniuk (1952 - 1999). TABLE OF CONTENTS

... ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... UI

INTRODUCTION ...... 1 Endnotes to Introduction ...... 8

CHAPTER ONE THE EXTENT OF CORPORATE CONTROL OVER COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS ...... 10 The of Amerka: Tuming Points ...... 11 Canada:TuMngPoints ...... 30 The Global Economy: Trade Agreements ...... 37 Endnotes to Chapter One ...... 48

CHAPTER TWO THE IMPACT OF CORPORATE CONTROL ...... 57 Consensus is Shaped ...... 60 InfomationasCommodity ...... 73 The Deficit Made Me Do It "Myth" ...... 77 Culture of CornplianceThe Official Language ...... 80 Charter Schools: The Application of the Free Market Principle ...... 88 Endnotes to Chapter Two ...... 97

CHAPTER THREE: CORPORATE COMMERCIALISM GAINS DIRECT ENTRY TO SCHOOLS: CHANNELONEANGYNN ...... 108 ChannelOne ...... 108 Youth News Network ...... 124 Endnotes to Chapter Three ...... 139

CWTERFOUR CYBERSPACE-COMMERCIAL TOLL ROAD??? ...... 146 The Information Highway: A Struggle for Control ...... 147 Cyberspace and Public Libraries ...... 159 Computer TechnoIogy and Education ...... 165 Equity and Access to Information ...... 173 Endnotes to Chapter Four ...... 179

CHAPTER FIVE A TENTATIVE CONCLUSION ...... 186

References ...... 217 INTRODUCTION

By academic fieedom I understand the right to search for truth and to publish and teach what one holds to be true. This right implies also a duty: one must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be true. It is evident that any restriction of academic fieedom acts in such a way as to hamper the dissemination of knowledge arnong the people and thereby impedes national judgement and action.

Albert Einstein

Many Canadians have believed in the notion that the state, responsive to a democratic electorate, had a right and a duty to establish the rules, support the structures, and nourish their cultural identity. To that end, critical legislation was introduced which enswed a Canadian welfare state. This included the establishment ofthe Bank of Canada Act, a variety of marketing boards and the Social Insurance Act. Then, Canadians pressed for other foms of social assistance. In 1956, Canada passed the Unemployment Assistance Act which marked the "first permanent federal cornmitment to social assistance for employables on welfare and provided a crucial bridgehead into the wider welfare reforms of the 1960s."' Federal hospital insurance was introduced in 1957, the Canada Pension Plan in 1965, nationwide medicare in 1966 and a greatly enhanced unemployment insurance program in 1971. In addition, many other social reforms were put in place. Ottawa made payrnents to the provincial governments sharing the cost of post-secondary education and social assistance programs. In 1975, a Guaranteed Incorne Supplement ensured that any Canadian living on a pension was assured of a minimum incorne.* Between 1956 and 2975, Canada became a modem welfare state as defined by the g: A Welfare State is a state in which organized power is deliberately used, through policies and administration, in an effori to modifL the play of market forces in three directions-first, by guaranteeing individuals and fimilies a minimum income irrespective of the market value of their work or their property; second, by narrowing the extent of insecurity by enabling individuals and families to meet certain social contingencies (for example, sickness, old age and unemployrnent), which would otherwise lead to individual and family crises; and third, by ensuring that al1 citizens, without distinction of status or class, are offered the best standards available in relation to a certain agreed range of social services.'

The concept of universal education for Canadians was regarded as a nght that went unquestioned in Canada's weifiie state. Education for al1 Canadians regardles of economic costs or social barriers was a major institution of Our "civil commons." John MC MUR^ expressed the nature of the civil commons as follows: "It is society's organized and community-funded capacity of universaily accessible resources to provide for the me, preservation and growth of society 's members and their environmental life host . . . . The civil cornmons is the vast social fabric of unpriced goods, protecting and enabling life in a wide and deep seamless web of historical evolution that sustains society and civilization.'" Public education enables "al1 of its members to flourish as individuals," and is grounded in a value program which should not be transacted in the market.' By the 1980s, a tuniing point in the history of capitalism, the economic and political conditions conducive to reforrns and the civil commons went into decline and we witnessed the arrival of the global economy and the adoption of neo-liberal policies "whose principle was the unrestrained economic power of private property.'" Neo-liberalism would "harmonize" the world of national capitals and nation-states, creating a global system of internationalized capital and supranational institutions.' The "fiee-market" vision was onginaily condemned by liberal or social democratic forces but within a relatively short tirne they too began to adopt similar policies or openly declared no intention of reversing legislation designed to implement the vision of the " right." Al1 parties proved eventually to be at least as committed to this new policy as their political opposites since neo-liberalism had increasingly come to appear as a set of ideas whose tirne had corne. Deregdation and privatization are its hallmarks The wrporate imperative and its accompanying ideology reject almost any form of social accountability. In the race for private profits, the corporate-directed economy is eliminating the very idea of the civil commons. The public, community-based support structures and institutions, which hold the social enterprise together, are being down- sized, left without adequate maintenance, stripped of their social character and privatued or dismantled. The costhenefit rationale is depfoyed to determine the viability of the social senice. This method is inadequate in determining the social benefit of publicly administeted services. In truth, the common good by definition, meam thet al1 members of Society benefit fiom their provision and the benefits cannot be caiculated in market tenns. To transfonn all acts of society into separate, paid-for transactions weakens the fabric of the social organism.' Moving information into the corporate sphere changes the nature of the openness of the communications system and impacts the comrnon good. We derive Our ideas and values fiom the vast array of communications systems available to us. If the diversity of opinion in the national and internationally political and same cultural t heatres are eliminated or ignorecl, and deniai of access to a diverse information base is lirnited to those who are able to pay for it, Our notion of community and the comrnon good will change. The public role and social responsibility ofthe communications industries rnake them unlike other wmmerciai activities. Freedom of the press is "not a property right of owners. It is a right of the people. It is part of their right to fiee expression, inseparable fiom their right to inform themselves.'" The rise of the transnational communications cartels is a fairly new developrnent. As recently as the 1980~~communications systems were no longer national in sape or domestically owned and regulated. New satellite and digital technologies fùrther revolutionized the communications systems. Corporations, govemments and strong organizations such as the World Bank pressured and lobbied to deregulate and pnvatize media and communications systerns. By the early 1990s, a small number of American corporations had acquired more public communications power and were able to penetrate the social landscape more than at any other tirne in history. Ben Bagdikian charts the growth of Amenca's communications media. His research shows that by using "both old and new technology, by owning each other's shares, engaging in joint ventures as partners, and other forrm of cooperation, :his handfbl of giants has created what is, in effect, a new communications cartel within the United States."" Through increasingly influentid and privately-owned information systems, a few transnational communications corporations have been able to expand their ability to dictate and dehe the very nature and shape of cultural expression. They work to advance the cause of the global market and promote commercial values and corporate interests. Edward S. Herman and Robert W. McChesney view the effêct of a globalizing media to be: . . .the implantation of the commercial model of communication, its extension to broadcasting and the 'new media,' and its gradua1 intensification under the forces of cornpetition and bottom-line pressures. The commercial model has its own intemal logic and, being privately owned and relying on advertiser support, tends to erode the public sphere and to create a 'culture of entertainment' that is incompatible with a democratic order. Media outputs are cornmodified and are designed to serve market ends, not citizenship needs.

Furthermore, by their essentiai nature the commercial media will integrate weU into the global market system and tend to serve its needs. This means pater openness to foreign commerce in meâia products, channels, and ownership. As the media are commercialized and centralized their self-protective power within each country inmeases fiom their growing command over information flows, political influence, and ability to set the media-political agenda (which cornports well with that of advertisers and the corporate community at large). "

They maintain that this has "meant the simple denial of the formerly important issues of whether the media had social, moral and political obligations beyond the pursuit of profit."'* ConsequentIy, the commercial media have become the main exponents of global corporate capitalism and have, to a large extent, led the assault on the ideological foundation of our welfare state. Public education is being strongly influenced by large corporations and their neo- Ii beral ideology . The insistence on making the primary goal of education relevant to students' working lives threatens to reduce education to little more than job preparation and the production of efficient consumers. Within this educational scenario, schools would be expected to produce workers who would willingly perfiorm the specialized tasks required by an economy facing a high level of increased competition fiom abroad-a society ingraineci in a highly cornrnercialized value system. The corporate goal O freshaping the educational system by determining whom Our schools will serve, what our students will leam and at what financial cost should be questioned. We need to assure ourselves that the course we follow to structure education wiil dignify human life, recognize the creative aspects of people and see others "not as objects to be manipulated or to be 'fieed' to follow the dictates of the 'invisible hand' of the market, but as co-responsible mbjecrs involved in the process of dernocratically deliberating over the ends and means of ail of their institution^."^' In the last two , we have experienced the wrenching realities of an information revolution and a global approach to the way we restructure our society. Changes in education might need to be made, but they should not be changes that imperil students' rights to a universal public education. Peter Emberley and Waller Neweil foresee the dernise of democracy without the antidote of a liberal education which "balances creativity with tradition, usefulness with transcendence, the longing for wholeness with the requirements of human order; or, thumos with eros, will with grace, and love with understanding. We cannot abandon the judicious balance at the heart of liberal education without invithg peril to our democratic heritage."" Consequently, at the core of a liberal education is "the duty of the teacher to impart and cultivate those talents and excellences which would prepare a student to bear the obligations of citizenship and to begin the exploration of the intellectual and spiri tual life. Liberal educat ion speaks to human equality and fieedom."" This philosophy sharpfy counters the neo-liberai philosophy of education that expects our students to be trained as consumers and clients to meet the needs ofa global market economy. The essentiai contradiction in these opposing ideologies is aptly stated by McMurtry: "The one accomplishes development of a person's own capacities for autonomous use. The other achieves the production of extemal conveniences for others to depend upon. The better the education, the more its bearers becorne independent to think and do on their own. The better the market, the more its agents depend on the produas and services ofothers to provide their thinking and doing for them."16 If society's education system is determineci by the requirements of the global marketplace, then society becomes "a kind of mass creature, a collective system of gratifjmg present desires for profit and consumption with no movement beyond itself towards understanding and consciousness as a human end in itself"" As a child in the 1960s, I was influenced by the conception in Canada of a social democratic, just and fair society. The values imbedded in the welfare state are the pnnciples which 1 believe guide me in my role as a woman, a citizen, a sometirne political sctivist, a teacher and a tacher-librarian. These values drive me to sustain the vision of a society which values human relationships and cornrnunity more than mnsumption and profits. At times, 1 feel bereft of spirit and hope as 1 see the cornmunitarian values of the "WeLfare state" increasingly eroded by the pursuit for profits in the global marketplace. The powers that transnationals wield seem to me to be omnipotent Ieaving me with the feeling of being overwhelmed and powerless to wit hstand their assault . I watch this corporate enterprise system in tandem with an unprecedented, influentiai and pnvatelyswned information system erode the social fabric as the cornmodification of uiformation and knowledge takes place. Thus, it is my intention in this thesis to create an awareness of the power of these forces which seem poised to undermine our qudity of access to information and knowledge and which appear to be impoverishing the content of information. It is only when we understand the forces in place which are restmcturing our public institutions that we are able take initiatives to mobilize and fostet meaningfbl change in our democratic interest. In the opening chapter of this thesis, 1 examine the conditions and niniing points which contnbuted to the growth and consolidation of the global communications industries. Their development is a cornplex one, often involving an examination of the tortuous labyrinth of convoluted interlocked directorships oftransnational corporations whose wish is to remain obscure while maxirnizing profits. 1 chronicle the growth of the most powerfiil communications cartels that increasingly dominate and control our world view. In the second half of this chapter, 1 examine the conditions in Canada that have legitimized a communications system which seems to undermine what 1 beiieve to be the basis of democracy-fiedom ofthe press and hence diversity of opinion. Because the interconnections of the communications systems are global in breadth and scope, 1 outiine international decisions contnbuting to the concentration ofownership in communications industries. These include the Free Trade Agreements. In Chapter Two, 1 examine the impact of corporate control on the public good. The drift from national economies to transnational global economies appears to be shifiing power into the hands of huge transnational corporations and away fiom Our democratic institutions. 1 explore the control which the financial sector has over economic and public policy. 1discuss the demand by nght-wing corporations for lower and lower taxes and cuts to social programs in the narne of deficit reduction. Their power and control enable them to shape the consensus conducive to their own ideology. 1 examine the ubiquitous nature of transnational communications cartels and their impact on intellectual fieedom and 1explore their methods of controlling the idormat ion we receive. Wit hin the ducational fiamework, 1 scrutinize the application of the corporate ideology to the public education system. Specificaliy, 1 look at the use of Outcornes-Based Education and the introduction of the charter schooi movement. The corporat e-right works selectively to dismantla government . Boards of trade condemn social programs which increase wages and taxes on business but are siknt on agencies and programs that subsidize business. There is a proposed shift in the management of schools that ailows some measure of market-control in the education system. The time has amved for business/education partnerships which would mesh with the present right-wing ideology of govemment. Corporations have dis~vereûthat in addition to being ''train& as fùture consumers, students also offer big business a captive and lucrative market. A new spirit of entrepreneurship has emerged with the global marketplace which has extendeci its sights and is increasingly intent on creating cornmerciai partnerships. In Chapter Three, 1examine the corporate agenda in the education system. Nowhere else does the corporate wedge express itseifas accurateiy as in the clearly detined goals of the corporations who wntrol the communications media of Channel One and Youth News Network 0.Therefore, 1 examine Channel One, its Canadian Comection-YNN, and evaluate the implications of corporate partnerships with the school system. Are they a "harbinger of things to corne, as the 'ethic' of privatization and profit reconstruct education?"" In Chapter Four, 1 examine the use of computer technology in schools. The information highway is a term first coined by Al Gore in 1988 and generally refers to a "basket of new communications technologies, including 500-chamel cable or satellite , movies on demand, pocket-sized personal communications devices, video- conferencing, medical databases and Wnid reaiity computers that allow for remote-control operations, online newspapers and magazines, and the anarchic global network of wmputer networks known as the Intemet."" I outline the movement fiom public to pnvate control on the use and development of the information highway. The fbndamental question 1explore is who controls the information highway and to what end. 1 examine the implications of technology for public education. The final chapter surnmarizes the general arguments and outlines some suggestions and future directions that could pennit us to regain a "liberal education." 1 suggest that dedication to public access to information is essential if we are to maintain a diverse and critical Mew of the world around us and promote the concept of a liberal education. Endnotes to Introduction 1. Walter Stewart, Dismantling the State: Downsizinsc to Disaster (Toronto, On.: Stoddart Publishing Co. Limited, 1998) 13.

2. Stewart 14.

3. "The Weifare State in Historical Perspective," Euro~ (1 96 l), cited in Stewart, 14.

4. John McMurtry, Uneaual Freedoms: The Global Market as an Ethical Svstem (Toronto, On. : Garamond Press, 1998) 25.

5. McMurtry 25.

6. Gary Teeple, Globalization and the Decline of Social Reform (Toronto, On. : Garamond Press, 1995) 1 .

7. Neo-liberalism has had a long period of gestation in the works of Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, and Milton Friedman, among others. This theory was applied in Chile in 1973. Mer the rnilitary coup d'etat, Amencan "the marketeer" econornists were hired to restructure Chilean socicty. The coup d'etat in Chile resulted Ui a military-police state which abrogated al1 aspects of democracy and reform. Optimal conditions enablad the creation of a market society with minimal state intervention in social and economic üfe. Teeple 2.

8. Herbert Schiller, Information Ineaualitv: The Dee~eninaSocial Crisis in Amenca (New York: Routledge, 1996) xv.

9. Kent Commission Report, cited in Maude Barlow and James Wmter, The Big Black Book: The Essential Views of Conrad and Barbara Amie1 BIack (Toronto, On.: Stoddart Publishing Co. Limited, 1997) 216.

10. Ben Bagdikian, The Media Monoaoly (: Beacon Press, 1997) x.

11. Edward S. Herman and Robert W. McChesney, The Global Media: The New Missionaries of Cornorate Ca~italism(London, Eng. : Cassell, 1997) 9.

12. Herman and McChesney 3 8.

13. Michael W. Apple, Officia1 Knowledge: Democratic Education in a Conservative Ane (NewYork: Routledge, 1993) 3.

14. Peter Emberley and Waller Neweli, Bankni~tEducation: The Decline of Liberai Education in Canada (Toronto, On. : University of Toronto Press, 1992) 168.

15. Ernberley and Newell 1.

16. McMurtry 190. 19. Robert Chodos, Eric Harnovitch, and Rae Murphy, Lost in C~bers~ace?(Toronto, On. : James Lorimer & Company, Publishers, 1997) 2. CHAPTER ONE TEE EXTENT OF CORPORATE CONTROL OVER COMlMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS

As Canadians approach the millemium we find ourselves in a world dominated at every turn by large mrporations-banks, trust companies, transnationals, corporations involved in currency speculation, corporations that buy md seU govement bonds, corporate agencies like bank rating companies that pronounce on govenunent policies. ~rtuailyevery aspect of our lives is dominated by these huge corporations: what we buy and who we work for (or whether we work at dl), the information we receive, the entertainment we 'consume, ' and the p hysical environment that surrounds us. And as corporate control increases, the control we used to exercise over those areas of Our lives, collectively or individually, diminishes. Corporate domination, brazen, ruthless, ever more powertùl, is evident everywhere as civilization seems to devolve in its path.

Murray Dobbin

Beginning in the 1980s and accelerating in the 1WOs, new economic, political, cultural, ecological and technological realities have-brought changes that restructured the world in which we live. Reduced transfer payments deregdation, corporate mergers and acquisitions have created a climate ripe for the incursion of private enterprise into the public domain. The emergence of global communications cartels and the development of revolutionary communications technology are hallmarks of this era: Since the early 1980s there has been a dramatic restructuring of national media industries, dong with the emergence of a genuinely global wmmercial . The newly developing global media systern is dorninated by three or four dozen large transnational corporations (TNCs), with fewer than most ly U. S.-based media conglomerates towering over the global market. In addition to the centralkation of media power, the major feature of the global media order is its thoroughgoing commercialism, and an associated market decline in the relative importance of public broadcasting and the applicability of public service standards. Such a concentration of media power in organizations dependent on advertiser support and responsible primarüy to shareholders is a clear and present danger to citizens' participation in public &airs, understanding the public issuest and thus to the effkctive working of democracy. ' In this chapter, 1chronicle the growth of transnational communications cartels who own and control the network systems. My purpose is to contribute to an understandhg of policies which have created a ciimate conducive to the laissez-faire approach to economics which in turn has led to a near monopoly of our communications systems.

The United States of America: Turning Points In the information industry, the shift fiom public to private power is especiaiiy marked and observable. After World War II, the United States experienced a phenornemi growth of capitaiism. Large, multinational operations had been enriched and revitalued by the massive military spending required for waging World War II, as well as the imrnediate postwar recovery expenditures. This growth transcended national boundaries and resulted in an uncontested Amencan supremacy in the world marketplacez mer 1945, the United States pressed for the elimination of wartime capital controls. It favoured the mnvertibility of currencies, a gradua1 reduction oftariffbamiers through international agreements and bilateral arrangements and O pen-door, laissez-faire trade policies everywhere.' Big business concentrated its energies on consolidating its hold on the domestic market and expanding in an emerging global market. In addition, business concems focussed on governrnent regulations which limited their market share and, hence, power and profits. In this postwar penod, the United States endorsed the "fiee flow of infirmation" as a universal principle. Herman and McChesney explain this precept: With its new-found power, the United States was able to get the 'fie flow' principle enshrined as officiai policy in the newly formed United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Free flow was at once an eloquent democratic principle and an aggressive trade position on behalf of U. S. media interest. The core operational idea behind the principle was that transnational media fims and advertisers should be pemitted to operate globally, with minimal government intervention. In the view of U.S. policy-makers, this was the only notion of a suitable for a democratic world order.'

Americans used their vast resources in the global media to extend theu promarket policies. In the 20"' century, newspapen proliferated. The growth of population and new found wealth provided the economic basis for the development of a strong press. While circulation increased, there was a marked concentration of newspapen in the hands of fewer pubiïshers and owners. This rise in saleof the newspaper enterprise can be attributed to the associated increase in the industrialkation, and later, the technologicai improvements of the newspaper industry. The resulting expansion of the press was acçompanied by the growth and expansion of the fiee market. Significantly, the necessary venture capital limited the ownership of the press by the sizeable investment requùed to get estabJished. MerWorld War iI, it could be said that : "Even small-newspaper publishing is big business . . .[and] is no longer a trade one takes up lightly even if he has substantial caskr takes up at al1 if he doesn't."' The concentration of ownership and control in the press continuecl. By the mid-eighties, a large proportion of Arnerican daily newspapers were dependent on large national companies and wire services for al1 but local ne~s.~With few exceptions, local community voice gave way to a bland, indoctrinaire one, udikely to disturb the status quo. Money that could be reinvested to strengthen the newspaper and its relationship to community was and continues to be "a Iow priority compareci to the inexorable demand of its parent firm for maximum profits, often for expansion elsewhere."' As a result, large numbers of local papers became part of a chain system. The percentage of newspapers in chains increased fiom 20 to 80 percent between 1945 and 1989.' Most American cities are a one-newspaper town, served by a single monopoly paper. Washington, DC, with only one newspaper, is unique among capitals of major nations: "London has fourteen dailies, Paris fourteen, Rome eighteen, Tokyo seventeen, and Moscow Nne. No city in the U~tedStates had as many papers as New York, with only three. Ninety-eight percent of all cities with a daily paper had only one.'" This trend towards fùrther concentration of newspaper ownership has been exacerbated by its greater integration into the market system and by the powerfùl advertising industqtl0 MerWorld War iI, advertising fbelled the expansion oftelevision and stimulated the growth of media in the global marketplace. In their study of the rise of global media systems, Herman and McChesney comment: Advertising is a defining feature of late capitalism, reflecting the rise of produa differentiationand oligopolistic competition. Advertising and produa variation becarne primary cornpetitive weapons of corporations in place of cut-throat price competition to protect and expand market share. Although local advertising wirs often dominated by retailers of varying sue, the more significant national advertising was conducteci primarily by fhslisted in the Fortune 500. If anything, the club of corporations interested in global advertising was even more select. This was truly an arena for corporate powerhouses.

Moreover, the US advertising induary made a significant contribution to large corporate interests. In fact, its manbers supported the efforts to cornmercialite pubiicly owned media.12 The commercial imperatives of the advertising industry were increasingly apparent. Advertising also influenced the move towards a more concentrated ownership of the press. According to Edward S. Heman and Noam Chomsky, a market share and advertising edge on the part of one paper or television station "willgive it additional revenue to compte more effectively-promote more aggressively, buy more salable features and programs-and the disadvantaged rival must add expenses it cannot afFord to try to stem the cumulative process of dwindling market (and revenue) share."" The result is often fatal and large numbers of newspapers fail. Without the suppon of advertisers, newspapers ceased to be econornically viable '' Because the newspaper industry is extremely profitable, the desire for concentrated ownership becomes more appealing." Monopolies in media ownership were prevented by antitrust laws. In 1932, the Radio Corporation of Arnerica @CA) which had been created by a consortium of General Electric, Westinghouse, AT&T and United Fruit, was broken up because it violated antitrust laws. RCA had a virtual monopoly in the communications industry and controlled the patents for radio. In order to reduce the National Broadcasting Company's (NBC) dominance in the television medium, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)ordered NBC to seil one of its networks. It became the Amencan Broadcasting Company (ABC). Yet, the defeat of an amendment to the Federal Communications Act of 1934 confirrned the triumph of commercial broadcasting. This amendment would have reserved 25 per cent of its broadcasting space for educational and nonprofit operations. In 1967, funding for public broadcasting was granted on a minimal level but even that was subjected to fiirther cuts in the Reagan era.16 The concept of public broadcasting as a vehicle to firther public education, religion, children's enlightenment and high culture was fdling more and more under the pressure of commercial interests. The strength of anti-trust legislation was questionable. The film industry developed quickly into an oligopoly which was dorninated by a

handful of very large studios. l7 Legislation was enacted to protect pubüc interests fiom their unfair power and intiuence. In 1953, the ABC TV network attempted to merge with the Paramount theatre chah Both the US Justice Department and the FCC voted against the merger because it threatened to create a monopolistic multimedia economic power." In 1966, International Telephone and Telegraph Company (ITT), a multinational powerhouse and major military contractor with financiai interests in some 118 companies, aîtempted a takeover of ABC. It was feared that the independence of ABC'S news average of political events in the countries where ITT had interests fould be ~om~rornised.'~Despite FCC approval, the Justice Department asked the US Court of Appeds to block the takeover. Subsequently, ITT withdrew the merger proposal to avoid protracted litigation. Ironically, RCA had been pennitted to control media companies More the ITT case. RCA is owned by its parent company General Electric (GE). The rationaie for GE'S nght to merge is analyzed by Herman and Chomsky: GE is a more powerfiil company than ITT, with an extensive international reach, deeply involved in the nuclear power business, and far more important than ITT, in the arms industry. It is a highly centralized and quite secretive organization, but one with a vast stake in 'political' decisions. GE has contributed to the fùnding of the Amencan Enterprise Institute, a right-wing think tank that suppons intellectuais who WUget the business message across. With the acquisition of ABC, GE shouid be in a fa.better position to assure that sound views are given proper attention. The lack of outcry over its takeover ofRCA and NBC resulted in part fiom the fact that RCA wntrol over NBC had aiready breached the gate of separateness, but it also reflected the more pro-business and laissez-jhire environment of the Reagan ers?

International cornpetition fiom Europe and Japan began to cut into US markets and profits in the iate 1960s and early 1970s. To ensure American dominance in the global marketplace, government began a poiicy of deregulation. Herbert Schiller defines the American policy of deregulation: Deregulation, wherever it was applied, was intended to reduce or elirninate entirely public scrutiny and oversight of business activity-Le., pncing, profit levels, safety, labor policy, consumer protection, environmental monitoring, foreign trade, and intra-industry coordination. . . .It removes, in some instances, the restraints and prohibitions on companies. It allows them to dly with others, disregardhg antitrust and other restrictions. It permits them to enter fiiily into international markets and operations. In the field of telecommunications, this has had an impact extending fiir beyond an admittedly important sector in its own right. It has accelerated the concentration of communication power in the United tat tes.'' Deregulation was a means to maintain American power and control in the communications sector on an international level. Jeremy Tunstall explains: Behind the loose deregdatory consensus lie the twin assumptions that communication is bmming the number one industry in the world, and that the traditional position of the U.S. as numero uno in al1 aspects of electronics/telecomunications/video/entertainment/computerdinfomtion technology is being chalienged. A central purpose [of deregdation of communications] is to maintain both communicationsand the U. S. as number one?

Consequently, the communications cartels applied pressure to eliminate govemment restrictions which they regarded as impediments to management autonomy and profit making. National control over the informational system was seen to be an obstacle which must be removed or, at least, greatly reduced. Herbert Schiller States: Primarily, aim was taken at the social fùnctions of Government that had been strengthened in the Roosevelt period and expanded in the brief Great Society years of Lyndon Johnson, which lasted only f?om the mid-1960s to the early 70s. . . . Another target was the Federal CommunicationsCommission WC), with its mandate to oversee the vital and powerfiil communicz~tionssector. It too, had to be 'reined in,' though anyone familiar with the industry-serving commission had to regard its alleged role as a protector of the public interest, and a scourge of the broadcasters, as a fantasyen

American business worked much more systematicallyin the 1970s to influence politics through lobbying and the use of the mass media.24Corporations worked to attain special positions in government. Corporate advisory wmrnittees sat with govemment leaders to help shape official actions. For exarnple, in 1974, AT&T had 130 positions on ther advisory bodies, RCA 104, General Electnc 74, and ITT 53. Defence industry executives sat on the Pentagon's Industry Advisory Council, oil executives sat on the National Petroleum Coud and some of the heaviest polluting industries had executives on the National Industrial Pollution Control ~ouncil.~To many, the pursuit of deregulating the marketplace and the pursuit of profit were more important than the social, moral and political obligations of the communications media. The commercial media lobbies and their politicai infiuence to legislate deregdation acts remained relatively unchallengecl. Perhaps this can be attributed to the special power and infiuence of the media lobby. Herman and McChesney note that "the commercial media lobbies have few rivals for political influence and the general trajectory of the deregulation and privatization process was unmistakable."" However, it is important to realize that there was some opposition and it did slow down the process of deregulation. Traditionally, communications systems had been publicly owned and operated and were oAen large and politically influential. Effons to deregdate, commercialize and privatize were partially derailed by them. In addition, there was some public and congressional oppositi~n.~ By the late 1970s' corporate leaders united in their zeal to establish a pro-business government. In t heir Political Action Cornmittees, they raised "the largest campaign war chests in electorai history to defeat candidates they wnsidered hostile to business, and in 1980, they eiected a national administration dedicated to wiping out halfa centwy of social legislation and regulation of bu~iness."~'The regdatory agencies under the Reagan administration became almost corporate auxiliaries. US President Ronald Reagan and major market trusts such as General Electric made "a tacit agreement to exchange favours in the early 1980s."" McMurtry's explains: Reagan was a former General Electric employee. In exchange for the W.S. government's 'help in accelerating the concentration of ownership thmugh changes in anti-trust laws, the mass media owned by these trusts would put on kid gloves in dealing with the Reagan administration. and back away from investigative political stories altogether.' Those who wonder how a president who argued that trees caused acid rain and presided over criminai invasions of neighbouring Nicaragua financed by dmg-running could be so fondly treated by the media may now understand why? Ronald Reagan made extraordinary moves to support corporate concentration in the communications industries. Profits in communications industries increased? The Federal Communications Commission rarely met "a merger it didn't üke, or an expansion of industrylcompany power it didn't approve."'* The movements by the FCC on behaif of business interests in children's programrning is a case in point. Herman and McChesney comment: Nevertheless, in 1983, the Reagan era FCC, in a fbrther response to the ACT [Action for Children' s Television] petition, declared that the broadcasters had no responsibility to children. The situation deteriorated after 1983. According to Dale Kunkel, 'When 'Captain Kangaroo' was removed fiom its Monday- through-Friday time slot in 1983 &er 28 years on television, not a single regularly scheduled weekday children's program remainecl on any of the three commercial networks.' Stephen Kline pointed out that 'Deregdation of television clearly resulted in a new promotional infbtructure more narrowly and purposively focussed on promoting toys and other merchandise.' Toy manufacturers virtuaily took over children's TV on commercial stations, with a huge growth of c program-length commercials' funded by toy rnanufâcturers and prepared under their direction, with stones organkd to feature the toys. The 'entertainment' was subordinated to merchandising; 'a story concept had to include a host of characters complete with various accoutrements and technologies, dl of which would become saleable produ~ts."~

The US commercial media system dl but "ghettoized children's programtning. The FCC's actions in responding to citizens' groups and creating an environment for quality television programming were feeble and ineffective. It did introduce some guidelines and hplemented some restrictions on children's advertising. Broadcasten were enwuragecf to apply the codes on a voluntaxy basis. Yet, by the 1990s, "toy-based prograrnming substantid advertising, and animated cartoons remained dominant; commercial imperatives continued to shape the secular trend of children's TV? Citizens' concems regarding violent children's prograrnming fell on deafèars. Weekend programrning for children "remains saîurated with violence, with more than twenty-five acts of violence per hour, as it has done for many year~."~'Violence on television and its drarnatic ingredients are considered most suitable for aggressive international promotion. It assumes a very important place on the TV screen because of its cornmercial imperative." Public broadcasting produced quality children's programrning Like Sesame Street. The Electric Corn~anyand Mister Rogers' Neiehborhood in the eary 1970s. These programs remain successful today. But how long publie broadcasting wiii last is a matter of debate." The vast wasteland of commercial television appears to be breaking the public's last hold on broadcasting. In 1995, Republicans and even Mme Democrats were loath to defend public broadcasting. That year, the federal appropriation was cut fiom a planned $3 12 million in the fiscal year 1996 to $250 million in fiscal yw1998-the biggest ait in its 30-year history3' The trend continues to either privatize or reduce spending in the amof public broadcasting. Until the 1980s' media systems were generaily national in scope. Under the Reagan administration, the communications industries became the vanguard for the new techno- capitalism and transnational congl~merates.~~International organizations, such as the International Monetary Fund (Ml?)and World Trade Organization (WïO) supportai the global marketplace and pressured the Reagan administration to abandon anti-trust efforts in the communications industries."' It was at this time that the global commercial media system developed a view that regarded corporate domination as naîural and benevolent. It seemed to be the logical outgrowth of the 'fiee market' wmmUNcations policies that dominated the corporate ideology in the 1980s and 1990s.'' Herrnan and McChesney viewed the global media cartels as the new missionaries of corporate capitalism: The gIobal media are the rnissioniuïes of Our age, promoting the virtues of commercialism and the market loudly and incessantly through their profit- driven and advertising-supported enterprises and prograrnming. This missionary work is not the result of any sort of conspiracy; for the globaI media TNCs [Transnational Corporations] it developed organically fiom their institutional basis and commercial imperatives. Nor are the global media completely monopolithic, of courseTand dissident ideas makc their occasionai appearance in virtually all of them. But their overail trajectory of service to the global corporate system at many levels is undeniable."

Richard Cohen, former senior producer of the CBS Evening News, elaborated: Watis happening in communications is the same story ofrunamuck corporate cannibalism terrorizing most of Amencan business. The Darwinian process of mergers and acquisitions began to wash over the corporat e landscape in the 1980s. We al1 observed small companies eaten by bigger companies and devoured by even more mammoth corporate interests. This has become the new food chah of capitalism."" The concentration of power in the communications business has had devastating consequences. The utilitarian value of news as relevant idonnation necessary to Our understanding of our world changed to one that values money and corporate profits. The content news has changed from what is important to what sells in the global

Communications systems became an important component ofthe global economy. In 1980, the communications media accounted for $350 billion or 18 percent of world trade. This figure grew exponentially and by 1986, the annual worldwide output of the communications industries was valued at $1,600 billion. Herman and McChesney maintain that "dong with financial markets, comrnunication and information have become the most dynarnic features of the globalizing market economy, and the development of global commercial media has been crucial to the development of the global marketplace. 9945 ~h~ advance of communication technologies also stimulated economic growth. The expansion of satellite and cable communication made the global distribution of media a reality: Satellite services such as the Cable News network (CNN), Music Television (MTV), and the Entertainment and Sports Network (ESPN) were launched in the United States and eventually grew into global enterprises. Combined with privatization and deregulation, these new technologies also provided the basis for an extraordinary inmease in the number of television channels, which sought commercial advertising and programming. Co~lsequently,the 1980s was a penod of unprecedented expansion for global media, making the preceding thuty-five years appear almost üke mounds of dkt against the backdrop of a mountain range.'

The -produced blockbuster became the key comodity in the global media marketplace. Its expansion was unparalleleci: Hollywood's European exports (including films, television programtning, and videotapes) increased by 225 percent between 1984 and l98S, to some $56 1 miIlion annually. Hollywood's worldwide exports doubled in value between 1987 and 1991 fiom $1.1 billion to $2.2 billion. (At the same time, film and television imports to the U.S. totalled $81 million in 1991.) Expons of recorded music also doubled fiom 1987 to 1991, to a total of $419 million by 1991. Moreover, the global market was increasing in importance relative to the domestic industry. In the second half of the 1980s, foreign sales increased from 30 percent to 40 percent of U.S. film and television industry revenues."

Consequently, the status and value of the motion picture studios grew. The result was an unprecedented wave of mergers and acquisitions. The movie studio became the centrai component in the media mergers and tight diversification or "synergy" became the basic requirement of the newly created corporate giants. The studio was brought into direct play with other media production entities and distribution outlets such as "TV series and video producers; broadcast networks and cable systems; music and recording companies; book, magazine, and newspaper publishers; video game and toy companies; theme parks and resorts; and electronics hardware manufacturers.'"' Corporations that were too top-heavy began to restructure and downsize to achieve tighter diversification. For example, Gulf & Western sold al1 its assets except its media holdings and in 1980 beovne Paramount Communications. in 1985, Capital Cities bought ABC for $3.5 billion. Previously networks could only own 7 stations. Under Reagan, t hat number was raised to 12; thus allowing Capital Cities to combine the ABC affiliates it owned with ABC'S owned-and-operated stations. In 1985, News Corp. bought Twentieth Centuty-Fox and became part ofRupert Murdoch's global media empire. Kimey SeMces created a media subsidiary in Warner Communications and merged with Time Inc. in 1989. The antitrust principles that broke up the radio trust, spüt up RCA's dominating nehuorks, severcd theatre chains Ekom the studios and blocked ITT from absorbing ABC were but a distant memory. The large media corporations regarded monopoly, oligopoly and historic levels of profit as not only normal, but as their eamed right. According to Thomas Schatz: Synergy was continually debated and redefined, affected by new technologies and new delivery systems, by an expanding and increasingiy diversifiecl media marketplace, by media deregdation, and by myriad other f'actors. But the principal of tight diversification steadily took hold, fbelied by the output of blockbuster-de hits and the cuftivation ofmedia hchises, and ailminating in the veritable tidal wave of mergers and acquisitions in 1989-the biggest year ever for media-related deals. A total of 414 media deals were struck in 1989, worth over $42 billion, the rnost notable of which were the Tirne Warner merger ($14 billion) and Sony's buyout of Columbia and CBS Records ($5.4 billi~n).'~

As the decade of the 1980s drew to a close, the communication cartels of the international market included Bertelsmann, Capital CitiedABC, CBS Inc., Matsushita (owner of then MCA), General Electric (owner of NBC), Rupen Murdoch's News Corporation, Disney, Time Warner, Turner Broadcasting and the Sony Corporation (owner of CBS Records and Columbia Pict~res).~The dominant firms were increasingly transnational firms and the major postwar global media trends were gaining momentum. The communications cartels can be distinguished fiom small communication businesses by the manner in which their boards of directors interlock with other major financial and industrial sectors of the economy. Under the Arnerican legal system, company directors must act in the interests of the company they represent. Interlocked boards of directors create very red codlicts of interest in the major national and multinational corporations that control the communications systems. For example, a study by Peter Dreier and Steven Weinberg found that the Company, the largest corporation dominating the newspaper chains, shared directors with Memll Lynch (stockbrokers), Standard Od of Ohio, 20h-Century Fox, Kerr-McGee (oil, gas, nuclear power, aerospace), McDonnell Douglas Aircraft, McGraw Hill, Eastern Airlines, Philips Petroleum, KeUogg Company and New York Telephone Company." Time, Inc. had "so many interlocks it almost represented a Plenary Board of directors of American business and hance, including Mobil Oil, AT&T, American Express, Firestone Tire & Rubber Company, MellonNational Corporation, Atlantic Richfield, Xero- General Dynamics, and most of the major international buiks."n Seagram is yet another exarnple: Seagram, for exarnple, owner of Universai, aiso owns 15 percent of Time Wamer and has other media equity holdings. TC1 is a major shareholder in Time Wamer and has holdings in numerous other media firms. The Capital Group Companies' mutuai fùnds, valued at $250 billion, are arnong the very largest shareholders in TCI, New Corporation, Seagram, Time Warner, , Disney, Westinghouse, and several other srnalier media firms. The head of Capital Group's media investments, Gordon Crawford, is a trustcd adviser to the CEOs of nearly ail of these films. He plays an important role in engineering mergers and joint ventures across the media industry. In particular, through Capital Groups holdings in Seagram and TC1 as weU as its direct holdings in Time Warner, Crawford is one of the most infiuential shareholders in Time Wamer.s3

Louis Brandeis called this practice of interlocking directorates the "root of rnany evils. It offends laws human and divine. . . . It tends to disloyalty and Motation ofthe fiandamental law that no man can serve two masters. . . . It is undemocratic, for it rejects the pladerm: 'A fair field and no fa~ors.'"~As the media conglomerates becarne larger, they bccame more intertwined with Arnenca's banking and industrial life. According to Ben Bagdikian: Half the dominant firms are members of the Fortune 500 Iargest corporations in the country. They are heavy investors in, among other things, agribusiness, airiines, coal and oïl, banking insurance, defence contracts, automobile sales, rocket engineering, nuclear power, and nuclear weapons. Many have heavy foreign investments that are affected by Arnerican foreign policy. It is normal for al1 large businesses to make serious efforts to influence the news, to avoid embarrassing publicity, and to maximize sympathetic public opinion and government policies. Now they own most of the news media that they wish to influence. 5s

Bagdikian asserts that the global media corporations now control every aep in the mass- media process, fiom creation of content to its delivery into the home, school or business office.s6 In 1982, AT&T was the "single largest private enterprise in the count~y."~'It had reached its visionary mission statement written in 1885: AT&T proposes to connect every city, town and place in New York State with one or more points in every other city, town, and place in said state-and in each and every other of the United States-and in Canada and Mexi-and each and every other of such cities, towns, and places is to be co~eztedwith each and every other city, town, or place in such states and countries-and also, by cable and other appropriate means-with the rest of the known world-as may hereafter become necessary or desirable in conducting the business of this association.

Yet in 1982, at a time when mergers and acquisitions were at an al1 thehigh, a movement was set up to divest AT&T of its telecommunication operations. AIthough the federal court restncted AT&T in some ways, essentialty it lefi AT&T fiee to compete in the production of telecomrnunications services. An agreement allowed AT&T to keep its core activities. These incIuded its "research iaboratories, rnanufacturing units, long-iines communications- and, most important, allowed it for the first tirne to enter the international market of telecornrnunications and corn puters. This was a fieedom heretofore denied the company."" Thus, AT&T became a major player in the growing cornputer, cornputer-related and information markets populated by other corporate giants such as IBM and Generaî Motors. The decision to deregulate and privatize the communications systems in the international arena weakened national information-communication institutions and national enterprise in general. Schiller argues: The AT&T decision was a foretaste of the experience of national telecornmunications systerns in Europe and elsewhere. The means by which the dominant U.S.companies got their way against one of their own, and the mightiest one at that, are being replicated in one country after another-with one essential difference. The power and influence of giant, private corporations, directed toward obtaining information capabilities at the lowest possible costs, in much of the rest of the world go up against nationally nrn communication entities, broad-casting systems, and posts and telegraphy and telephone administration. AT&T is a private enterprise, but the underlying significance of the AT&T divestiture decision (and of deregulation overall in the communication sector) is that it opened the way to the destruction of national oversight in the information field, probably the most important -or of economic and cultural life in the years ahead?'

Significantiy, AT&T has been most aggressive in establishing global empires. By 1996, AT&T had purchased a 2.5 percent stake in DirecTv and recorded sales at $53 billion. AT&T had emerged from the ashes of the deregulation movernent in the 1980s to become the second largest telecommunications hin the world, poised for the exploitation of the digital economies of the future. One critical point is clear. By the end of the eighties, the tight diversification of the newly emerged media cartels had taken hold and the decade of the nineties would see it continue. En the 1990s, the highest levels of world finance became even more intertwined with the highest levels of corporate control of the media. Global expansion of the transnational communications systems was a result of the reduction or elimination of legal baniers to cross- border transactions. The technological changes such as the growth of satellite broadCILSting, videocassette recorders, fiber optic cable and phone systems facilitated the global marketplace. This digital revolution eliminated the technological barriers dividing media fiom telecornmunication and both of them fiom the cornputer idormation technologies. By the mid-nineties, mergers, acquisitions and takeovers resulted in fewer than ten hsin the United States with global distribution networks. The six "vertidy integrated media conglomerates" were News Corporation, The Wamer, Disney, Bertelsmann, Vimand TCI? Today, these corporations still jockey for placement in the international marketplace. Their annual sales are in the $10-$25 billion range. The other four firms include PolyGram (owned by Philips), NBC (owned by General Electric), Universai (owned by Seagram) and Sony. These four firms eam at least double the annual sales ofthe other six firms. The global marketplace forces these media giants to %ove toward being much larger, global, vertidy integrated conglomerates [in an] dl-out rush to claim global turf?* As a result, the transnational communications cartels enjoy increasing hegemony over the global media marketplace. Their relentless marketing strategies garner them record revenues. They establish new projects and will often join one or more of their rivals on a project to ease entry into new international markets resulting in enonnous profits. Cross-seliing and cross- promotional potential are a major advantage in competing in the global marketplace and justification for the wave of huge media mergers in the 1990s.~Hennan and McChesney comment on the sense of the profit potential that emerges for the players in the global arena. First, there are often distinct cost savings. The media consultant who adviseâ Viacom when it purchased Paramount in 1994 estimateci that merely combining the two firms would immediately generate $105 million in cost savings. This cornes from filler utilization of existing personnel, facilities, and 'content' resources. When a giant wishes to launch a new enterprise, it can draw upon its existing staff and resources. NBC and News Corporation, for example, are capable of launching global television news channels because they will use their joumdists fkom their present staffs and other news resources. The marginal cost is quite fow. A second source of pr0fita~1it-y deriving fiom conglomeration and vertical integration is the exploitation of new opportunities for cross-selling, cross-promotion, and privileged access.

When Disney, for example, produces a am, it can dso guarantee the film showings on pay cable television and commercial network television, and it can produce and seli soundtracks based on the nIm, k can create spinoff television series, it can produce related amusement park rides, CD-Roms, books, comics and merchandise to be sold in Disney retail stores. Moreovcr, Disney can promote the film and related material incessantly across aü its media properties . . . .Disney's 1994 The Lion King earned over $300 million at the U.S.box office, yet generated over f 1 billion in profit for Disney. In sum, the profit whole for the vertically integrated nmi cm be significantly greater than the profit potential of the individual parts in isolation.'

Moreover, the "synergies" of the global media giants do not end with the vast promotion of the media properties. Development of stand-alone chahs of retail stores are in place. For exarnple, Viacom is part of a joint venture to Iaunch a chah of "Bubba Gump" Wood restaurants to capitalize upon the popularity of its Forest Gum~motion picture. Both TC1 and Disney are "moving into the production of educational matenal, regardeci as a lucrative market as the privatization and cornrnercialization of U.S.schools gather momentum. 765 addition to these substantial marketing procedures, the strategic alliance for cross-promotion with other transnational corporations is being constantly engineered. These are detded by Herrnan and McChesney: In 1996 Disney signed a ten-year deal with McDonald's, giving the fast food chah exclusive global rights to promote Disney produds in its restaurants. Disney can use McDonald's 18,700 outlets to promote its global sales, while McDonald's can use Disney to assist it in its unabashed campaign to 'dominate every market' in the world. PepsiCo. signed a sirnilar promotional deal for a 1996 re-release of the Star Wars film trilogy, in which dl PepsiCo.'~ global properties - including Pepsi-Cola, Frito-Lay snacks, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell - were comrnitted to the promotion. Univerd has taken this process the furthest, by keeping it in-house. In 1997, it began heavily promoting its media fare on parent corporation Seagram's beverage products, including Tropicana oranse juice. These link-ups between global marketers and media firms are becoming standard operating procedure, and they do much to enhance the profitability and competitive position ofthe very largest global firms.'

A prime exarnple of the global communications cartels' new political power can be seen in the passage of the Telecommunications Reform Act of 1996. It was passed by the House and Senate and signed into law by President Clinton. A major problem with the Telecornmunications Act was its exclusion of public debate. Members of congress and the powerfûl lobbyists behind the law made a conscious effort to keep the legislation totaiiy outside of the public view. According to McChesney: "There was a tremendous fight that went on over the bill, but the fight was exclusively between the lobbyists from the four or five main communication industries affected: cable broadcasters, satellite, over-the-air broadcasters, long distance phone companies and local phone companies and the cornputer software firrn~."~' editorialized: "Forty million dollars' worth of lobbying bought telecommunications companies a piece of Senate legislation they could relish. "" Representative Edward Markey criticized the process and was quoted as saying that "whole portions of the Iegislation were being written verbatim by representatives for the communications indu~try."~~The interests, values and concerns of the citizenry were bi- passed. The Telecommunications Act has and wiil have an impact on every form of communications media in the United States. Indeed, it was characterized as a "Magna Carta" for the communication corporations and is considered the most important piece of media legislation since the Communications Act of 1934 which had been the basis for most of the rules goveming the air~aves.'~The barriers to entry and consolidation 4th the telecommunications industry were eliminated. For example, it removed regulatory restrictions that had prevented local and long distance telephone companies fiom competing against one another. The Act also paved the way for funher cornpetition in the cable television industry and gave broadcasters freedom to develop new businesses and purchase more television and radio stations. This Telecornmunications Act "opened up a 'Pandora's box of consolidation in the media industry,' as deregulation was the order of the day."" The edorcement of antitrust statutes to prevent media concentration and limited regulatory standards beaune irrelevant. Moreover, this Act extendeci the established protocals and standards for cornputers to employ on the Intemet. According to Heman and McChesney, the fiindamental non- technical 'policy-making' for the Intemet was "effectively turned over to the market, with whoever can generate the most profit in a position to set the terms for the development of cyber~pace."~Some cnticism was levelled at the Telecommunications Act. Accordhg to Michael Eisenmenger and Linda Iannacone, the Act was "unanirnously condemned by gras- roots organizations as an overtly pro-business and de-regdatory piece oflegislation that failed ro serve and protect the public interest."" ui addition, several provisions within the legislation made it possible for merconcentration of media and thereby less diversity in the

CO mmunicat ions industries. Eisenrnenger and Iannacone expiain: For broadcast television, there is no cap on the number of stations a single company may own nationally. One company can now legaîly reach up to 35% of Arnerican homes (up fiom 25%). In addition, there are now no limits on the number of radio stations a single company uui own nationally. . . .TV and radio licenses will be easier to renew and dlnow have longer terms. This means broadcasters will be able to keep their licenses inde6nitely and without the public hearings that are currently held. These aspects of the legislation simply allow the pre-existing media conglomerates the chance to become even larger, swallowing smaller companies in their pat h. This will undoubtedly result in less diversity in media ownership."

Mer the Telecornmunications Act was passed, Disney merged with ABC/Cap Cities for a S 19 billion financial transaction." This union produced "a conglomerate that was powerfiil in every major mass medium: newspapers, magazines, books, radio, broadcast television, cable systems and programming, movies, recordings, vide0 cassettes, and, through ailiances and joint venture, owning control of the golden wires into the American hometelephone and cable."" In the same spirit ofbigger is better, Michael Eisner, chairman, CE0 and president of , recently expanded Disney's interests into the area of comrnunity development. The Walt Disney Company decided to build a town based on the "reaffirmation of the current assumption that only a wrporate-driven culture 'cmaddress the problems of the city with creativity and efficiency.""' The ideally created cornmunity of Celebration, Florida was the result. In Celebration, pedestrian-fkiendly streets are lined by houses that occupy tiny lots offenng inhabitants a proximity to each other that fosters visibility, conversation, and the pleasures of small-town life. Diversity is an architectural matter, the houses ranging fiom moderately expensive to extrernely costly. Diversity does not, however, extend to the poor; and most of the inhabitants of Celebration are white. . . .Each house is hooked up to the dreams ernbodied in the information superhighway by a fiber-optic cable system linked to television, telephone, and wmputer systems. Residents with personal cornputers have access to an 'intranet' service, which allows them to comrnunicate with each other through electronic chat rooms and to have access to cornmunity news .71 According to the senior vice-president of , "Celebration is aimed at fulfilling 'Wait's ideal for a town of tomorrow. . . .Wth Celebration, we're giving something back, trying to blaze a trail to improve Amencan fdyüfe, education and health.'"" Henry A. Giroux's analysis of Celebration is haunting: "Ln Disney culture, the cornmunity is not about self-rule but about adhering to the deslaid down by a centrai authority and legitimated through an appeal to the rewards of the marketplace, JI of which have Disney copyrights. One such 'reward' is decouplhg the language of politics 6om the discourse of cornmunity and substituting security, confonnity, and regdation-referred to in Disney language as 'Famify Friendly Planning' -for the risk-fiiled dyMmics of demo~racy."~ According to Giroux, Disney is able to offer a "fantasy world grounded in a promotional culture and bought at the expense of citizens' sense of agency and resistance, as the past is purged of its subversive elements and translateci into nostdgic celebration of entrepreneurship and technological progress. Fantasy, as a Disney trademark, has no language for imagining public life and, as such, cannot be self-cntical about its own relationship to it."" He maintains: But Celebration is more than a marriage between Norman RockweU and Bill Gates: it also rnirrors Disney's obsession with control. Living in Celebration has a price. Safety and security are exchanged for a signifiant loss of wntrol over a number of decisions that homeowners make in most other communities. Much of Celebration, fiom its architecture to its horticulture, is scripted by the folks at Disney. Nobody can get lost in Celebration. The rules include not being allowed to hang the wash out to dry, keeping the gras cut, not being able to live elsewhere for more than three months at a tirne, holding only one garage sale in any twelve-month penod, displaying only white or off- white window covenngs, and using only approved house paint colors. Big Brother in the nineties doesn't just corne in the fom of a totalitarian state, it aiso cornes with a smiley face, masking the watchfùl eye of privatized govenunent."

Disney extended its copratetentacles into public education through its development of a business-school partnership with the Celebration School through the Osceola County School District and Stetson University in Florida. The business-sponsored school received the land, design seMces and over $20 million towards building costs fiom Disney. Stetson University contnbuted to cumculum development and provided leadership programs for teaching staff. Furthemore, Disney included a team of educational experts who were instrumentai in developing leadership principles, cumculum and methods of instruction. For example, Howard Gardner, a Harvard University professor of educational psychology who specializes in the subject of multiple intelligence, is part of their high powered team. Giroux's critique of Gardner is noteworthy: The experts whom Disney called upon to shape its curriculum are largely grounded in educational psychology and have Little or nothing to say about the relationship between schools and society-about how power works through the various processes in which knowledge and authority are constmcted to produce democratic identities-that is, engaged citizens prepared to expand and strengthen a critical democracy. Howard Gardner is particdarly interesting on this. As an educational reformer, he has become known for his Melong focus on multiple intelligence. An advocate of teachers' recognking different styles ofleamhg among students, he preaches the need for educators to teach fom of understanding through models provided by disciplinary- based subject matter experts. Gardner has parlayed his approach into a ha1 industry; one can find advertisements for his videos, teaching guides, and books in everything fiom standard educational magazines to airline travel guides. Gardner's student-as-discipli~q-expertfits weil with the emphasis on creating workers who are flexible, efficient, innovative, seIfkontroUed, and collaborative. Understanding in this sense has less to do with critique than with problem solving, and the relationship between knowledge and power is addressed as a strategic issue rather than an ethical one. Knowledge means leaming how to adapt to change; it emphasizes flexibility, speed, and innovation, not how to challenge substantive injustices in a society founded on deep ineq~alities.~

Celebration's school is a showcase for high-tech and innovative instruction. It is also a drawing card for families purchasing homes there? Giroux's view on Disney's real motive also merit Our consideration: But Disney wasn't using the school merely to sel1 expensive homes; the company's investment in public education also provided another route through which it could continue to legitimate its interest in children whiie expanding its control over them as a potential market. Not only do kids provide a captive market open to the influence of a new electronic media technology-illustrated by the rise of Channel One-but Disney-sponsored schools provide the opportunity for producing cultural goods, texts, and entertainment and to daim that such commodities have educational value."

In the fa11 of 1999, Viacorn's purchase of CBS created a global media powerhouse. This block buster deal bnngs a major US television network and the largest radio and outdoor advertising holdings in Arnerica under the entertainment gant Viacorn Inc.= Its assets are valued at $80 billion. ~iacomKBS"holdings include: "the largest television group in the country, the CBS network, plus stations in 18 of the top 20 markets in the U.S., , one of the four U.S. film studios, Simon & Schuster, one of the nation's largest publishing houses, Blockbuster, the pre-eminent video rental outlet; as well as cable charnels like Mm, and the Nashville Network and Showtirne."' Although the Federal Communications Commission forbade several aspects of this merger, neither it nor the Department of Justice-Antitrust Division used its authority to block this merger." In fkct, the FCC Chair William Kennard's own statements regarding the need for antitnist regulations contradicted his actions. At a Radio-Television News Director Association annual convention September 25, 1998, Kennard is reported to have said: "One concern 1have is mnmtration of ownership. What if four group owners owned every television station in every major market in ten years? Would this have an effect on the quality of news coverage for the country? Of course it wo~ld."~Almoa one year later, Kennard spoke to the National Association of Broadcarters. He continued to support the need for the ainvaves to be a resource for public se~ceand debate: 'Broadcast ownership rules serve principles that we still cherish-pinciples like cornpetition, localism and a diversity of voices. . . .We can and must do more to make sure that there are a multitude of voices and opinions on the ainvaves."" The Assistant Attorney Generai in charge of t he Department's Antitrust Division dispatched a press release September 1, 1999, outlining his concems regarding the effects of the concentration of media ownership? And yet, the merger appears to be going ahead. According to Faimess & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) program director Janine Jackson, this ViacodCBS merger opened the "floodgates for more giant media mergers, [and d] accelerate the trend of media synchronùing their programrning with promotions in television, radio, billboards, books, movies and even theme parks. But what al1 the 'synergy' means for the public is less choice about where we get Our inf~nnation."~McChesney agrees: "The FCCYsloosening of the regulation of TV ownership rules will provide a financial windfall for a handful of billionaire station owners and media corporations; it will only encourage the ongoing corporate stranglehold on our media system, with its attendant commercial carpet bombing of our society."" The FCC's loosening ofthe regulations sends the message that the diversity of ownership is not wonh defending. McChesney points out that such deregdations "logically emerge corn a policy environment where one has to be a billion dollar corporation to participate, where there is no popular press coverage of the deliberations, where self- sening and bagus corporate PR is treated iike scientific inquiry, and where the public is consignai to its wuch, required to accept the dictates of an FCC in seMce to Wall Street as if these were the acts of ~od."~'

Canada: Turning Points Canada' s communication industries have undergone changes similar to those in the United States. There has been a steady trend toward increasing concentration of media control by fewer and fewer industries. Governments in Canada have limited their own intervention to restrict international trade-witness the signing of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)/World Trade Organization (WTO-1995) and the proposed Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI). Moreover, technoiogical breakthroughs in communications have highlighted the relevance of media ownership in Canada as well as in a global context, The magnitude of the economic stakes in the telecommunications sector forces us to examine the extent of concentration of ownership in Canada's communications industries. After World War II, Canada established restrictions to limit excessive consolidation of, and foreign ownership in, our communications industries. Obstacles to corporations included a combination of tax restrictions, regulatory constraints, Canadian-content quotas, and organizations such as the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)and the Foreign Investment Review Agency (FIRA). Nevertheless, Canada's regdations to protect Our communications systems proved to be stronger on paper than in actual practice. Throughout the last half of the nineteenth century, there was a steady increase in concentration and monopolization in the media. In 1958, Canada's three largest newspaper chahs controlled approximately 25 percent of circulation. By 1970, this figure had reached 45 percent.% In that year, the federal government established the Spocial Senate Cornmittee on Mass Media, chaired by Senator Keith Davey. Its purpose was to study newspaper concentration and centralkation of control. The resulting Davey Report claimed that Canada's mass media were "becoming increasingly concentrated in the hands of a srnailer and smaller privileged group of businessmen.'" As a result, the Senate Cornmittee recomrnended "the establishment of a press-ownership review board to represent public interest in future mergers and takeovers; a publication development loan fhd; a midy of advenising in the media; provision of post-graduate scholarships for media specialists; prohibition of increases in second-class mailing rates; and the establishment of a press co~ncil."~~The guiding principle of the Davey Report was to maintsin diversity in the press. The Report concluded that transactions which increased the concentration of ownership in the mass media were "undesirable and contrary to public interest-unless shown to be othenvise."" With the exception of the formation of press councils, these recommendations were never implemented. In 198 1, the federal governrnent appointed a Royal Commission on Newspapers under the chairrnanship of Tom Kent. The Kent Report documented a fiirther deterioration in diversity of ownership in the Canadian newspaper business since the Davey Report. For exarnple, in the intervening yws, Thomson and Southam had a combined aggregate circulation of close to 15 million readers and controlled 58.7 percent ofthe English-language circ~lation.'~Moreover, the introduction of new management stmctures and the intrusion of boardroom priorities on editorial expenditures were major concerns. These management st nictures expected mass media to "produce regular, healthy retums on investrnent, often at the expense of staff coverage, investigative reporting, and other attributes of quality journali~m."'~~As a result of the Commission's study, the Kent Report recommended iimitations on the future growth of newspaper chahs and the imrnediate divestiture of selected holdings by the Thomson organization and several regional o~ners.'~The key recommendations of the Kent Report were never legislateci. From al1 available reports, the moa influentid figure in Canadian joumalism today is press baron . He has radically altered the landscape ofthe Canadian news media. When the Kent Commission on Newspapers reported in 198 1, Black owned less than one percent of Saskatchewan's daily circulation. Today, he owns 100 percent. 'O3 Furthemore, Black purchased more than 50 of Thomson's newspapers in 1995 and 1996.'" These acquisitions made Conrad Black Canada's premier newspaper baron."' Peter Desbarats, respected dean of the graduate school of journalism at the University of Western Ontario, responded to the Canadian Press that the sale "diversifies owner~hip."'~James Wmter disagrees: This transfer fiom one media baron to another limits rather than increases diversity, since the dominant media player, the Black-Desmarais-Southam group, has added outlets at the expense of its smaller cornpetitor. It also illustrates the convergence of media industries which reflects the direction of future information providers. After ail, Thomson is moving fùrther into such areas as financial services, distance education and electronic publishing. In the meantime, the quote Corn Professor Desbarats provideci nodding approval of the takeover for readers of the Canadian Press across the country.'" And, According to the news media, the concentration of ownership in their industries is an inescapable fact of life. Firm believers in the 'fiee marketplace,' the media see the development of oligopolies as an inevitabie and natural process, whether in their own or other industries. The last thing that is needed is govement interference. To hear them tell it, takeovers are exciting events, bordering on breathtaking, depending on the sue, the billions of doiiars and the major players who are invol~ed.'~

With a total circulation of 4.3 million, Black operates the planet's third largest newspaper empire derNews Corp. and Gannett. He has gone fiom owning one daily newspaper to owning sixty, including all the newspapers in the provinces of Saskatchewan, Neurfoundland and Prince Edward Island. In 1999, he launched a new national newspaper based in Toronto, The National Post. Through the Canadian Press, Press News and Broadcast News services he is able to insert his daily newspaper content into al1 the Canadian broadcasting media and virtually al1 our daily newspapen. Through Southam, Black also partialiy owns Coles Bookstores, which merged with SmithBooks in March 1995 to form Chapters Inc., a mega chah of 430 bookstores with about 35 percent of the national book market.'" Chapter~"~is Canada's largest retail book chah Jacquie McNish in the Re~orton Business notes that "Chapters now employs one team of only nine buyers for about 400 stores. That Ieaves publishers wit h no national alternative if C hapters shows linle or no interest in a book.""' In the fall of 1999, Chapters found itself caught in a battle with Canadian publishers. The retail giant infonned Canadian book publishers that it wanted them to send their inventory to its wholesaler, Pegasus. Pubfishers, such as McClelland 6 Stewart and Harper Collins Canada Ltd., had always shipped directly to the retd stores. In an industry of sliprofit margins, Pegasus is demanding what publishers dlhighly damaging tems of trade. Considering that Pegasus is 72 per cent owned by Chapters, the wholesaling aspects of the deal are highly questionable. Chapters' launch oflegasus increases their ability to control the marketplace.'12 Chapters will see a windfall of millions of dollars, while higher costs, cwpled with the threat of deeper discounts f?om Pegasus, are squeezllig the rnargins of Canadian publishers. The srnaller Canadian wmpanies will find it ditncult to survive this latest assault. Canadian writen will also be hurt because many have contracts that ailow for sharply reduced royalties on high-discount orders. ' l3 "The Bureau of Competition Policy is very actively lookhg into this," said an industry insider. The Bureau did not retum ~alls.~~' The Competition Act, which regulates rnergers and acquisitions, was drafted for the Mulroney government by the most important corporate lobby group in the country-the Business Council on National Issues (BCNI). The BCNI has been the primary influence behind government policies on trade liberafization, privatization of public assets, deregulation of environmental protection, transportation, telecomrnunications, investment and corporate- friendly taxation competition practices. According to its cornmittee mandate, the BCNI recommendations were to establish:

. . .a cooperative and mutually supportive approach between the business comrnunity and the government on the contentious issues of competition policy in order ta ensure that the public interest in having Canadian business compete vigorously in domestic and international markets can be served. Consequently, the mandate of the Competition Bureau, which admuiisten the Competition Act, is very narrow, pitifùlly inadequate to protect the public interest, and skewed in favour of big business; it can only rule against a merger if the local 'commercial' competitiveness of advertisers has been compromised. The Bureau refuses to examine whether editorial and news content diversity will be compromised, whether local news and the use of local reporters and columnists dlbe diminished, or even if a national chah will be able to control national advertising markets, thereby creating a monopoly and effectively diminishing competition at that level."'

Public advocacy and intervention in Competition Bureau proceedings were diswuraged, thereby exacerbating the problem of a weak legislative fknework. Furthemore, Canada has no red legislation to prevent the concentration of newspaper ownership or cross-media concentration. In fact, Canada has the weakest competition and antitrust iaws of any of the large industrialized countrïes. "6 James Gillies, senior policy adviser to former Prime Minister Mulroney, saw the increasing takeover of Canadian business this way: While anti-combines legislation to prevent the restra.int of trade has beem on the books in one forrn or another since the 1880s, the laws have never been seriously enforced. Uniilce the United States where anti-trust legislation has usually been vigorously enforceci, in Canada there have been few if any mergers tumed domby govenunent agencies because they might result in the restrauit of trade. The degree of concentration, or in other words the lack of competition, in many markets in Canada is the greatest in the wodd and the concentration of economic power is enormous. Indeed, approximately 80 percent of al1 companies in the Toronto Stock Exchange Composite Index have a controliing shareholder with the balance widely-held; in the United States it is almost exactly the reverse-about 80 percent of tht firms in the Standard and Poor's Index are widely-held and only 20 percent have a controlling shareholder. . . .With a few exceptions, Canadian businessmen have never wanted or enwuraged competition. Indeed, the reaction of rnany to cornpetitive inroads has been to sel1 the business; as a result there is a higher percentage of foreign ownership in Canada than any country in the w~rld."~

Public interest issues do not seem to be considered significant by the Canadian Radio- television and Telecornmunications Commission (CRTC). instead, the CRTC focuses on the business prospects that will bring entertainment and communication services to both the domestic and economic sector. Canadians are reduced to being mere passive "consumers" of the products that the telephone, cable and television industries want to propagate. The incestuous relationship between the Rogers Cable empire and the CRTC is a case in point. Ms. Wilson and Ms. Grauer were appointed to the CRTC. Both women were former Rogers employees and hired to lobby the governrnent . This is not amis-length participation. Another important Rogers link was the relationship between former Liberal communications minister Francis Fox and CRTC chaiwoman Française ~ertrand."' Mr. Fox worked several years for Rogers as a lawyer, lobbyist and director, and later becarne a full-time employee heading up Rogers's Quebec interest. The former minister was particularly acîive on Parliament Hill; he lobbied against a bill that would have put restrictions on how able systems package specialty channels. Ms. Bertrand consulted Mr. Fox extensively afîer she moved fiom consulting to the CRTC chair.'19Charles Bélanger, former executive assistant to Mr. Fox and vice-chair of the CRTC, brought with him his experience fiom his work at the Canadian Cable Television Association of which Rogers is one of the influentid members. The CRTC under Ms. Bertrand moved away "from large, semi-judicial hearings, where al of the evidence was public and contestable, toward a more collegid, and closed-door, round-table format.9-120 In 1995, the CRTC awarded an effective monopoly to Expressvu Inc. which is a subsidiary of BCE Inc. The ruling effectively "barred foreign DTH [direct-to-home] competition by emphasizing Canadian content, and insisting that Canadian satellites be used for delivery. This allowed Expressvu Inc., a consoriium of telephone, broadcasting and hardware imerests formed in March 1994, to effêctively have the field to itseIf"12' mer an investigation of monopoly privileges, Prime Minister Chrétien reverd the CRTC decision and ordered that Power DirecTv also be licensed. Power DirecTv is owned by Chrétien's son-in-law, André Desmarais. This company is owned by Paul Desmarais' Power Corp. According to Wmter, the licensing of Power DirecTv "was a classic exarnple of undue political interference with a regdatory body."'* These corporate-politid ties demonstrate why the concentration of ownership of the press should be regulated. The US Department of Commerce issued a report outSig the methods by which American firms globalized the electronic mass media and other markets: complementary expansion, horizontal expansion and vertical expansion. Canada was their northem fiontier for expansion. Hannigan explains: Complementq expansion occurs when a firm is engaged in the production of mass media produas which are fûnctionally related, e-g., videocassette recorders (VCRs) and videocassettes. Typically, a company that manufactures 'hardware' (TV sets, satellite dishes) di purchase companies which produce 'software' (films, TV prograrns, video gmes) in order to control both price and supply. Horizontal expansion occurs when a firm sells the same product in at least two different foreign markets . . . .Globalbtion through 'vertical expansion' occurs when a firm controls more than one state in the production chain, and this combined ownership transcends national borders . . . .Glo balization has impacted the Canadian media primarily througb joint ventures between Canadian and foreign firms that involve 'complementary' aspects. Rogers Cable systems, for exarnple, a major player in the Canadian telecornmunications industry, has undertaken field testing of computer giant IBM' s high-speed, multimedia idonnation-transmission technology and has discussed joining an IBM consortium that would deliver movies on demand, video-telephone service, and a host of other interactive services to homes and businesses via cable.'=

In light of the means by which the corporate giants enter Canada's marketplace, our attempts to block control of our communications industries seem fiitile. It would appear that the large mu1 tinational publishing corporations control the educational publishing industry. The Canadian elementarylsecondary school market is dominated by Amencan-owned companies. The patterns of the content and design of textbooks and the structure of knowledge they advance, suggest that these wmpanies are oriented not to a Canadian market but to a global mass market. These publishing giants attempt to produce materials that are easily tramferable behueen markets by dealing in generaiities and emphasizing knowledge ofbenefit to the centre, to which every province and state is a hinterland.'*' Multinational publishers seek to ensure theu dominance ofthe market by using expensive four-colour printing that can only be afforded in a large market. Massive pre-publishing investments prepare the school market to receive the leamhg rnaterials. Religious-right groups such as Albertans for Quality Education or Ken Campbell's Renaissance Group in Halton Hills, Ontario have had an enorrnous influence on educational "reform." In the United States, the religious-right has been successfbl in influencing the content of textbooks. Its support represents an enormously lucrative market to publishers. Therefore, it is not surprising that publishing companies attempt "tu satisf4t the tastes of the activist far-right lobby, with textbooks increasingly reflecting the most narrow and uncontroversial restating of Arnerica's 'basic values.' These are the same publishers that produce Canadian teab~oks."'~Herbert Schiller expresses his concerns when marketing becomes manied to the interests of the mass market producers: Textbooks directly influence their readers-children, ado~escents,and young adults-and serve as initial and life-long markers for the values and beliefs of those who are compelled to read them. The selection process for textbook publishing is affected by many forces-parents, state review boards, groups with strong opinions on social development issues, and so on. Yet in this sphere, too, the publishers' concern for profitability is the overriding factor. What will be included, excluded, how lengthy the text, and the level of the book's language are less pedagogical considerations than they are marketing and ideological concems?ls6

McMurtry questions whether academic resources would even be pubüshed without non- market leaniing institutions to sel1 them to. His concerns rnerit deiiberation: We know that corporate control of content and economies of international sale now regulate market production, and that this control rules out what contradicts it and typically produces for the lowest common denorninator of human intelligence in order to maximize sales. Given these hard facts of 'mass-marketing reality,' it is not clear how anything that appeals beyond consumer pleauire or contrsdicts corporate interests could ever be produced for profit. It is only non-profit education institutions that provide the effectve demand for these goods, t hus ensunng the profitability of their production. Without non-profit, public institutions of leaming, there is nothhg in the market to ensure that these fonns of human thought su~ve.'*~ The Global Economy: Trade Agreements

The Free Trade Agreement (FTA)~~and later, the North Ametican Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), were the transnational corporations' charter ofbusiness rights. Dobbin viewed these agreements as "a constitutional charter of nghts for transnational corporations that embodied the principles of wrporate libertarianism. Its designation as a tnde deal obscured its essential purpose: to econornically integnte Canada with the u.s."'~~M workers and most citizens, Canadian, Amencan and Mexican, "lost human rights, lost citizen power, lost control over their cornrnunities, lost the ability to determine what End ofsociety they and their chiidren would have. in one sense Canadians lost more because we had more to lose: the state was more active in redistributing wealth, ensuring pubhc seMces, financing culture, and promoting regional equality."'30 According to McMurtry, these trade agreements served no interests other than those of transnational corporations and could be defined by a single master principle. He States: Remove any and al1 restrictions on the access of transnational corporations to ownership of the economies of the world. Pnvate corporations and capital were indeed 'fiee' fiom old 'barriers.' But their fieedom permitteci them, arnong other things, to slash costs on evolved social, labour, and environmental standards and protections. in consequence, every life-form other than the corporation was now decidedly less fiee because no effective rights or protections for them were instituted in these transnational trade regulations. These new tule-books for societies prescribed thousands of pages of detailed adcles for the unféttered mobility and rights of capital to own, exit, and sel1 across borders-a new regime of regulations ovemding all local and national laws conflicting with them. This new transnational regime was, indeed, by its own description, accountable to no body or noms beyond itself13' Imposed systems of trade agreements, or "transnational nile," are not accountable to the democratic process and the legislative sovereignty ofthe people. in the United States, the Free Trade Agreement passed against public opposition. Americans opposed it by a vote of two to one. In 1993, President Bush signed NAFTA after he was defeated by Clinton who carnpaigned against the deal. 13* In 1983, Mulroney had carnpaigned on the negative effects of the agreement: "Free Trade dects Canadian sovereignty and we wiil have none of it." In the Canadian federal election of 1988, fought largely on the fiee trade issue, "a majonty of the electorate voted against the party that went on to sign the original US-CMda Free Trade Agreement. This election was won by Brian Mulroney's Progressive Consemative Party with 43 per cent of the vote; 57 per cent of the electorate voted agajnst Mulroney, and 53 per cent voted for parties whose explicit policy was to oppose the FTA This is worth bearing in mind, because the figures have rarely been mentioned."'* The communication strategy concerning the trade agreements discredited the democratic p~ciplesof state. A merno leaked from the office of the prime minister stated: "The strategy [on the Free Trade Agreement] should rely less on educating the public than in getting across the message that the trade initiative is a good idea. In other words a selling job. It is likely that the higher the profile the issue attains, the lower the degree of public approval wül be. Beneglect âom a majority of Canadians may be the reaiistic outcome of a well-executed communications pr~gram."'~The Free Trade Agreement was signed by the Mulroney Consemative government and became law. By the time the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed 9 1 per cent of the Canadian population disapproved of Mulroney. This was the lowest public support for a Canadian prime minister ever re~orded.''~The bill passed on June 23, 1993, dunng the final week of Brian Mulroney's tenure as prime minister. Opportunities for Canadians to voice their opinions on NAFTA were restricted. The House of Commons Sub-Cornmittee on International Trade reviewing NAFTA held brief sessions in five provinces outside Ontario. Citizens in half the provinces and aU the temtories were given little opportunity for input to the agreement. Consultations were conducted without advance copies of the agreement to study before the hearings.'" According to John Calvert and Lany Kuehn: "This gave the signal that the consultation process was a periùnctory exercise; a joke. No one in the govemment intended to revise the legislation based on the input of the public. But the charade had to be gone through because it would be too politically embarrassing to pass the legislation without any regional input at d."'" Furthemore, there were no efforts by government to provide Canadians with detailed information on the various drafts of the deai dunng the critical period when the text was being finalized. Calvert and Kuehn expiain: Unlike the final text of the FTA, which was made widely available at no cost to any Canadian who wanted a copy, and unlike the text of the Charlottetown Accord which was also widely-and freely-distributed to Canadians, the NAFTA text was not distributed in large numbers for Canadians to examine. The Tories even contracted out the right to distribute the cornputer software version to the private sector. For a fée of $90 @lus GST) Canadians couid purchase a copy of the agreement on cornputer diskette fiom firms such as Vancouver-based Knowledge on Demand or IRL Information Retrievers Ltd. Delays in making the te* available on diskette, coupled with sohareglitches experienced by many purchasers, meant that those who were interesteci in reviewing the text oflen had to wait months to get a copy. By that time the brief debate on NAFTA was already largely concluded. . . .Restricting access to the actual text of NAFTA had the intended effect of limita the aôiity of citizens to analyse its provisions and draw their own conclusions about its content and likely effects. Instead, the govemment provided a range of public relations communications which laudeâ the benefits ofthe deal and maintained that it had virtuaily no drawbacks. Canada, we were told, came out ahead on every is~ue.'~

In the interests of corporations, NAFTA usurps the rights of governrnent to form economic policy and is responsible to no authority but itself. It has given transnational corporations a charter of rights that is unchallengeable by Parliament, unchallengeable in court. McMurtry maintains: The relevant articles of the new trade regime law were, by the agreement, to ovemde al1 pst, present, or future laws passed by any elected legislature or government-municipal, provincial, or national, in al1 matters on which the executive treaty prescribed. Here big govemment could be as intrusive, dictatorial, and secretively bureaucratie as it chose, so long as it was signing and protecting an agreement whose terms were entirely devoted to overriding law to protect transnational corporate access to foreign societies' markets and resources. . . .

The democratically opposed transnational trade law rewrote the law of Canada. The sovereign legislative powers of the country could no longer lawfully regulate in the interests of the people if this constituted any 'bamer to trade' by transnational corporations. Since 'trade' here includes ownership and control of the societies' respective resources and markets, there seemed no barriet left to remove. Democratic sovereignty itself could no longer erect impediments to the rights of transnationals to own and control national and regional economies.'39

Free trade agreements allow private capital and corporations to own and sel1 across national boundaries with very few restrictions. According to Dobbin, NAFTA's economic liberalization renders "the democratic state virtually powedess to improve the lives of its citizens. The corporate and political power brokers of the world are deiivenng on a decades- old promise of institutionai democracy only when it is bereft of any meaning, stripped of its egalitarian essence, and reduced to littk more than a ~Mceto transnational corporations."'* Calvert and Kuehn wncur and drive home an essential point: NAFTA has ramifications which go to the core of the fbnctions of government in a dernomatic society. It shifts, dramatically, the boundary between what is decided by the market and what is decided by democratically- elected governments; enhancing the role of the former, while imposing rnany new shackles on the latter. There is a Iegitimate debate over whether some decisions should be made through the marketplace or through the bdot box. However, it is quite inappropriatefor one particular govemment to give away the rights of the electorate over a variety of decisions conceming the role of public programs in this country through an international agreement which would bind dl fùture governrnents to a neo-consemative agenda. Indeeà, a very large part of NAFTA is crafted to weaken the power of government, while transforming its role from an institution which retlects popular, democratic aspirations to one of enforcing a new business agenda."'

Liberal leader Jean Chrétien's successful carnpaign against the Tories had denounced the 6ee trade deals and promised, "If we can't renegotiate, you know we'll abr~gate.""~The agreements remained law after Chrétien took office. One rnight wonder what this says about the democratic process and the legislative sovereignty of the people! These free trade agreements effectively stopped any future Canadian government fkom setting a national policy in mass media and information. NAFTA sets up an international fiamework to protect the private investments of telecornmunications firms. The agreement makes Our publicly owned and operated systems open to private interests. It ignores the fact that a communications system is the "vehicle through which a nation speaks to itself, or that a telecommunications system has cultural and other non-economic fun~tions.""~The implications of NAFTA for Canadian education and culture are signifiant as Calvert and Kuehn illustrate: To the extent that the remaining domestic cornponents of our radio, television and cable systems fall under the wntrol of large multinational telecomrnunications corporations, it will be increasingly ditncult-and increasingly costly-for domestic public educational institutions to produce Canadian educational programs or to gain access to the system for the promotion of education objectives in Canada. The new chapter on telecommunications will also affect cultural practices. Canada's culture is deeply intertwined wit h the means of communicating it. Without the ability to transmit information, ideas and cultural endeavours, Canadians are restricted in their ability to participate in the evolution of their cornmon culture . . . . NAFTA constitutes the legal fiamework of a cornmitment to udeash hemisphenc market forces throughout our economy and society. The le@ hmework is designed to reinforce the power of corporations to pnvatbe and cornmercialire our economy, whüe blocking the profit-driven activities.'"

Furthemore, as NAFTA opens the doors to closure of our public socid dkty net it places enormous new strains on our public education system. Calvert and Kuehn cleady demonstrate the extent to which they inauence public policy on education: The dismantiing of Canada's unique 'public sector' culture and its replacement by a U. S.-style, private, rnarket-dominated approach to economic and social decisionmaking will weaken the support of our public education system. Public education has not evolved in a vacuum. It has reflected Our approach to a variety of public policy questions, including health are, broadcasting, communications, transportation, social welfare and the like. When these supporting public institutions are privatized and commercialized, it will be increasingly difIicult to maintain Our heritage of public education.

Education is at the core of a nation's culture and sovereignty. To reflect the aspirations and the culture of a society, educational institutions must be shaped by the collective decisions of the mernbers of the society. In Canada this has been done through a variety of public institutions-school boards, university and college boards of govemon, provincial and federai governments and the broader educational wmmunity.

Educational policy cannot be tumed over to international markets, unless the real objective is to abandon institutions that are uniquety Canadian and let them be replaced by those of a culturally aggressive economic giant next door. Free trade is about privatizing and commerciaiiing ow public sector and restnicturing our society according to business values. The 'spillover' of this process to our existing syaem of public education will be significant."'

The transnational empires monopolize power in world production and distribution. Their financial yield is staggenng: "The annual gross revenues of the top forty-seven corporations exceed those of 139 States, and their mere intra-company dealings manage an increasing lion's share on international trade."'" They rule as world sovereigns of money. By cornparison, "the absolute monarchs of the past are parochial despots. In this new medium of money seeking to be more money through the instituted bodies of ever larger, non- responsible conglomerates, the life-organizations of the individual, society, and hoa planet itself are al1 transformed into subordinate functions of its system."'" The transnational corporations transcend national boundaries with "no limits to their access and control of other societies' means of existence.""' At the end of World War II, the United Nations established the basis of an international monetary system. An exchange-rate mechanism was aeated by setting the parities of national currencies against the US dollar. As a result, the International Monetary Fund (W)and the Wodd Bank were established. Two yuus later, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was created to provide the institutional means to create universai regulations for increasingly fieer commerce. GATT insisted on deregulation or the acceptance of international regulations and standards as a condition of membership. GATT also provided the institutional means for a negotiated removal of al1 national barriers to world trade. By the end of the 1940s, GATT was engaged in opening markets, reducing trade bamiers and standardking regulations for world trade. On January 1, 1995, GATT becarne the Worid Trade Organization (WTO). The Cornmon Front, a Canadian coalition opposed to the initiatives of the WTO, believed the "establishment of the WTO represented a watershed in the process of establishing a truly global economic order and it is likely to exert a more profond influence over the course of human flairs than any other institution in hi~tory.""~Rapidly, the WTO increased the importance of trade in the world economy. Transnational corporations now control more than a third of the world's productive assets. Fony per cent of the world trade takes place between corporations owned by the sarne transnational conglomerate. Trade and investment have becorne virtuaiiy in~eparable.'~ Moreover, the WTO has extremely powerful enforcement rules. Under GATT, strong sanctions existed but were imposed only if there was a consensus mong its members. The ruIings of the WTO are now automatically implemented unless a consensus of rnembers votes against the sanction. The WTO is the institution of choice for transnational corporations. The ramifications of its decisions "far exceed those of the General Assembly of the UN and even those of the Security Council. The lives of the vast majority of people in the world are af5ected by investment decisions, and those are increasingly made by transnational corporations. The WTO, essentially designed for and dominated by the transnational corporate agenda, is effectively a United Nations for transnational corporations, providmg corporations with the powers of an international The advantage for the WTO and NAFTA is that its negotiations take place in almost total secrecy and without public input or discourse. Government negotiating teams are heavily dorninated by mrporate advisory cornmittees and representatives. Dobbin points out: When a corporation challenges a law under the WTO (or NAFTA), both parties present their arguments to a panel of three trsde experts, udytrade lawyers with experience represmting corporations. This hearhg is held in secret, and the documents presented are secret. Although the ruîing itselfis made public, the Wï'O forbids revealing how the panellists voted or what they said. In short, cititens have absolutely no way of knowing why - or by whom - their democratically determined laws have been declared nul1 and void. As for those defending the said law, they are obliged under WOniles to prove that the law is not a restriction of trade - that is, wuntries are guilty until they prove their innocence. Corporations, on whose behalf cornplaints are made, cannot be charged or found 'guilty' of anything or held amuntable in my way in any international fonim.'"

Herman and McChesney agree with Dobbin: NAFTA requires that govemment agencies operate on a stnctly commercial basis, and it explicitly removes the possibility that govements can take on any new fùnctions. GATT rules hold forth the possibility that local regulations to protect basic food supplies, reduce smoking, provide cheap medicines, limit pesticide use, and maintain environmentai standards, can be overtumed as unfair trade practices. These international agreements were aU negotiated in secret talks arnong executive branch leaders of the relevant govermnents, in close consultation with business representatives. Legislatures have been onlookers, and the general citizenry of the afEected muntnes have been mere targets of propaganda, although sometimes allowed to ratfi cornplex and vague agreements under intense pressure and propaganda 6om above. The new institutions have considerable fieedom to make decisions that rnay effectively veto national and local legislation. Subject to executive department and powerfùl business interest lobbying, they are a vehicle for overriding the parochial interests of democratic rnajorities in favour of the Transnational Corporate global interest. * 53

The Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) was a World Trade Ormtion initiative. Its purpose was to expand the rights and powen of transnational corporations without imposing any corresponding obligations. The drafk treaty placed an obligation on governrnents and outlined the rules to be followed to facilitate profitable transnational investment. It was designed to set a high standard for the treatment of investors and provide rules on liberalization, dispute settlements and investor protection. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)MAI report stated: "The MAX would provide a benchmark against which potential investors would assess the opmess and legal security offered by countries as investment locations. This would in turn act as a spur to further ~iberalization."'~Tony Clarke and Maude Barlow had quite a dflerent view of the proposed MAI: The Multilateral Agreement on Investment is the culmination of a global assault, in the name of commercial fieedom, on these social rights and on the comrnitrnents to ecologid stewardslip made by the world7s nations at the 1992 Rio Earth Sumrnit. The MAI, if ratifid, will serve as a Charter oflüghts and Freedoms for transnational corporations against citizens and the earth, and represent a grave threat to democracy in Canada and around the world."'

The Canadian negotiators reviewing the MAI case did not oppose or raise any concems regarding the agreement. They felt they could include "reservation clauses" that would protect key areas of the economy and social infrastmcture. Our health are, education and social services would be protected if the negotiators were to sign. Trade lawyer, Barry Appleton, found the clauses weak and pointed out that "reservations are a fom of exception t O international treaty commitment s and are interpreted narrowly by international courts and tribunals."'" Moreover, he found the reservations clauses "inadequate to permit proficial govemments to provide these services without compensating affected foreign investors. . . .And culture is left even more wlnerable, since the govemment made no reservations at al1 in t his area. . . .Any policy or program that advantaged Canadian culture or content directly or indirectly, would run afoul of the national treatment or performance requirements obligations. Six areas, including Canadian content in TV, Canadian film distribution policy, and postal subsidies to Canadian publications, require specific reservations; otherwise, they are subject to demands for compensation fiom foreign corporation^."^^' And, as Clarke and Barlow predicted, the proposed MAI would have had a profound impact on the communications industry. Canada's magazine publishing industry is but one example of how communication conglomerates could exercise their powexfùl control over this industry under agreements like the MAI. Magazine publishing had flourished in Canada under govemment protection. These included postal subsidies, tax breaks for businesses advertising in Canadian magazines and a prohibition of "split run" editions of U.S. magazines that inserted some Canadian content in order to sel1 in Canada.'" in Jnuary 1997, the WTO mled on Canada's cultural protection mecbisms which had been put in place to protect Canadian penodicals. Acwrding to Hennan and McChesney: The WTO ml& that Canada could not impose special taxes or tarifEs on U.S. magazine publishen to protect Canadian periodicals. This was interpreted as strengthening 'Washington's case against cultural protection trade policies used by many other countries.' In view of the global nature of the communicatioa industries and technologies, there is an increasing acceptance of reduced national government control over vital areas of corn muni cation.'^

Their decision lefi Our magazine industry fighting for its life- Clarke and Barlow demonstrate the impact of the WTO's decision: "Eighty percent of magazines bought on Canadian newsstands are now foreign, and seven out of ten Canadian magazine titles don't show up on Canadian newsstands at dl. The removal of borders for magazine trade would dramaticdy favour the American industry, which ships $700 million worth of magazines into Canada every year, compared with the S 10 million in exports of Canadian magazines to the u.s."" The proposed MAI would have attacked aii chat remaineci of these foms of cultural protection in Canada. Clarke and Barlow conclude: The ody remaining protections for Canadian magazines in the wake of the WTO mling are very costly direct government subsidies to the industry and a tax masure that allows businesses to deduct the cost of advenising in domestic - but not foreign - periodicals. If disputed under the GATT, the former would likely be allowed, and the latter stn~ckdom. However, the W'snatioMI treatmenîprovisiom wouldprohibifthe use of both of these meanrres unlesr AmeBcmt magazines were giwn !ho Yune righs andaccess to the same subsidies.16'

Canada's ailing book publishing industry is yet another example of how vulnerable it is to agreements that side wit h transnational corporations at the expense of national interest. For example, under a proposal such as the proposed MAI, the Book Publishing Industry Developrnent Program "would have to be open to foreign publishers or cancelled, as would the $3 million the federal govemment allocates annually to Canadian publishers for book distribution and marketing. Lnvestrnent controls whereby foreip finns may not establish new undenakings in the book trade, nor acquire a majority of any Canadian company, would violate MAI national treatment and most favoured nation provision^."'^ Clarke and Barlow elaborate: Under the MAL, a U.S. book publishing gant could buy up a major Canadian pubIisher and refùse to produce any creative works by Canadians, but still qualiS. for industrial incentives offered by the Canadian govemment. Book distribution would be open to continental cornpetition, as would bookstores. There would be no stopping the entry into Canada of the several giant American book chains that have closed down independent stores al1 over the U.S. There would be no way to force foreign publishing, distribution, and book companies operating in Canada to employ Canadians, in either the arts or business end of the industry. . . .Canadian writers would have to appeal ta an American audience in order to be published. la

Even without the advent of the MAI, the publishing industry in Canada continues on its path to total destruction. On Friday, May 1, 1998, Little, Brown Canada moved its fimiture out of the firm's Yorkville offices and the lights were tumed off. The Canadian writers' wing of publisher Kim McAnhur had to appeal to an Amencan audience in order to be pubiished! McArthur said that US parent Company Time Warner wanted the convenience of consolidating the books of al1 publishers it owns-Warner Books, Disney, Hyperion and Little, Brown. It did not seem to matter that the Canadian operation eamed an 8 per cent profit the previous year. She commented in The Toronto Star: "We can be proud of what we accomplished here. We published a lot of authors really well-people who weren't well known before, Iike Maeve Binchy, Richard Ford, Ioanna Trollope. They sold about 50 copies a year here before we took them on. Of Canadians, we published Marsha Boulton, who won a Stephen Leacock Award for Letters From the Countrv and Stephen Williams for Invisible Darkness. We doubled Katherine Govier's sales and tripled Barry Callaghan' S." '" James Lorimer, the Toronto publisher, observed: "Everyone who shares the ovemding goal of wanting to see Canadian cultural life flourish through books should know that our federal govemment has now effectively declared that as far as books are wncemed we can think only of being a cultural minority in Our own ~ountry."'~' With the advent of fiee-trade deals, the transnational corporations become a neo- mercantilist elite. Dobbin declares that "their dominion, like the mercantile class of the eighteenth century, is now the ~orld."'~He argues: Transnational corporations, in the proce;s of becorning the most powerfiil organized force on the planet, have made huge steps towards eEactively ruling the world. Corporate infiuence in public life has always been a reality in capitaiist economies, and that infiuence has always been characterized by a lack of democracy. The last quarter of the twentieth century, however, has witnessed a profound change in the exercise of corporate power and influence.

Going beyond the exercise of influence on individual national politics, corporations are now circumventing the institutions of democracy and creating their own supra-national institutions of domination, institutions that are inaccessible to ordinary citizens, whose laws supersede those passed by democratic legislatures, and whose express purpose is to choke off the abüity of cornmunities to control their own destiny. Most alanning of al1 is the willing collusion of our democraticdly elected govemments in this globd counter-revoiution. 16'

The concentration of t he global wmmwiication system is largely a result of shifting decision- making power to the marketplace and establishing policies that are dnven by corporate priorities which are based on a 'new information order' of the fiee market. Governrnents now assume that "the value system of the global market is to be the proper order of social organization, and that societies must be made to adapt to their order as the needs and demands of the global market require. The market is not now seen as a structure to serve society. Rather, society is seen as an aggregate of resources to serve the global market."" To that end, govemments have put into place Iegislation which gives corporate entities more power than nation States. Within the communications industries, the media cartels own "the leading news media and their advertisers subsidize the test. They decide what news and entertainment will be made available to the country; they have direct influence on the country's laws by making the majority of the massive mpaign contributions that go to favored politicians; their lobbyists are permanent fixtures in legislatures."'~ 1 have outlined major tuming points that have enabled a concentration of media power, greater than at any tirne in world history, to emerge. Since the 1980s, govements have adopted the dogrna of the fiee market, endorsing a communications systern designed for maximized corporate profit making. Submerged in their corporate mind set, we seem to have forgotten that: "Freedom of the press is not a property right of owners. It is a right of the people. It is part of their right to fiee expression, inseparable fkom their right to infonn thern~elves.""~ Endnotes to Chapter Ont 1. Edward S. Herman and Robert W. McChesney, The Global Media: The New Missionaries of Corporate Ca~italism(London, Eng.: Casseil, 1997) 1.

2. Herbert 1. Schiller, Culture Inc.: The Cornorate Takeover of Public Exmession (New York: Odord University Press, 1989) 1 12.

3. Herrnan and McChesney 17.

4. Herrnan and McChesney 17.

5. Edward S. Herman and Noam ChomsS., Manufactu~naConsent: The Political Econornv of the Mass Media (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988) 4.

6. Herrnan and Chomsky 4.

7. Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopo?y (Boston: Beacon Press, 1997) 226.

8. Herrnan and McChesney 138.

9. Bagdikian 1 18.

10. Herman and Chomsky 8.

1 1. Herman and McChesney 2 1.

12. Herman and McChesney 22.

13. Herman and Chomsky 15.

14. Herman and Chomsky 14.

15. According to Bagdikian: "The American newspaper industry is fabulously profitable, its eamings resistant even to recessions. It is the third-largest industry in the country and for years has remained arnong the ten most profitable. On the stock market its shares outperform other blue-chip corporations." Bagdikian 1 19.

16. Heman and McChesney 148.

17. Herrnan and McChesney 13.

18. Dennis Mazzacco, cited in Jim Naureckas, "Media Monopoly: Long History, Short Mernories," Extra! [Online] httv://w'wup.tàir. ordexîrd95 1 l /monor>.html Nov/Dec. 1995.

19. Herman and Chomsky 1 1.

20. Herrnan and Chomsky 13.

2 1. Schiller, Culture Inc. 1 13. 22. Jeremy Turnstall, cited in Herbert Schiller, Information Ineauality: The Dee~ening Social Crisis in America (New York: Routledge, 1996) 52.

23. Schiller, Information Ineauah 53.

24. Turnstall, cited in SchiUer, Information Ineauaiity 53.

25. Bagdikian 50.

26. Herman and McChesney 38.

27. Herman and McChesney 38.

28. Bagdikian 54.

29. John McMurtry, Uneaual Freedoms: The Global Market as an Ethical Svstem (Toronto, On. : Garamond Press, 1998) 195.

30. McMurtry 195.

3 1. The most severe attacks in this century on fieedom of idormation and of the press were made by Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Both presidents made extraordinary moves to "support corporate concentration and increased profit-taking in the media," and, as a result, "newspaper publishers ovenvhelrningly endorsed both Nion and Reagan for reelection, and while in office President Reagan receive stunningiy uncritical coverage by the Washington News Corps." The concentrated control by dominant media corporations can lirnit access to full disclosure of information and would thereby diminish reai choices. Bagdikian 8.

32. Schiller, Information Ineauality 85.

3 3. Herman and McChesney 145.

34. Schiller, Information Ineauality 146.

3 5. Herman and McC hesney 146.

36. Herman and McChesney 146.

37. For a detailed analysis of the politics of public broadcasting and the core democratic values involved with it see James Ledbetter, Made Possible bv. . .The Death of Public Broadcastina in the United States (New York: Verso, 1997).

38. Ledbetter 4.

39. Grossman, concemed about cable access policy, suggests an interesthg way to solve the problem of monopolies in this critical industry: "Indead of the federal govemment giving away unused, publicly owned telecommunications spectrum and valuable telecomunications licenses, it should lease them out or auction them oEto commercial operators. Then, we should use some of the tens of billions of douars fiom those lucrative leases and auctions as a public dividend, to intercomect the nation's homes, schools, libraxies, and museums in a great new local and national interactive education and information telecommunications superhighway systern. That way, al1 citizens ml1 gain access to qudity children's fare, continuing education, job retraining, chic information, electronic town meetings, fiee time for candidates, and other vitai public services that the Time Warners, Rupert Murdoch, Bloornbergs, and city govemment do not supply." Lawrence K. Grossrnan, 'Fust Principles: Bullies on the Block," Çolumbia Journalism Review, [Online] http://www.cjr.orgnitd~97-01 -02-buiiies. html Jan/Feb 1993.

40. Heman and McChesney 50.

4 1. Herman and McChesney 37.

42. Herman and McChesney 37.

43. Richard M. Cohen, cited in Erik Bamouw, et al., Conelornerates and the Media (New York: The New Press, 1997) 39.

44. Cohen, cited in Barnouw, et al., 39.

45. Herman and McChesney 38.

46. Herman and McChesney 38.

47. Herman and McChesney 39-

48. Thomas Schatz, cited in Bamouw, et al., 84.

49. Shatz, cited in Bamouw, et al., 85,

50. Herman and McChesney 40.

5 1. Bagdikian 24.

52. Bagdikian 24.

53. Herman and McChesney 57.

54. Louis Bradeis, cited in Bagdikian, 25.

55. Bagdikian 25.

56. Because each of the dominant fims has adopted a strategy of aeating its own closed system of control over every step in the national media process, fkom creation of content to its delivery, no content-news, entertainment, or other public messages-will reach the public unless a handfùl of corporate decision-makers decide that it will. . . .The new media leaders compete only over marginal matters; their imperial borders, their courtship of new allies, and their acquisitions of smaller firms. Undemeath these skirmishes, they are interlocked in shared hancial ownership and a complex of joint ventures. With minor exceptions, they share highly wnservative poiitical and economic values. Bagdikian x.

57. Schiller, Culture Inc. 1 14.

58. F. t. Rhodes, cited in Barnouw, et al., 15.

59. Schiller, Culture Inc. 1 14.

60. Schiller, Culture Inc. 11 5.

6 1. Herman and McChesney 52.

62. Herman and McChesney 53.

63. Herman and McChesney 54.

64. Herman and McChesney 54.

65. Herman and McChesney 55.

66. Herman and McChesney 54.

67. McChesney, interview with Jackson and Hart, Çounter S~in

68. Bagdikian xiv.

69. Michael Eisenrnenger and Linda Iannacone, "Equal Access and Universal SeMce," Pa~erTieer Television [Online] http://artcon.nitpers.edu/~a~efti~er/articles/artic~el.html

70. Herman and McChesney 1 10.

7 1. Herman and McChesney 50.

72. Herman and McChesney 1 18.

73. Eisenmenger and Iannacone, "Equal Access and Universal Service."

74. Eisenmenger and Iannacone "Equal Access and Universal SeMa."

75. In 1983, the Gannett Company bought Combined Cornmu~cationsCorporation for $340 million, making it the biggest merger in history.

76. Bagdikian xiü.

77. Henry A. Groux, The Mouse that Roared: Disnev and the End of Innocence (Lanham, Maryland: Rowrnan & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1999) 67. 78. Giroux 68.

79. Giroux 69.

80. Giroux 69.

81. Giroux 55.

82. Giroux 68.

83. Giroux 75.

84. Giroux 7 1.

85. Giroux 71.

86. Brian Milner, "CBS Merges with Viacom in Blockbuster Deal Worth $34.5-billion," The Globe and Mail 8 Sept. 1999.

87. See Appendix A for the fiil1 list of Viacom's holdings. 1 have also included the holdings of The Walt Disney Company and Time Warner.

88. "The Viacom-CB S Merger," [Odine] htt~://www.fair.ornlac~1sm~-viacorne- alert.htmi

89. "The Viacom-CBS Merger," [Online] htt~://www.fair.orrr/actMsmicbs-viacorne- dert.html

90. William Kennard, cited in "FCC Weakens Rules, to Delight of Broadcasters," FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting) [Onlinel htt~://www.f~r.orn/act~sm/fcc- ownershi~.htd Aug. 1999.

9 1. Kennard, cited in "The Viacom-CBS Merger."

92. Department of Justice, "Justice Department Requires Divestitures in Billings, Montana Radio Acquisition," [Online]

93. Janine Jackson, cited in "The Viacom-CB S Merger."

94. "FCC Weakens Rules, to Delight of Broadcasters."

95. "FCC Weakens Rules, to Delight of Broadcasters,"

96. James Winter, Democracv's Oxveen: How Cornorations Control the News (Montreal, PQ: BIack Rose Books, 1997) xïi.

97. John A. Hannigan, cited in Benjamin D. Singer, ed., Communications in Canadian Socie~(Scarborough, On. : Nelson Canada, 1995) 3 19. 98. Wilfied Kesterton and Roger Bird, cited Ui Singer, ed., 43.

99. Hannigan, cited in Singer, ed., 3 19.

100. Hannigan, cited in Singer, ed., 320.

1 O 1. Robert Everett and Frederick F. Fletcher, cited in Singer, ed., 246.

102. Hannigan, cited in Singer, ed., 320.

103. Winter 22.

104. Barlow and Winter illustrate the potential for confkt of interest in Canada's corporate sector: Canada's small group of homogeneous media owners, the 'Family Compact,' is fiirther interrelated through shared memberships on boards of directors. For exarnple, Douglas Bassett of Baton, and Conrad Black were both directors of the T. Eaton Company Ltd. (Eaton's). Another Eaton's director was Richard Thomson, the CE0 of the Toronto Dominion Bank, who also sits on the board at Thomson Corp. Of course, Eaton's filed for bankruptcy protection in February 1997, creating an enonnous potential for conflict of interest. At a minimum, this gives the appearance of a confiict of interest for the news organizations owned and/or run by these people. And in its Statement of Principles, the Canadian Newspaper Association indicates that 'confiicts of interest, real or apparent, should be declared.' It goes on to state that 'the newspaper should guard its independence fiom govement, commercial and other interests seeking to subvert content for their own purposes.' Maude Barlow and James Winter, The Big Black Book: The Essential Views of Conrad and Barbara Amiel Black (Toronto, On.: Stoddart Publishing Co. Lirnited, 1997) 28.

105. Winter 24.

106. Winter 24.

107. Winter 24.

108. Winter 6.

109. Barlow and Winter 7.

110. Contributing pressure for cornrnercialization of the book is the growth of Chapters and other nationwide book chains. Though they deny exerting influence on the content of what is being published, these "big retail chains by their choice and promotions largeiy determine which books wül become the big sellers. Their choices, in tum, are finely tuned to selecting works that have the greatest sales potentiai. While this criterion does not absolutely preclude material that is unfamiliar, sociaily critical, or seriously anti- establishment, it limits severely the Likelihood of its publicatio~rat least publication by the main commercial houses." Barlow and Winter 23.

1 1 1. Jacqui McNish, cited in Barlow and Winter, 23. 1 12. Judy Stofhan, "Row Rages Over Chapters Unif" The Toronto Star 15 Sept. 1999.

I 13. John Lo~g,"Battle Stirrhg Behveen Book Chain and Publishers," The Globe and -Mail 14 Sept. 1999. 1 14. John Lo~g,"Battle Stimng Between Book Chain and Publishers."

I 15. Barlow and Winter 2 13.

1 16. Mel Hurtig7 The Betraval of Canada (Toronto, On.: Stoddart Pubiishing Co. Limited, 1992) 184.

1 1 7. James Gillies, cited in Hurtig, 186.

1 18. Doug Saunders, "The Most Feared Woman in TV," The Globe and Mail 10 March 1998.

1 19. Saunders, "The Most Feared Woman in TV."

120. Hugh Winsor, "Time for Clear Look at CRTC Choices," The Globe and Mail 6 April 1998.

12 1. Winter 59.

122. Winter 6 1.

123. Hannigan, cited in Singer, ed., 322.

124. Rowland Lorimer & Jean McNulty, Mass Communication in Canada (Toronto, On: McClelland & Stewart, 199 1) 309.

225. Maude Barlow and Heather-jane Roberston, CIass Warfhre: The Assault on Canada's Schools (Toronto, On: Key Porter Books Limited, 1994) 136.

126. Schiller, lnformation~12.

128. "Between the end of 1988 and 1994, as many as 334,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in Canada, 17 percent of the pre-fke trade total. Most of these were shed by the largest corporations, members of the Business Council on National Issues (BCNI) who spent millions promoting the deal. Between 1988 and 1996, thirty-three BCNI member corporations laid off 2 l6,OOd employees (eleven others increased employees but by just 28,073). The big losses were in labour-intensive industries. By the end of 1994 the clothing industry had lost 32.8 percent of its jobs, electronics 24 percent, paper 22.5 percent, food and primary metals both 16.5 percent. At the same time, those thirty-thme corporations increased their combined revenues by mon than $40 billion, to $158.2 billion. During the fiee-trade debate the deal's proponents prornised 'more and better jobs' - 3 50,000 ofthem. The jobs that have been created have been in low-wage personal and commercial services." Murray Dobbin, The Mvth of the Good Cornorate Citizen: Dernocracv Under the Rule of Big Business (Toronto, On.: Stoddart Publishing Co. Lirnited, 1998) 93.

129. Dobbin 92.

130. Dobbin 93.

131. McMurtry 261.

132. McMurtry 235.

133. McMurtry 231.

134. Dobbin 85.

1 3 5. McMurtry 232.

136. John Calvert and Larry Kuehn, Pandora's Box: Corwrate Power. Free Trade and Canadian Education (Toronto, On.: Our SchooldOur Selves Education Foundation, 1993) 9.

13 7. Calvert and Kuehn 8.

138. Caivert and Kuehn 6.

139. McMurtry 234.

140. Dobbin 134.

14 1. Calvert and Kuehn 1 58.

142. McMurtry 232.

143. Calvert and Kuehn 46.

144. Calvert and Kuehn 47.

145. Calvert and Kuehn 160.

148. McMurtry 260.

149. Common Front on the World Trade Organization, cited in Dobbin, 99. 150. Dobbin 100.

15 1. Dobbin 101.

152. Dobbin 102.

15 3. Herman and McChesney 3 1.

154. OECD Report, cited in Dobbin, 105.

15 5. Tony Clarke and Maude Barlow, MAI. The Multilateral Aareement on Investment and the Threat to Canadian Sovereimty (Toronto, On. : Stoddart Pubiishing Co. Limiteci, 1997) 8.

156. Barry ~~~ieton,cited in Dobbin, 1 19.

157. Appleton, cited in Dobbin, 120.

158. Clarke and Barlow 125.

1 5 9. Herman and McChesney 50.

160. Clarke and Barlow 137.

1 6 1. Clarke and Barlow 138.

162. Clarke and Barlow 140.

163. Clarke and Barlow 140.

164. Judy StoBnan, "The Good Ship Little, Brown Canada Goes Down," The Toronto -Star 1 May 1998. 165. James Lorimer, cited in Singer, ed., 213.

166. Dobbin 127.

167. Dobbin 120.

169. Bagdikian 239.

170. Barlow and Winter 2 16. CHAPTER TWO THE IMPACT OF CORPORATE CONTROL

Citizens in a demomcy depend upon the media to understand and evaluate public policies and socid issuesin theory, the media are democracy 's oxygen. However, the increasing concentration of media ownership in fewer and fewa hands, the under fûnding of public semice broadcasting, the rising comrnercialilsition of news and information, and the commercial exploitation of t he new communications technology dl threaten t O lirnit the accountability of the media, the diversity of views given public expression, and the ability of citizens to access the news and information we need to participate in and make informed decisions about Our social, economic, and political anairs.

Maude Bariow and James Wmter

The importance of a diverse communications system, which 1consider to be essential to an open society and the heart of Our educational experience, camot be underestimated. Exposure to al1 available information, as well as opportunities for a fiee and unfettered discussion of public issues, has been regarded as a fiindamental and essential element of democracy since its inception. In a democratic society, since in principle the people govern, the argument is that they should not censor themselves. Gustave Flaubert wrote that "censorship, whatever it is, seems to me to be a monstrosity, something worse than murder; an assassination attempt on thought; a crime of lèse-âme [lèse-soui, as in lèse-majesté]."' Citizens in a democracy should have al1 the accessible facts at their disposal if they are to make judicious decisions about matters of public policy. In the Su~~fiants,Aeschylus talks of the fiee tongue as an essential democratic element.' In Socrates's triai defence for fiee speech and acadernic freedom-the examined life "is a matter of public debate or it is not I~ing."~ I tell you that to let no day pass without discussing goodnas and dl the other subjects about which you hear me taiking and t hat examining both myself and others is reaily the very best thing a man can do and that Iift without this son of examination is not wonh living.'

The Age of Enlightenrnent celebrated democracy and individual freedom. It acknowledged that "the democratic consent of the govemed is meaningiess unless the consent is informed consent."' The first amendment of the United States guarantees fieedom of expression. Diversity of expression was presumed to be the "naturai state of enduring libert~."~~he Canadian Charter ofRights and Freedoms "enshrines" our findamental fiedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression. Thus, in a historical sense, a "critical feature of movements toward democracy hm been the creation of a 'public sphere,' meaning aii the places and forums where issues of importance to a political cornmunity are discussed and ciebated, and where information is presented that is essential to citizen participation in comrnunity life."' A democratic society depends "on an informed populace mahg political choices . . . to be effective the public has to know what is going on and the options that they should weigh, debate, and act upon."' In the Mew of Jurgen Habermas and others, the public sphere works most effectively when "it is institutionally independent ofthe state and society's dominant econornic for~es."~Communications systems should stnve to develop and maintain diversity of expression. Herman and McChesney point out: A public sphere arguably can work as well or better when there is a wide range of media, each partially or wholly independent of the state and commercial control, that engage in public &airs and journalism in a partisan fashion. Indeed, this is the type of media culture associated historically with the most democratic politicai systems. The crucial factor in making this type of democratic public sphere viable is that there be no restriction on the range of political viewpoints and that resources be alIocated in such a way that powerfbl economic and political actors cannot drown out the ideas of media representing the less powerfùl segments of society.1°

John Dewey's conviction that everyone should be fiee to be democratic in his or her own way, and in educational tems, have the right to fieedom of thought and inquiry is pertinent in Our own time. He observed that "a progressive society counts individual variations as precious since it finds in them the means of its own growth. Hence a democratic society must, in consistency with its ideal, allow inteilectual fieedom and the play of diverse gifts and interests in its educational measures."" Yet, like so many of society's great victones, fieedom of speech and expression is easier to lose than to win. Socrates was executed "not for saying what things were or should be, but for seeking practical indications of where sorne reasonable approximation of tmth might be. He was executed not for his megalomania or grandiose propositions or certitudes, but for stubbordy doubting the absolute truths of other~."'~What Socrates was delivering was "knowledge that fosten doubt. And doubt is central to a citizen-based society; that is, to democra~y."'~His death stiii weighs on humanity. Democratic rights to critical dialogue and access to information have to be constantly reconquered and maintained. Today, democratic ideals embedded in society's institutions providing for a democratic state and fiee public life have seen their authority, vitality, in a word, their legitimacy, slowIy being eroded. There has been a decline in the sense of obligation to serve the noncommercial uiformation needs of public citizenship resulting in a deep erosion in the national information infiastructure." As transnational corporations gain unparalleled rights and the marketplace dominates, the nghts and ideas embedded in the diversity of ownership of the press essential for a democratic society begin to disappear. Bagdikian maintains: The &est way to ensure diversity of opinion is diverse ownership. But this ideal has been sacrificeci by government devotion to the mythical doctrine of fiee market economics. . . .If there's any tmly free market in modem corporate flairs, there is none in through-the-air broadcasting. . . .During the 1980s, the FCC, under Mark Fowler: has used the country's broadcasting system as an experiment in so-called fiee market econornics. The FCC has expanded the number that one corporation may own and suspended the demand that stations do any public service, like news and community issues programrning. It has let big operaton (Murdoch, Capital Cities, etc.) buy competitors. And it has made it almost impossible to challenge a license if the public doesn't like what it sees. Their concept of a diversity of views is the fbll range of politics and social values fiom center to far right. The American audience, having been exposed to a narrowing range of ideas over the decades, ofien assumes that what it sees and hem in the major media is aii there is. It is no way to maintain a Lively marketplace of ideas, which is to say that it is no way to maintain a democracy."

The interests of competitive-corporate ideology are advanced and the values of what we normally understand as civilization are "swept aside by the new corporate imperative and its accompanying ideology. Thousands ofyears ofhuman development and progress are reduced to the pursuit of 'efficiency,' Our collective wiii is declareci meaningless compared to the values of the marketplace, and the cornmunitarian values are rejected in favour of the nirvival of the fittest."16 Dobbin agrees with Bagdikian and sees that the increasing domination of huge corporations and the forces of globalization undermine some of the principles of democracy. He explains: "Countnes maintain the trappings of democratic, popular govemance while CEOs of large corporations, hidden hmpublic view, seize more and more of the ground of governance and make more and more of the decisions that affect our daily lives. This shift from democratic govemance to corporate rule takes place incrementdy, each step carefiliy rationdized by the purveyors of market ideology. The state still governs, but corporations rule."" Saul maintains that the acceptame of corporate nile "causes us to deny and undermine the legitimacy of the individual as citizen in a democracy."" He indicates that the pretensions of a democracy diminish as we becorne enmeshed in the "glory of a new ail- powerhil clockmaker god-the marketplace and its sidekick, te~hnology."~~

Consensus is Shaped The transnational communications corporations possess the power to "sunound aimost every man, woman, and child in the country with controlîed images and words, to socialize each new generation of Arnericans, to alter the political agenda of the country. And with t hat power cornes the ability to exert influence that in many ways is pater than that of schools, religion, parents, and even government itself?" Media conglomerates control the main body of news and public information. They shape the consensus of society for "even brute force triumphs only by creating an accepting attitude toward the brutes."21 Wmter maintains that the corporate media barons demonstrate their neo-consemative ideology and uphold the mythology that they are dedicated to public interest. In reality, his studies confirm that the news is largely a corporate and management product. It is their ideology that pervades the media whereby narrow ideological dogmas are promoted. These include their views on globalization, privatization and deficit hysteria? Consequently, they are able to fashion information to pursue their own financial and ideological goals. According to Dobbin, corporate "super-citizens" have "redesigned the planet and its ewnomic system. The political elites of the developed world and the institutions they control have been complicit in this transformation. They have implemented an enormous transfer of power fiom governrnent-that is, fiom citizens-to corporations. The media, corporate think-tanks, political parties, universities, and other institutions we created to serve and define civil society have instead betrayed it."= What remains is a facade. Dobbin contends: If we were to create an image of the advent ofglobai corporate rule we would first have to picture dozens of democratic institutions, parliaments, legislatures, congresses, supreme courts, the ofices of senior government planners and bureauaats, the United Nations, al1 as facades, with familiar and reassuring fronts, Iike the main Street set in a western movie. Ernpty vessels, these physical trappings of what used to be goveming bodies and agencies maintain the fiction that societies and wmmunities are engaged in making choices about what kind of society they wüî have, about the prospects for their children.

It is here, according to the old script, that elected representatives, duly chosen by the people, debate and decide these questions. And of course the representatives are still there and elections do still happen. Important laws are passed and repealed. The democratic authority to make decisions stiii resides in these institutions. But in reality the script has changed. The pomp and ceremony of Parliament's opening, the acrimonious debates, and the occasional scandals are becoming little more than ritual. There is a new script, one that ordinary citizens don't even get to see."

The power of corporate control is used to make the most important policies affecthg the public good. They wield their enormous influence in such consensus-building organizations and forums as the Trilateral Commission, the World Economic Forum and the Bilderberg Forum. Their nationally based counterparts like the Business Council on National Issues (BCNI), the C.D. Howe Institute and the Fraser Institute are arnong the most important policy forums in the world.* Millions of dollars flow fkom the right-wing foundations and corporations into tax-deductable foundations like the Fraser Institute and the CD. Howe Institute. These corporate funded think-tanks produce studies that support corporate goals and the results of the research are "disseminated widely and repeatedly through the corporate-controlled print and electronic media to influence the public mind."26 They have become "the proper place for developing a consensus on corporate libertarianism away fkorn the compromising 'art' of politics, from the prying eyes of cïtitens and the media. Indeed, corporate libertarianism is by its very nature totalitarian, and it follows that its planning would be carried out in pnvate, where the interests of others need not be taken into account ."*' In many respects, the BCNI was organized to reinvent the Canadian state in order to facilitate globalization. It was established by Noranda's Alf Powis and Imperia1 Oil's W.O. Twaits in 1976 and represented 150 corporations operating in Canada and controiled assets of some $800 billion. It was dorninated by banks, insurance companies, petroleum and other resource companies and manufacturers. Major foreign-controlled hsincluded Bechtel, Xerox, IBM, Honeywell, ITT,Imperia1 Oil Shell Oil, Texaco, Ford, and Kodak?' Today, the BCNI includes the CEOs of major Canadian corporations and reflects the interests of multinational and transnational wrporati~ns.~It addresses international global mark& issues in the Canadian context. Its pursuit of fiee trade represented the interests of transnational corporations in Canada, and "more than any other political victory, its initiative and lobbying on free trade fùndamentally altered Canadian democracy and public poli~y."~Furthmore, Canada's New Competition Act was virtually the sarne as the BCN17s236 page report. The report was a comprehensive, detailed statutoiy package put together by twenty-five corporate legal counsels that the BCNl assigneci to work on writing the new act. The enactment of the Competition Act did almost nothing to promote ~ornpetition.~'ïheir actions indicate the power and strength of the BCM in forming policies to achieve their market goals. According to Dobbin: The BCNI is responsible for two long-lasting changes to the very nature of how the federai govemment works. Fust, in its pro-business victories with free trade, taxation, competition policy, and regional development, the BCNI put into place a policy environment that is a permanent feature of federal governments, regardless of who is in power.

Second, and related to that policy environment, the BCN17s approach to corporate intervention has permanently changed the way that public policy is made in Canada. It's almost as if the traditionai forums for debating and detennining a public consensus are now Little more than bread and cireuses, ntuals tossed out to the public as a sop to democratic legitimacy. The BCNI's control of both the policy process and the federal agenda is so effective that prime miniaen are reduced almost to the status of figure heads."

The BCNI commissioned a $1.5 million study by Michael Porter of Harvard University to establish education policy for Canadians. This action clearly demonstrates theù initiative in policy formation. The cost of the report was paid for by Canadian taxpayen. According to Dobbin, Porter's Report repeats the "conventional wisdom in the corporate cornmunity-create national educational standards; have provincial governments agree to testing mechanisms to meet the standards, put more emphasis on science, math and technology and transforrn the universities into institutions to promote economic de~elopment."~~Although much of the work of the BCNI relates to building corporate influence over the universities, it has also held conferences focussed on the elementary and secondary systems of public schooling. It emphasizes strong business-education partnerships which would enable students to compete in the global marketplace. To mention a few. the BCNI has called for higher university and miiege tuition fee~and the replacement of provincial transfer payrnents with direct grants to students to enable them to choose public or private institutions. It endorses govenunent cutbacks to education with the desire to move to pnvatized sy~tems.~The Federal Liberal Party's cornmitment to assist provinces in the development of national education tests is the mode1 proposed by the BCNI-the National Achievement Test. The BCNI presents national tests as an opportunity for students and parents to "track the progress of our educational systems in meeting the goal of higher achievement."" Citics are concemed with the equation that more and more standardized testing equais more knowledgeable and better educated st~dents.~According to politid economist David Langille: "in the course ofthe last decade, the Business Council on National Issues has become the most powerful and effective interest group in Canada-to the point where it can now exercise hegemony over both the pnvate sector and the state."" The C.D.Howe lnstitute is a strong ally of the BCNI and is considered a major corporate think-tank. Its membership comprises 280 corporations and sponsors. These include Alcan, GM, MacMillan Bloedel, the bankers' association and the five big banks, and Quebec's Power Corporation to mention a few. Its self-appointed board of directors is dorninated by the financial sector and the larger core donors play the most prominent roles. The amounts donors provide the institute are "confidential, even though the federal govenunent gives them a tax n~rnber."~It helps create the elite consensus and helps to change the political culture to reflect it." The C.D. Howe Institute, explains Dobbin, "provides an air of neutrality and intellectual legitimacy to an ideology that does iittle more than serve the interests of its large corporate members."" For example, one of its most prominent policy papers, Social Policy in the 1990s, provideci "the ideological foundation for the Liberals' gutting of the UI lIJnemployment Insurance] program, one of the most important elements in the corporate agenda.'74' Unfortunately, as Me1 Hurtig illustrates, the Canadian press in its editorial pages and columnists across Canada accept their long list of one-sided, highly subjective, selective studies as "gospel, citing them chapter and verse, rarely if ever bothering to delve into the funding, methodology, and authenticity of the studies or to seek alternative opinions about their conclusion^."^^ In the fall of 1973, the Fraser Institute was created to bring about the demise of the New Democratic Party in the province ofBritish Columbia and endorse froe-market ideology. It promotes an "ideological attack on dernocra~y."'~Bad on the Chicago School of Milton Friedman's monetarist, &-market ideology, the Fraser Institute has ''targeted aü the major institutions in the country that inauence how Canadians think: the media, churches, political parties, non governmental organizations, and univer~ities."~It promotes a close relationship with prominent Canadian joumaiists, witness the institute's "Economy in Government" prize, which is CO-sponsoredby the Financial Post. It has rewarded such ideas as creating publicly funded private schools." A central focus of the Fraser Institute is to expand its influence and shape the media. Dobbin's research in this area merits deliberation: The Fraser Institute has so penetrated the Canadian media that it is hard to imagine where it could possibly expand. Its 1996 annual report claims 3,108 references to the institute in the media that year, 5 1 percent more than the previous year. The institute holds news conferences and issues news releases, and makes sure it always has staff available to be inteniewed. Its fax news- broadcasting operation sends a two-page news sheet to 450 radio stations every week. It provides packaged editorials for newspapers and radio designed 'to explain the merits of the fiee-market system, issue by issue.' As weli, its seminars are extensively covered by cable stations, which gave it 105 hours of coverage in 1996.

The receptivity of the media is not surprising. Over the years, key media institutions have fùnded the Fraser Institute, including Sterling Newspapers, Southam, Thomson Newspapers, and Standard Broadcasting. David Radler, president of Hollinger, is an institute trustee, and Barbara Amiel Black, another Holiinger executive as well as a colurnnist for Southam papers, was a trustee' until 1996.'6

The Fraser Institute targets young people. Its 1996 annual report States: 'Over the years, particular attention has been paid to the development of the student program as the Institute and its supponers recognize the importance ofbringing free-market economic ideas to university, college, and high school students in their prime leaniing years.' Through sympathetic professors and student s on campuses, the institute distribut es twenty thousand fiee copies annually of its newsletter, Canadian Student Review. The inaitute encourages like-minded professors to place its publications on course iists and to assign its essay contests as part of class work. Typical of the themes for these contests is 'Free Market Solutions to Environment ~roblems.'"

The Fraser Institute is a key promoter in the privatization of education. The Fraser institute planned international links, particularly with the Friedman Foundation, to establish this goal. The estimated costs of this project are a quarter of a million dollars a year for the next five years." Clearly, the issue of managing globai capitalism in the "Education appears to preoccupy the agenda of the corporate elite. There are numerous international forums which have proven to be extremely infiuential in directing the global marketplace. The Bilderberg Forum was founded in 1954 to address world econornic problems and formulate "corporate" solutions to them. The chairman of the editorial board of The Globe and Mail and an Amencan, Wrlliam Thorsdi, describes the Bilderberg as "a set of cucumstances rather than a place, a neîwork rather than an organization. It integrates the most powerful, wealthiest and most capable sector of global society - corporations - with the most important g~vemments."~The Bilderberg has no permanent membership but does include "some of the most influentid people on the planet-heads of state, other leading political figures, key industrialists and banciers. It dso includes academics, diplomats, sympathetic media figures, and a srnattering of trade unionists to round out the broader definition of the ruling elite."" Moreover, the Büderberg was instrumental in the establishment of the Trilateral Commission which fiinds institutions and commission reports that subscnbe to the neo-liberal point ofview. For exarnple, the Tdateral Commission contracted a study entitled "The Govemability ofDemocracies," which was iater published as The Crisis of Democracy. This discourse detailed what "the most vigorous pro ponents of the global economy and transnational corporations believed was the gravest threat to the future of capitalism: the growing demands of citizens on Western democratic g~vemments."~'John Ralston Saul points out that the acceptance of this dominant ideology "causes us to deny and undermine the legitimacy of the individual as citizen in a democracy. The result of such a denial is a growing imbalance which leads to our adoration of self-interest and Our denial of the public go~d."~~He contends that their message is "put out in a rhetorical, ideological rnanner t hrough corporatisrn' s mouth pieces-t he disciples of market forces, the courtiers of neo-conservatism and, of particular importance, the authoritative voices of the social science acadernic~."~The Bilderberg is chdenged only by the Wodd Economic Forum (WEF).ThorseIl proclaimed that the WEF was'tery much a precursor to 2 1" century institutions. . . .Pt is] one of the infocmal, unofficial. . .agents of communication and decision-making now emerging as the operative instruments in human Corporate leaders created intellectual think-tanks to counter academic studies damaging to corporations. Billions of dollars were spent and continue to be spent endorsing the corporate image. This advertising presented "the corporation as hero, a responsible citizen, a force for good, presenting information on the work the company is doing in cornmunity relations, assisting the less fortunate, minimizing poliution, controhg drugs, arneliorating poverty"" ~orporateadvertising is not only designed to seil goods and se~ees but also to promote the poiitics and benevolent image of the corporation. Media Decisions published the following: "As much as $3 billion in corporate money goes into all methods of promoting the corporation as hero and into 'explanations of the capitalistic system, ' including massive use of corporate books and teaching materials in the schools, alrnost al1 tax deductible."" Similarly, big industry players devote a great deal of theand money to getting their voice heard and positioning their supporters into appointments which will impact on legislation. Corporations' powers transcend those of the boardroom. Dobbin maintains: "Their role in lobbying governrnent and political parties, their support for and involvement in think-tanks, their networking with other elite members through company directorships, their personal diances with national and international corporate leaders, their private and occasional public intervention on policy issues, al1 of these activities extend their ruling capacity beyond the confines of the corporate suite."" The communications corporations depend on their relationship and ties with govemment. Herman and Chomsky concur: The radio-TV companies and networks al1 require govemment Iicenses and fianchises and are t hus potentially subject to govemment control or harassment. This techical legal dependency has been used as a club to discipline the media, and media policies that stray too ofien fiom an establishment orientation could activate this threat. The media protect themselves fiom this contingency by lobbying and other political expenditures, the cultivation of politicai relationships and care in policy. The political ties of the media have been impressive. mesearchl has show that fifteen of ninety- five outside directors of ten of the media giants are former govemment officials. . . .In television, the revolving-door flow of personnel between reylators and the regulated finns was massive during the years when the oligopolistic structure of the media and networks was being e~tablished.'~

According to Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, analysis of appointments since the Chrétien Liberals took office demonstrates that the interests of Canadian culture have taken second place to partisanship and lobbying.' Saul sees the integration of private interests into the functioning of the public good. He believes that it is difficult to identie this corruption of the pubiic place and that the corxuption that "really matters has been normalized and renarned, as if it were a usefil part of the democratic pro ces^."^' He continues: Central to this nocmaiization has been the graduai rise of lobbyias and their sophisticated conversion into the profession of consultants. Slowly but surely over the last twelve years, the am's-length public institutions of sociai, economic and scientific research have been shut down, aIong with the investigatory and enforcement arms of govemment. The argument given for their destruction was budgetary, yet the costs these bodies represented were minimal. The aim has been to blind govement. Having removed the arm's- lengh vision of the citizenry, the interest groups could then substitute their own eyes. What began with the destruction of the Econornic Council of Canada and the Science Council was followed by that of dozens and dozens of less-known but important mechanisms. This lobotomization of the public rnind continues today with, for example in 1997, the closing of the federal Bureau of Dmg Resear~h.~~

The method of achieving consensus or imposing values or ethical standards is important to recognize. McMwtry defines indoctrination as the way society intemalizes "a structure of thinking by habitua1 repetition, allowing for no question, alternative, or critical exp~sure."~~For the marketplace to succeed, the prevailing opinion mua be that of the global market value system. McMurtry continues: "Goods that do not carry a price tag do not enter its value ledger. What the market does designate as value-money or its quivalent-is aii that counts in its 'bottom Iine."'" Saul maintains the ideologies of the marketplace create an "oppressive air of confonnity [which will] force public figures to conform orbe ruined on the scafFold of ridicule. In a society of ideological believers, nothing is more ridiculous than the individual who doubts and does not conform. Think of the truisms of our day. Pay the debt. Embrace globalkation. Which public figure ofwhich stripe can stand up against these without cornmitting political suicide?'?' According to Saul, these ideologies offer no real choice: "Accept the ideology or perish. Pay the debt or go bankrupt. Nationalke or starve. Pnvatize or go monbund. Kill inflation or lose al1 your money."' Cornmunitarian values appear to be rejected. The underlying premise of this mantra is explained by McMurtry: ". . . the 'private sector is efficient,' whereas 'the government is inefficient.' Since this premise is not qualifieci, it lads to the conclusion that whatever the market does is good, and whatever govemment does is bad, unless it can be shown to serve the market. On the basis of this unremgnized value metaphysic, it follows that whatever govenunent does that does not serve the market is best swept away for 'greater market efficien~y.'~If we accept this premise, thm as Saul States, economics becomes the "vey heart and sou1 of our 2,500-year civilization" and "from that hart flowed, and continues to flow, everythg else. We must therefore fling domand fling up the structures of our society as the marketplace orders. Ifwe don't, the marketplace will do it anyway."' Neo-liberalism increasingly appears as a set of ideas, and politics have gradually ceased to determine national policies; economics and the values of the global marketplace dominate. Even the mass media LC~pythe eyes, eus, and brain circuits of people's lives everywhere. Yet in the daily barrage of media we corne across few-ifany-voices that doubt the tmth or goodness of free trade or the global economy or new world order. We are unlikely to come across any elected mainstrearn political party that chailenges the necessity of ever more economic restructuring, worker shedding, and painfiil cuts to public health programs, universal education, and social security."" Significantly, control of communications systems by powerfiil groups ensures that certain points of view will not be articulateci and that the salient aspects of the global market system will be endorsed. This point is made by DougIas Kellner in his critical acwunt of corporate control of the media: The worst aspects ofthe commercial system ofbroadcasting intensified during the 1980~~when the television networks merged with other corporate conglomerates and thus fell into the hands of blatantly commercial and conservative interests. As a result, the amount of advertising has increased, comrnercial pressures for ratings have greatly diminished the number of documentaries and public afEairs broadcasts, and the amount of innovative, challenging prograrnming has declined. At present, therefore, cornmerciai imperatives determine the nature, format, and structure of television and the commercial networks are more obviously se~ngthe interests of transnational congiomerates that own and control them."

Herman and Chomsky study the performance of the mass media and conclude that govemment, the leaders of the corporate community, the top media owners and executives, and the assorted individuais and groups who are assigned or ailowed to take constructive initiative, shape the news and keep the media in line." According to them, the dominant elite are able to "filter out the news fit to print, marginalize dissent, and allow the govenunent and dominant private interests to get their messages across to the public. . . They fk the prernises of discourse and interpretation, and the definition ofwhat is newsworthy in the first place, and they explain the basis and operations ofwhat amount to propaganda campaign~."~The media condornerates are "controiled by very wealthy people or by managers who are subject to sharp constraints by owners and other market-profit-oriented forces; and they are closely interlocked, and have important cornmon interests, with other major corporations, banks, and g~vernment."~Herman and Chomsky argue: Most biassed choices in the media arise fiom the preselection of right-thinhg people, internalized preconceptions, and the adaptation of personnel to the constraints of ownership, organization, market, and political power. C ensorship is largely self-censorship, by reporters and cornmentators who adjust to the realities of source and media orgpniutionai requirements, and by people at higher levels within media organizations who are chosen to implement, and have usually internalized, the constraints irnposed by proprietary and other market and governmental centers of power."

The near monopoly of the press seems perfectly reasonable to most of the populace. The extent to which the public has accepted these conditions in the media is remarkable. The press even boasts about the virtue ofits enormous assets: "The Gannett Corporation brazenly assures the public time and again that its ownership of more than 90 newspapers and a clutch of television and radio stations across the country is a guarantor of diversity and plurali~rn."'~ This myth of an open press should be regarded as a danger to democracy. Herman and Chomsky argue: The democratic postdate is that the media are independent and cornmitteci to discovering and reporting the tmth, and that they do not merely reflect the world as powemil groups wish it to be perceived. Leaders of the media claim that their news choices test on unbiased professional and objective critena, and they have support for this contention in the inteilectual community. If, however, the powefil are able to fix the premises of discourse, to decide what the general populace is allowed to see, hem, and think about, and to 'manage' public opinion by regular pro paganda campaigns, the standard view of how the system works is at serious odds with reality.76

The news media successfully propagate their ideology." They limit debate within their allowed boundaries. The continuing concentration of ownership and corporate control in the press does not provide the conditions conducive to independent and critical joudsm. According to Schiller: "The effects of continuous mergers and the general anti-labor atrnosphere of recent yms have weakened this bulwark of journalistic autonomy. Stnicturally, the newspaper industry is now more than ever a corporate employer. Its products are news and entenainment, as it defines these categories. Most joumaiins either work within these defining boundarïes or move out of the industry."" The eEkt of this strong corporate stranglehold on the journalistic voice is apparent. Schiller maintains: "The effort undertaken to satisw the audience, whether in broadcast or print, is not democracy of the one-person- one-vote variety. . . .In fact, rationd market joumalism must serve the market for investors, advertisers, and powerfùl sources before-and ofken at the expense of-the public market for readers and viewedn Today, for example, Conrad Black's Hollinger hc. owns over half of Canada's daily newspapers, has monopoües in three provinces and convols the Canaciian Press wire service. Black ensures that his editors agree with his ideology. Hollinger president David Radler a.k.4 "The Human Chainsaw," decrees: "If editors disagree with us, they should disagree with us when they are no longer in Our employ."m Claude Gravel resigned fiom his position with Le Soleil. Gravel said Black "did not want news stories that imtated business leaders, certain interest groups and top civil servants. . . . He wanted a newspaper that was les critical. 1 could not bring myselfto accept that Le Soleil, which was a respected newspaper, be tumed into nothing more than a publicity Black has filled his board of directors with international figures from Margaret Thatcher to Henry Kissinger, Peter Bronfinan, Paul Reichrnann and Peter Munk. The outspoken Black is "an avowed champion of corporate interests and unrelenting cntic of labour unions, governrnent regulations, and welfare in canada."* His radical staff cuts create a cash flow for new acquisitions. Consequently, with fewer journalists on staff, "news editors increasingly tum to the copy provided by organizations like the Fraser Institute to fi11 the 'new holes' between advertisements in t heir ~a~ers.""Laurier LaPieme comments on Black: "1 don't think Conrad wants to be prime rninister, but he really does want to be the power behind the throne and feels his money will buy him that. . . .He is one of the few people I know for whom attaining power is an all-consuming goal."u Perhaps, the greatest power of ail is the power to iduence, if not determine, what people think, and this appears to be Black's ultimate ambition. Australian press baron Rupert Murdoch is head of the global media giant News Corporation. Murdoch's reported goal for News Corporation is "to own every form of programming-news, sports, firms and children's shows-and beam them via satellite or TV stations to homes in the United States. Europe, Asia and South ~merica.""One of the most blatant examples ofMurdoch's use of censorship for business reawns was exposed last y-. He is a prime example of a media magnate influemcing the press with his own point ofviewu He has been known to write editorials hirnself. Given that he owns a third of the U.K. newspaper market, the South China Morning Post, Twentieth Century Fox and the Fox network, as well as the publisher Harper Collins, one might say his platfonn for editoridiPng is quite large. Murdoch also owns the wildly expanding Star Television broadcasting service. He decided to eliminate the venerable BBC international news prograrns fiom his Star TV satellite service in Asia because the BBC's honest wvenge of Chinese political üfe offmded the Communist leadership! At the time, Christopher Patten, then govemor of Hong Kong, cnticized the decision, refemng to it as '"the most seedy of betrayals' by those who reap profits from free speech in one country while censoring it in another."" Murdoch's latest attempt to censor harsh criticism of Communia China was to prevent the Harper Collins' publication of Christopher Patten's book on his expenences in China. Patten's book, East and West:,is critical of the Chinese elite and the policies and decisions they make. Murdoch ordered the editor Stuart Proffitt to kill the book. He refused, resigned and is presently suing for breach of contnct and damages for lost royalties. The book has been published by Macmillan. Murdoch was harshly criticized in media circles for emphasizing business interests over editorial integrity . The editor of The Globe and Mail sees the real lesson as a human one. Mr. Proffitt's "courageous defiance has shown that standing up to bullies is still possible in the global economy. It is a message that is being heard around the world-and that includes China."" John Fraser' in his colurnn in The Toronto Star, sees a more accurate lesson: "A picture is emerging, thanks to Murdoch, of just how far a large multi-national media firm will go to get access to new markets. It's a depressing picture and puts the lie to al1 the brave rhetoric of the new information age. It also reinforces unfortunate notions of amoral venality in big business."" The ovemding interests ofglobal corporations do not scem to be in serving the public interest but rather to increase profits. Arthur Kent's book, Risk and Redem~tioqexposes the ineptitude, lies and shocking mismanagement of NBC's network's bosses. He concludes his book: Good broadcasting is a responsibility, not a gift. . . .If the principla of reporting don? take precedence over the number~verratings and revenue and greed-then there is really no craA at d.Iust the hypocritical money machine that tamished the Peacock's image in the fifües, as it has done again, four decades on, under General Electric. . . .AU jounialists have a special mission, whether they're working in life-threatening situations or explainhg events at city haii. It's called accuracy: putting the truth on public record no matter whom that truth might offend. It's al1 about having enough courage to emprofits without distorting or dressing up the facts. Ethics do not constitute a handicap, as too many media owners seem to believe. They're assets, and when nurtured with me, they becorne vital ingredients to success. This business is not just a balance sheet; it's a discipline. A discipline well worth the ri4 and deserving of redempti~n.~

Sad would agree. He States that the role of the writer "is to force the pace of communication. To flee confonnity and courtierism. . . is the maintenance of independen~e."~'After World War II, Walter Jens wrote: The German writer of our day, representing no dass, under the protection of no fatheriand, allied with no power, is . . . a threefold lonely person. But it is precisely . . . this fkeedom from ties that gives him a temble, unique opporhinity to be fiee as never before . . . .In a moment when blind obedience rules, the No of the wamer, the Erasrnian hesitation, reflection and Socratic caution are more important than ever?

As people infiuenced by the new right move to embrace the values of the marketplace, it has becorne unfashionable to insist we adhere to firndamental democratic ideals. Commercial expedience has become the moa highly regarded politicai guide. Even where a course of action is ethically and morally right and obviously in the public interest, the business cornmunity seems to expect government and society to accept compromises to accommodate the pructicai redrties of the pro fit system. Henry Glassie's wrmnentary is especially fining here: If people are stripped of the ability to manipulate truth, to make their own things and their own history, they may continue to act properly, but they lose the capacity to think for themselves about their own rightness. They stagnate or surrender. If truth is located beyond the mind's grasp, if it is something that exists but cannot be touched, then culture cannot be advanced or defended. Made consumen, spectators, restrained fiom voluntary action, people become slaves, willing or not, happy or not, of powers that want their bodies. Those who std from people their right to make artifacts (in order to sell junk to them) and those who steal theu ri@ to make theù own history (in order to destroy their wiil to cultural resistance)-these can be condernned, for they steal fiom people the right to know what they know, the right to become h~rnan.~~

Information as Commodity The knowledge-based economy is primarily structured by transnational corporations. Information can be excluded fiom the market information system ifit does not comply with advenisers or corporate ideology." McMurtry's definition of the corporate view of knowledge is apt and perceptive: "Knowledge comes to mean whatever idea advances the business profitability of the sponsoring corporations that own and use it. There is no corporation, or wllaborating university, that does not follow this principle of thought and action as its law. This is not denied. It is selected out of rnind. It has a deep consequence, which, in tum, is not seen. True, justified belief is no longer required in this epistemology, nor is openness to learned debate. These are values that do not figure in 'the new global reality."'95 Special interest groups begin to determine what should be valued. The market econornies begin to stmcture education and public education bewmes subordinated to the goal of producing money, wealth and profit in the knowledge economy. Tom Brzustowski contends "that the one global object of education must be for a greater capabiiity of the people of Ontario to create wealth. . .[to] export products in which our knowledge and skills provide the value added. . .to develop new se~ceswhich we can offer in trade in the world market."% Under the principles of the market discipline, profits become the criteria for valued knowledge. McMurtry points out: "Only knowledge or information that promotes producers' profits is selected for production and distribution."" McMurtry clearly demonstrates the impact on information and knowledge when they are controlled by the marketplace: Everyone, it seems fiom acadernic leaderships and business executives to best- selling authors and editorialists, presupposes this sequence of thought as self- evident in the 'new knowledge-driven era.' Yet the most fùndarnental requirement ofknowledge and tmth-to overcome the biases of special interest and partiaiity-is reversed. Now speciz! interest and paitiality reign as the determiners of truth-value.

'Knowledge' and 'information' in this new order are subjugated to the hd goal of the market: 'value-added wealth creation' in a 'cornpetitive international ewnomy.' What value-added means is the difference between a firm's annual desrevenues and its costs: that is, its money profits. It follows, then, that if the ruling goal of a 'knowledge indu-' is to manmite 'valued- added' or private money profits, any knowledge or information that does not contribute to this goal has no right to existence. This is the market's principk of selection and what is meant by 'market discipline.'

This market criterion excludes more than any state censors could Unagine. Any knowledge or information is ruled out that is not able to be owned and used for money profit. What does not serve it is of no value, by definition?

Saul also recognizes the impact OC corporate control on information and knowledge. In a corporatist society knowledge which matters is "owned and controlied, bought and sold. . .Dt becomes] one of the currencies of systerns men, just as it was for the courtiers in the halls of Versailles. They require a position in the structure that provides some ability to deny access to others and gain access for themselves. Then they require currency or chips. That is, informati~n."~~This private-profit criterion of the knowledge industries extends to mrporate ownership rights over intellectual property. According to McMurtry: Norrnally a private corporation appropriates copyright, usually without paying for it. With most knowledge and information, such as that found in scholarly journals and texts, authors must typically seek permission fiom corporations to reproduce their own work, even though it has been independently created without rewmpense from the appropriating corporation. Thus the work is both created by others and paid for by others: individual scholars, universities, and tax-paying citizens. But a corporation gains copyright over the information and knowledge to sel1 in the market for profit, without paying for the wst of its creation. Universities then enforce this unpaid for wrporate copyright across international boundaries, and it is a mark of the subjugation of the academic comrnunity to this regime that its administrators comply without question.

If an author does not sign over ownership of the knowledge of information commodity to the publishing corporation, the work will not normally be published at ail. Where the creator or author retains copyright, the knowledge or information product must still fulfil the condition of private profit for it to be produced in the market. The profit criterion rules here as weU as elsewhere, whether by long-term monopoly right or other avenue of selection and control. Knowledge or information that does not meet the criterion, tme or not, will thus be ruled out of existence. . . .This enabling condition of knowledge and information transmission, however, is now being displaced as corporations are moving onto the Intemet as a global, low-cost marketing site to display their advertising bill board^.'^

Some acadernics, such as Polanyi, are concemed with industry's and governments' attempts to protect commercial interests in the "knowledge marketplace." A nobel Iaureate and professor of chemistry at the University of Toronto, Polanyi expressed concenu regarding the redefining of knowledge and infonation as commodities which can be bought and sold as any other: There could hardly be a more darnaging culture-shift for our universities. The cardinal thing for a student to learn on arriva1 is to share ideas, for this is the essence of civilired discourse. It is recognized to be a particularly demanding requirement in research since it involves the sharing of equipment, data, hints of data, rnistakes and dreams. The risks of f~lurein venturesome science will always be high, but his widespread sharing of intellectual resources offers by far the best hope that research will succeed. . . . What has previously been held in comon for the good of the enterprise, must be wailed off. This balkanization of knowledge, packaged for sale, wili alter Our universities and weaken them. The message fiom speaker derspeaker at the MIT symposium was that the momentum moving us toward the comrnercialization of university research is so great, and the econornic forces are so powerfiil, that only the strongest universities will be abie to hold the line. The question being asked was, would they do so.'O'

The legitimacy ofthe new knowledge economy is seldom questioned. Many in the academic world are strangely oblivious, or at any rate, silent on the new knowledge.lm McMurtry points out: One may have expected some critical response fiom the academic world, which stewards the evolved knowledge and information of millennia, but there has been silent acquiescence or, more conspicuously, enthusiastic collaboration. University administrators and education bureaucrats have rushed to invoke 'the rule of the knowledge-based economy,' with no questions asked as to what 'knowledge' or 'information' is. In the rush to agree to any terms set by the 'new global market reality,' the academy no longer insists on telling apart the assenions of trut h and propaganda. Instead its leadership tirelessly conceptualizes education as 'necessary to get on board the new knowledge economy.' We face an unseen crisis. It heralds a new dark age not recognized by those within it, in which the distinction between truth and falsehood collapses and commercial advantage desas the final arbiter of knowledge. 'O3

The North Amencan Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) contains twenty-nine detailed pages outlining the types of intellectual properiy to be protected, the protection mechanisms and the enforcement provisions. It treats knowledge as a commodity which is the property of the patent owner: "Once given patent protection, it enables those who 'own' it-and we are talking here dmost exclusively about large multinational companies-to extract financial benefit for allowing others the privilege of using it."'" Calvert and Kuehn compare the act to the 18' century enclosure movement in England and look at the implications of making information and knowledge a commercial property: The granting of so-called inteilectual property nghts to the multinational fhns which control production and distribution of dnigs, computer sohare, biotechnology, entertainment, agriculhiral products and the like is the equivalent in the 1990s of the 18*-century enclosure movement which doie the common land fiom the peasantry in England and redistributed it to those memben of the nobility and gentry sufficiently influentid to have Acis of Enclosure passed by Parliament in their interest. The behaviour of the multinational 6rms mirrors precisely this history of privatization of common pr0pert-Y-

Enshrining intellectual property rights in NAFTA entails a commitment to transfer much ofthe cornmon hentage of Canadians and, indeed, ofall peoples to the private control of profit-driven corporations. It is, in part, the looting of our coninion cultural and intellectual hentage. It will stifle the transmission of ideas and knowledge, while placing new restrictions on the fiee flow of ideas within Canada and throughout the hemisphere.

The obsession with creating pnvate property out of knowledge will profoundly influence the fiee flow of ideas, information and knowledge, particularly in the university sector. More of our pubiicly-fiuided research wiU end up monopolized by private finns with Links to individual univenities-Iinks which give them the right to patent new discovenes for commercial benefit.los

The intellectual property nghts outlined in NAFTA have profound implications for Canada's educational system. Calvert and Kuehn explain: "It applies to the new technology which increasingly will be playing a role in education at al1 levels, including a range of interactive computer and audio-visual learning daices. It covers out-of-country cable and satellite transmission of proprietary educational prograrns, courses and learning aids which have been given copyright of patent protection. The intellectual property rights sedion dl provide a plethora of new ways in which corporations can extract royalties from our public educational system."lM Moreover, NAFTA grants new nghts to telecornmunications nmis who are already broadcasting educational resources and advertisements directly into Canadian homes. The CRTC expanded the cross-border sale of private educational seMces "permitting greater penetration of the Canadian market by US firms" and provided the opportunities for "private media and educational service companies to expand their control of the telecommunications systems evolving in Canada-"'"' The constitutional rights of provincial governments to regulate both public and private education services are thus undermined. Calvert and Kuehn bekethat NAFTA will make it 'timiaiiy impossible for provincial governments to exercise theù constitutional right to regdate educational service providers."'" Trade agrrements work toward the-elimination of d barriers to the global marketplace. According to Herman and McChesney, both the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund 0 are comrnitted to "encouraging the establishment of commercial media globally to better serve the needs of a market economy. The WTO's mission is to encourage a single gtobal market for wmmercial media, and to oppose barriers to this, however noble the intent."'" International copyright protection, especially intellectual property rights, has becorne the primary focus in WTO negotiations. If we regard the fiee availability of a vast variety of information as a public good of utmost importance, we need to challenge communications cartels who control the marketplace-

The Deficit Made Mc Do It "Myth" In Canada, the deficit has been used as an excuse to implement corporate mythology. Education Forum points out: "Excessive government spending hss not caused the deficit. The rise of the public debt over the past four decades has been caused by excessive interest rates that now cost usone in every three doiIars of taxes. As a share of the gross domestic product, social programs have gone down in relative terrn~.""~The quest for deficit reduction has turned into a national crusade and cries for reduced social spending have accelerated. According to Linda McQuaig, the real source of our deficit dilernrna can be "traced back to a decision by the Mulroney government to launch an dl-out war on inflation in 1985. That decision, made with virtually no public input, discussion or consultation, plunged Canada into its rnost brutal recession in 50 years and left us with a legacy of debt and deficits that is now being used as a battering ram against our social programs.""' Statistics Canada has indicated that the causes of debt in Canada are "tax loopholes (44 percent)ll2 and high interest rate policies (50 percent). Total program spending generates six percent of the debt; social programs generate two percent. The drarnatically decread share of government revenue coming fiom corporate taxes is a major source of the debt pressure that we face. Reform of tax policy will be much more effective in cutting back debts than will cuts to social spendiig, no matter how r~thless."'~~Pierre Fortin, the highly respectecl economist and President of the prestigious Canadian Economics Association, estimates that "$20 billion of the $49 billion deficit of al1 levels of government in 1992 was because of lower tax revenues resulting fiom high unemployment, and another $10 billion was caused by higher social assistance costs. In other words, close to two-thirds of the entire deficit was actually caused by the recession, which the Bank of Canada played a major role in creating. Much of the remaining one-third of the deficit was because of the excessively high interest payrnents, also generated by the

Bank of Canada."' l4 And, in the fall of 1994, the C.D.Howe Institute produced a twenty- eight-page document called "The Courage to Act," which called for billions of dollars in arts to traditionally sacrosana areas like health care and pensions. The "Courage to Act" placed the debt and deficit problem on the "social policy deficit." The Report managed to deflect the entire deficit problem away fiom zero inflation. Linda McQuaig maintains that this omission has important implications: If the Howe were to acknowledge that the zero inflation policy played a significant role in driving up the debt, it would be obliged to acknowledge that the beneficiaries ofthe zero inflation policy-the bondholders and bond dealers so well represented among the inaitute's members-should at least bear some part ofthe burden of deficit reduction. But instead of acknowledging the 'zero inflation deficit,' they shifi the entire blame ont0 social policy. The debt becomes the exclusive responsibility of people receiving social benefits, and the cuts should therefore corne exclusively out of their pockets. As for al1 those investors who reaped enormous rewards fiom the anti-inflation war, they are completely off the hook. They are suddenly invisible in the ongoing deficit dramas, having taken their money and disappeared. Ail we see now are the unemployed hordes with their hands out."'

In 1995, the auditor generai of Canada tumed his rnind to this problem and concluded that if real interest rates had remained the same between the rnid- 1970s and the mid- 1990s, the result would have been a savings of $1 3 billion in the 1994-95 fiscal year alone, and a cut in the long-term debt of $2 159 billion. Our present predicament, then, is the product of an insane interest-rate policy, not o~erspending."~

Therefore, the rationale used to make drastic social spending cuts should be chailenged. Saul contends: "There has never been so much disposable money, yet there is no money for the public good. In a democracy this would not be the case, because the society would be centred, by general agreement, on disinterest. In a corporatist system there is never any money for the public good because the society is based entirely upon measurable self- interest."'" At al1 levels of government mounting fiscal restraints, wmbined with an unrelenting attack on the quaiity of education offered by Our schools, should cause us to rethink the current corporate ideology. Every time we turn around, there is tiirther evidence of the attempt to diminish and devdue education. The education system is an easy target for an unhappy and fearfùl electorate looking for answers to North Arnerica's economic woes-the debts and the deficits. The methods being used against education are plain. Liz Barkley

Make the global recession work to business and corporate advantage. Keep it going until it cuts down government revenue and then get the public sector on the run, too. Promote, through the media, the virhies of fiee enterprise and contract work. Promote the ideals of nigged individualism while insisihg on cooperative and collaborative workers . . . .Make the deficit public enemy number one, no matter what the cost. Promote fiee market strategies Iike user-pay medicine and education. Pay lip semice to egalitarianism but promote elitism in education. Use the media to devalue public education and public health are. Use the media to discredit public servants and politicians and indeed the whole democratic process. Promote the values of the marketplace as society's ideal and business leaders as the only leaders whom t hey trust. "'

Saul continues the analysis: "Today's power uses as its primary justification for doing wrong the knowledge possessed by its experts. They know, therefore, that they must do whatever is necessary. This is how hospitals are closed or public education is squeezed or taxes shiffed fiom those who have to those who have less. Knowledge is more effectively used today to jus@ wrong being done than to prevent it. This raises an important question about the role of freedom of speech. We have a great deal of it. But if it has Little practical effect on reality, then it is not really fkeedom of speech. Without utility, speech is just decorati~e."'~~Draconian spending cuts are not the solution to debts and deficits. Governments should remember that their role is not solely to balance the books. Balanced budgets are only the means to the real purposes of government: to provide seMces such as health and education; create a clhnate for economic growth and job creation; protect those in need of protection; and ensure that citizens can participate in the decisions affecting thar lives, in short, to enhance the quality of al1 Our lives. Genuine alternatives to severe budget cuts in tkarea of social spending should be debated and subjected to pubiic scrutiny. Only then can we protect the policies and services which serve our communities.

Culture of Compliancc-The Offkial Langurge In the global marketplace of ideas, independent thought and criticai perspective are subject to the dictates of the corporations who own and control them. The ability to determine what is real and important becornes difficult when information is concentrateci in the hands of the corporate elite. Saul explains: A civilization unable to differentiate between illusion and reality is usually believed to be at the tail end of its existence. Our reality is dominated by elites who have spent much of the last two centuries, indeed of the last four, organizing society around answers and around structures designed to produce answers. These structures have fed upon expertise and that expertise upon cornplexity. The effect has been to render universal understanding as dificult as possible. 'What we cannot speak about,' Ludwig Wittgenstein said, 'we must pass over in silence.' The writer's most effective weapons against such silence have always been simplicity and common sense. But never have the custodians of the word been so cut off tiom the realities of power. Never, for that matter, have people so adept at manipulating the word held the levers of power. Western culture, as a result, has become less and less a critical reflection of its own society. . . . The possession, use and control of knowledge have become their central theme-the theme Song oftheir expertise. However, their power depends not on the effect with which they use that knowledge but on the effedveness with which they control its use?

Today7s"experts" are willing to share their information with anyone but "what they wish to monopolize is not the data but the approved, certified authorized mode of thought."'*' According to Heather Menzies, the ability to shape and control Our minds is being ccntralized more than ever: "People are not only losing control to increasingly remote information systems, but they are also coming to be controlled by them, and by the corporate consciousness accompanying them."'" Menties calls this the "culture of cornpliance"-where "It is hard to think for yourself," and, "You begin to think in their terms. It becomes your working language. You don? say what you mean any more. . . .It is very ~eductive."'~ In the "culture of cornpliance," language is important in the construction of public perception. The manufachiring of consent or official rdity operates "at a systemic level, through the centrality of experts in official discourse and expert-fhming instiîutions like Globe and Mail in the distribution of that discourse, and in the centraljty of objective rationality as its official lang~age."'~'Saul sees the existence of a relatively clear language in which everyone can participate in their own way as a sign of a healthy civilization. On the other hand, he sees the "sign of a sick civiiization as the growth of an obscure? closed language that seeks to prevent communication. This was increasingly the case with those medieval university scholars known as the schoolrnen. This is the case today with those who wield the thousands ofimpenetrable specialist dialects. They plead complexity, given the great advances, particularly technologid, in this century. But the problem is not one ofcomplexity.

- . . It is the intent that is in questiobthe intent to use language to communicate, or altexnately, through control of it, to use language as a weapon of power. Unconsciousness-even hysterical unwnsciousness-is not a surprising characteristic in a corporatist society where the language attached to power is designed to prevent c~mrnunication."'~Sad elaborates: There is nothing particularly original about breaking down the intektuai, political, social and emotional walls behind which language has been imprisoned, fieeing it, then watching while the poor thing is recaptured and locked up again. That process has been repeated endlessly throughout history. The wordsmiths who serve Our imagination are always devoted to communication. Clarity is always their method. Universality is their aim. The wordsmiths who serve estabJished power, on the other hand, are always devoted to obscurity. They castrate the public imagination by subjecting language to a complexity which renders it private. Elitism is always their aim. The undoubted sign of a society well under control or in decline is that language has ceased to be a means of communication and has become hstead a shield for those who master it.'26

MeMes realizes the importance of language in the manner by which we wnstmct public perception: "If people are reduced to objects in the discourse about restructuring, and if the global economy is ponrayed as primary subject and agent, then people can be more readily treated as objects in reality. If their humanity is silenced in the discourse informing public perception, if the social realities and the social values of restructuring are margidied, it is harder to corne to terms with restructuring as the profoundly social, political, and even moral issue it is."12'Sirnilarly, the business rhetoric pervades the present "Education Industry." We must rethink our expectations of educationd institutions and involve them in a wider discussion which demands that they be submitted to market forces. Our students are to be trained as consuners and clients to meet the needs of the global market. According to this rhetoric, schools will improve when we rediswver the power of the unregulated markets and make schools more responsive to competition. John Snobelen, former Education Minister for the Harris governrnent in Ontario, describeci the Ministry of Education and Training as a "service organization." The education systern as he saw it was "based on the kind of language that presupposes that 'education' and 'training' are synonyms, and that the role of schools, at al1 levels, is to deliver the kind of worlaorce that will allow us to hook rugs, fiip hamburgers, and program cornputers better than our cornpetitors in other nations."lD We have honed our teaching practices and leamhg skiils to the language of the corporate board rooms. One example of the perverse ways to change our perception of the meaning of education is by changing the nature of the structure of the language we use. This can be seen in the irnplementation of Outwmes-Based Education. William Spady, a key advocate and developer of Outcomes-Based Education, required that assignments transcend the bounds of specific acadernic disciplines and require real worid complex role performance or authentic assessments. For dl its jargon, Spady's pimacle seemed to be precisely what a lot of employers were looking for-goals to meet business needs. Spady explains: "Outcomes- Based Education is not a program, a package, a technique, a fad, a quick-fix, a panacea, a miracle or an event. It is a transformational way of doing business in education."'" The standards and assessments were to be a criterion referenced meaning which would be based on what students had to know in the real world thus making them more globally cornpetitive. Orienting the curriculum according to "what the student's performance would be at the end aetermined by examining fùture trends and the conditions required when students enter the 'real world'-means that the mastery of traditional subjects and content of the cumculum can corne to be seen as a 'transitional outcome,' and may even be dispensable, while effective adult functioning is seen as an 'exit outcome.' Spady argues that outcornes-based education links traditional cumculum content to 'significant spheres of successfbl living' rather than to separate disciplines and subjects. . . Only an outcomes based education can truiy prepare for life."l3' Spady believes you can sel1 the idea to parents: "You do it by asking people to look at their own Iives. As Lee Iacocca said at the ASCD convention in 199 1-'When Mr. and Mrs. America get up in the moming and go out into they world, they don't do social studies, they do life. "'13~ Spady believes that we must mess the "students' ability to prepare for and master the various 'roles' and situations that competent professionals encounter in their work."Iu For Spady, Outcornes-Based Education is a means of organizing for results, basing what we do instructionaily on the outcomes we want to achieve. Outcornes must be dehed "in a way that allows for a standards-dnven, results-centered, highly accountable education. While we must be plural and diverse in the institutions we create and in the methods and means we use to reach standards, Our schools must rernain constantly foaissed on preparing our young people to live, work and compete successfùlly in the next century."'" And this in spite of John Dewey, who declared "education is a process of living and not a preparation for tiiture li~ing,""~and Northrop Frye's insight that we "mua reject that most dismal and fatuous notion that education is a preparation for life."'" Outcomes-Based Education is a way of designing, developing, delivering and documenting instruction in terms of its intended goals. Spady States clearlly that an outcorne is not an objective but rather a revolutionary new concept. In 1992, Spady defined outcome as "a culminating demonstration of the entire range of learning experiences and capabilities that underlie it in a performance wntext that duectly influences what it is and how it is carried out.""' In 1993, Ontario initiated Outcomes-Based Education and determined that a standard report card would be designed incorporating its philosophy and stratagems. It is now the official vehicle of cumculum reform mmdated for Ontario schools. It is stnictured on the productivity mode that is at the fiont end ofbusiness practice. A premium is placed on efficiency. Educational accountability in tenns of these properties requires that assessments of performance be based upon indicators of educational outcomes in terms of educational costs. Indeed, this tendency to link the requirements of the workplace to the mandate of public education becomes the ovemding ''out~orne'~of education. The exit outcomes of Outcornes-Based Education have to do with the ability to function successfully as a consumer and a producer?' The language Spady uses is the mechanistic terminology of the CE0 of the business world. The language is linear, rationalistic and built on lists of definitions; it does not invite debate. Outcornes-Based Education is ofien linked to total quality management, a method supposedly expressing W. Edward Derning 's philosophy . Advocates of Deming' s method realize that detded measurement and statistics are necessary to improve the process of making an automobile de. They conclude that the sarne kinds of data are needed to improve the leaming process of a student. Sirnilarly, because Deming argued that the quality of a product is not just a matter of building it weU but of anticipating the need of customers, Total Qudity Management advocates searched for the "customef' in edu~ation.'~~ Critics, such as Gretchen Schwarz, believe that Outwmes-Basecl Education has a constraining effect on school refonn, reducing thinking to mental processing. They have found the foUowing vocabulary p~icularlytroubling: "outcomes, generaiizable, discrete content skill, microforms of leaniuig, structured task performances, components in a larger block of curriculum, cornpetence, mental processing, performance enablers, execution, Higher-Order competencies, technical and strategic Life Pefiormance Roles."" Outcornes- Based Education is product-orientated; the language is the language ofbusiness. John MofEett challenges the continuing infiuence of big business on education: "Business should indeed be served by a good system of public education, but the higher-order thinking abilities and creative problem solving that it correctly believes graduates must have are precisely what have suffered most from an education system dnven by govement and industry."'" Andy Hargreaves also challenges those who "use restructuring not to expand students' minds and capabilities in the broadest sense, but to shape and mold them to changing corporate interests by defining the goals and leaniing outcomes of schooling, with the structures required to provide them, in specifically corporate term~."'~~Indeed, the language of Outwmes-Baxd Education proponents is lifted directly out ofbooks that are aimed at corporate restnicturers. The term outcornes-based itself was first used to descnbe various systems that injected "entrepreneurial" practices into public life. The results of these plans when they were implemented included layoffs, contracting out work to non-union cornpanies and widespread damage to public institutions. Within the educational scenario, schools would be expected to produce workers who could willingly perform the specialized tasks required by an economy facing a high level of increased competition fiom abroad-a society inculcated with a commercial value system: "Al1 the bottom-line language reminds the reader ofthe boardroom. Of course, Spady's High Success Network is a business. But children are neither customers nor products, and a school is not a business . . . .Ultimately, the language of OBE is controlling, narrow, mechanistic, and finaily, hpoverished. Our students and teachers desene more than OBE has to offer."'" Prediction and numerical certainty rather than spontaneity or the love of leaming are valued in Outcornes-Bad Education. There is no language that values inquiry and creativity that admits uncertainty and serendipity. Outwmes-Based Education is not simply about stating precise outcomes for courses; if it were, there could be no reasonable objection nor would people such as Spady be able to cornrnand theù considerable fee for explaining the system. It has Little to do with raising academic standards orensuring equity in schools. Outcornes-Based Education's main concem is with the dismantling of a broad-based cumculum that provides students with an understanding of the subjects that matter most in a democracy and replacing the old with a nebulous blend of low-grade skills training. Far 6om promoting equity, Outcornes-Based Education will oniy create compliant workers for the few jobs that dlbe available in the future. According to Maurice Holt: 'Tducation is not a product defined by specinc output

rneasure; it 's a process, the development of the mùld." lu Outcornes are defined and the schools have to meet them. This practice not only creates a climate of fear but "it means that cumculum is defined by assessment and that teachers must struggle to convert vague generalizations into classroorn objectives. It also implies a measure of unifonnity that ignores the differences among midents.""' To declare that eâucation must be outcornes-based allows bureaucratie evaluation to drive out professional judgement. In education, we should not settie for detenninistic, objectives-based thinking; the improvement of practice should require us to confront variation and diversity. Education is not a produa defined by specific outcome measure; it is a development of the mind. Corporations have shown interest in Outcomes-Based Education as well.'" For exarnple, The Conference Board of Canada, which includes such stellar curporate citizens as IBM, Royal Bank of Canada, Imperia1 Oil and Inco, has produced what it calls an "Employability Skills Profile," a list of critical skills developed by the Corporate Council on Education. This group describes itself as a "catalyst to engage business and education in partnerships that foster learning excellence to ensure that Canada is competitive and successful in the global economy."'" Their insistence on making schools relevant to students' lives has reduced the language of relevance to little more than job preparation and the production of efficient consumers. Emberley and Newell see Outcornes-Based Education as a concession to business with perhaps, the ultimate outcome, ftture consumers rather than

Of course, 'leaniing outcomes' does not refer exclusively to workplace behaviours. It is meant to address generally what is needed to 'ftnction effectively in everyday Me.' But the very idea of 'pamierships,' central to the 'learning outcomes' approach, applies particularly to the school-to-workplace transition. . . . .By depleting the substance of public school education and making its contents reflect nothing more than the school-to-work transition, we are leaving the average student equipped with minimal academic talents, little experience of the life of reason, close to no moral ballast, and nothing meaningfiil with which to fiIl his or her leisure tirne. Liberal education leavened the preparations for vocational life with a fennenting intellectuai curiosity and spiritual yeaniing. 'Leaming outcomes' produces a drab paste which simpty bonds the most elementary ingredients oflifk-the need to labour with the satisfaction of wnsumption.

'Leamhg outcomes' satisfies the business and ethnic advocacy groups as well as many of the objectives of radical intellectuals. It stipulates that education is meaningfùl only so long as it is relevant to the progressive trends of social life. But, in Our view, it thereby eclipses cardinal aspects of human rdity-it does not elicit and form civic virtues; it does not forrn the substance of faith or trust or fiiendship, without which no tme justice is possibie; it overiooks the longing for transcendence; and it ignores the intellectual and spiritual response to the mystery of e~istence."~

Charles Ungerleider, in a sirnilar vein, WO~~Sthat "the pendulurn has swung too far at the expense of content. Critical thinking does not happen in a vacuum. In order to think cntically, you need something to think critically about. To be sure, teachers need to explore new opportunities to encourage students to be observant and thoughtfbl about issues, but the exercise wili not be successful without well-structured and content-filled courses of study. The cumculum needs to provide a judicious blend of subject disciplines and process, and it should be articulated as clearly as possible for al1 to understand. Vague curriculum goals serve no one ~ell.""~Perhaps they serve those who wish to control the labour market and privathe schools. Jim Cummins and Dennis Sayers point out: Improving the 'output' of public schools will resuit in an even greater skiils surplus than exists at present, resulting in a buyer's market whereby highly skilled people can be hired cheaply and controlled more effectively. In addition, discrediting the public schools likely will increase support for privatized schooling with its double attraction for business of profit possibilities and reductions in tax burden. Finally, a back-to-basics orientation in the classroom will minimize the possibility of critical literacy skills king developed, particularly arnong marginaiized cornmunities. This, in tum, wül facilitate a smoother 'democratic' process, better business ciiiate, and greater national unity. In spite of rhetoric about the need for higher-order thinking skills business elites have minimal interest in fostering critical thinking and articulate communication among marginalized communities.

The neo-conservative educational reform movement, with it s emphasis on testing, accountability, and back to basics, has oriented many schools away from the learning realities of the twenty-first century. This apparent paradox derives fiom the accurate assessment by the neo-conservative establishment that individuals who have developed critical literacy skiils are less subject to manipulation and control. Their dilemma is where to draw the line between indoctrination that stultifies and the intellectual emancipation of students implied by some versions of the twenty-first-century workplace. Promotion of cntical literacy and econornic participation for al1 students might, in fact, result in dramatically increased democratic participation, a prospect far fiom congenial to those who currently control the resources and power within the society, particularly in view of the growing demographic strength of marginalized communities. lS '

Thus. education simply becomes fiagmented discourse producing students who lack unity and balance. The argument for providing students with more than the school-to-work transition Iends itself to a nindamental perspective which is at the hart of a liberai education. The impression of unity advanced by learning outcomes is spiritless. We need to transcend the business world and provide an education which gives students opportunities to be creative and critical thinkers. According to Emberley and Newell, education does have "as one of its tasks the promotion of the capacity for success in a world 'subject to change. ' But we would broaden 'success' to 'happiness,' by which we mean the intellectual and spiritual substance that comes from openness to the amplitude of human experience, from politics to the life of reas~n."'~*John P. Miller passionately describes his concems and his hopes: My nightmare for Ontario education, and some of it is in the Royal Commission but more of it is in the Minister's statements, is a movement to more standardization and an industnalized mode1 ofeducation, where students are put through a kind of factory and seen as products and not as human beings. 1 think that a fiagmented approach to me, to work, wili only contnbute to the bcological and social problems that we face on Our planet. So my hope for Ontario education is that it really develops wise and compassionate human beings. There are pieces of this in the Royal Commission. Emerson said that the solution to eveq problem is really 'soul, soul, and evermore soul.' My hope for Ontario education is to put the sou1 back into the classroorn, to cultivate our spintual life.'" Outcornes-Bad Education is the language of those supporthg charter schools and it reflects a market view of education. Proponents of Outcornes-Based Education speak of the educational "product." Students andfor parents are "customers" or "clients." The only educational "product" that is worth testing and paying for is that of test outcornes. Good citizenship simply does not enter into it. Charter school advocates use the market language t hat is famil iar to ot her new-right carnpaigns. Dobbin argues: "Parents are 'customers, ' education the 'product,' and students the 'value-added' result. Advocating 'choice' promotes the libertarian value of a pnvate benefit over the public-purpose philosophy of the public systern."lY

Charter Schools: The Application of the Free Market Principle Charter schools have emerged as one ofthe most dynarnic education reform initiatives of the past decade. A charcer school is a publicly fiinded school created under an alternative Iegal fiamework that allows it to be klly autonomous and fùifii a specific, ofken unique educational mission or philosophy. Each charter school operates under the direction of its own board which has powers over stafnng, budget, programmes and instructional decisions. Its characteristics and operating conditions must be approved by govemment in advance and the school must meet the expected student achievement levels adopted by the state. The charter concept is built on three principles: freedom and choice for families, entrepreneurid opportunity -for educators and accountabiiity for school results. Educators have the opportunity to create new schools or convert existing schools into charter schools. Charter schools promise an increase in diversity, in direct parental involvement in the substance of their child's education and a decrease in school board and teacher union bureaucratic barriers. Attendance is by choice. Charter schools may not charge tuition fees, teach religion or discriminate in admissions. According to Stephen Lawton, charter schools are "based on the notion that public choice, not bureaucratic or politicai authority, should be the dominant paradigrn for providing public service. Equd satisfaction of the public, not equal services, is to be sought. The generai public may be seen as a composite of overlapping moral communities, each of which may desire a school reflecting its own rn~rality.'"'~Charter schools are one means by which the right-wing neo-conservatives are able to begin theu efforts to privatize the nation's schools. With reduced transfer payrnents and school boards contending with citizen tax revolts, the climate is ripe for the incursion of corporate interest into the schools. This new interaction between business and schools can be seen in the rishg levels of corporate perceptions about how schools should be organizd, what should be taught, how teachers should teach, and how students should learn. The charter school can be seen as "the Trojan horse of those who would uansforrn public education into a comrnercialized, or even privatized system. They have attracted some support fiom ordinary parents and educators simply wncemed about the fùture of education. But they are also one ofthe principal weapons that opponents ofpublic education use to both undermine confidence in the public education system and to begin die actual erosion of that sy~tem."'~Charter schools represent the application of the fiee market pnnciple to education. In Canada, charter schools are supported by neo-conservative institutions like the Fraser Institute, and by business groups, including the Business Council on National Issues. The efforts to break into public education and advance the concept of charter schools have monetary support fiom large corporations and financial institutions such as the Royal Bank, Bank of Montreal, Syncrude, and the Domer Foundation. Charter schools are seen as an extremely attractive investment opportunity in the "Education Industry." For exarnple, Dr. Joseph Freedman is a prominent proponent of the charter school movement and is heavily backed by the major corporations and the Donner Canadian Foundation in Toronto. Freedman's charter school proposal was mailed fiee to every school board in Canada, the C.D. Howe Institute and the Fraser Institute, courtesy of a "donor of national stature."ln Their intellectual roots can be found in the writings of several monetarist economists and the schools they founded and include such figures as Milton ~riedman'" and Frederick Von Hayek. The economists trained at the Amencan monetarist schools, such as Freidman's Chiczgo School of Econornics, provided the blueprint for the mode1 of charter schools. They have argued that schools could upgrade thernselves by changing cumcula and restructuring and re-engineering management systems to reflect corporate values and goals. Their theories reveal how it is that govemment can rationalize its destruction of public institutions. One of the social theories developed by the right-wing intellectuals guiding this trend is called "public choice theory." It States that we are al1 "essentially, 'utility maximizm.' We have no aitruistic or community motives, only selfish ones. Public choice theory provides the theoretical justification for Margaret Thatcher's declaration that 'there is no such thing as society, just 90

individuals and familes . . .'"'" Another theory applied to the provision of public institutions and senices is called the "agency theoiy." It concludes, "based on the underlying notion of vested interests, that pubiic services must be detivered in such a way that the 'purchaser' -the government, in this case- must be separate and different corn the 'provider.' In short, goveniments should not both pay for, and administer services such as education. In part, this is because of the problem of 'bureaucratie capture.' This refers to the notion that bweaucrats cannot be tnisted to defend the public interest as they are 'vested interests' thern~elves."'~ Thus, the charter school is one step in the direction of separation of purchaser and provider. Education is taken out of the hands of bureaucracy and put into the hands of parent cornmittees and teachers outside thejunsdiction ofthe elected school board. Education is also taken out of the hands of the so-called "vested interests" such as tacher unions or federations. As a result, those chosen to head up the cornmittees designing refom in education were the non-vested business interests dong with the business principles which guide them. The long term aim ofthis neo-conservative revolution is to reduce public services to a bue minimum and transfer as much as possible of the remaining public money into the private sector. The corporate elite appear interested in restructuring a system that will serve their business needs and fùifil their econornic agenda. In 1995, Alberta becarne the first province in Canada to pass legislation allowing the formation of charter schools. Early in 1994, Premier Ralph Klein announced that the province would take over full responsibility for fùnding schools. There was a shift in the management of schools that allowed some masure of market-control in the education system. The Klein government focussed on the cost of school administration as it sought ways to balance the books. Control of school spending was removed ftom the grassroots school boards and placed in regional super boards which reported to a bureaucracy in Edmonton.'" The power of school boards to levy local taxes for education was removed and Alberta's boards were cut by more than 60 percent. Minister of Education Hdvar Jonson slashed the education budget. The speed with which the cuts were implemented lefl Albertans reeling. Alberta Treasurer fiun Dinning, one of the main architects of the Klein "revolution," said that the purpose of the government was to break the education system's "monopoly" in Alberta in order to improve the educational system. Dinning supported a &-enterprise system that would see tax douars following children to schools selected by parents. He advocated the implementation of a voucher or at the very least a chmer school system.'" Klein instituted a program which rnany believe undermined the concept of universal public education. Liz Barkley. former OSSTF President cornmented: "Charter schools, an elitist replacement for the voucher system, are now a fundamental right in Alberta."'" Bauni MacKay, in her opening remarks to the OSSTF Provincial Assembly, claimed: The govement's plan is clearly privatization of education. . . . Charter schools and the hidden voucher system in the form of the bding following the student dong with the centralization of taxation clearly point toward privatization. Increased evaluation will be the government 's means of controlling eduçation . . . .There is no doubt there will be a two-tiered education system in Alberta as parents choose to take their kids out of a regular school and place them in charter or private schools, leaving the disadvantaged, the disabled, and the disobedient in the underfundeci and decimated public education system.'"

MacKay argued the right of every child to high-quaiity education: "To me, charter schools are a euphemism for segregation and discrimination, be it on socio-economic grounds or whatever. 1 think parents should expend their energy working to improve the public system rather than mnning away fiom it."16' We have public schools because education should not be an enclave of one class or ethnic group. Society benefits most £kom education that is available to al1 rnembers of our society. Therefore, it should be the responsibility of society rather than individuals to provide for a public education system. In October 1966, The Toronto Star reported that the idea of charter schools had caught the attention of Education Minister John Snobelen. One month later, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the position that Ontario may refiain fiom public funding for private and independent schools. Earl Mamers, President ofthe Ontario Secondary School Teachen' Federation (OSSTF) stated: "By a majority vote of eight to one, this decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, confirms the value of public education as a wmerstone of our democracy . . . .We would expect that this decision will cause the present Minister of Education and Training, John Snobelen, to re-think his intentions to extend public fùnding to independent schools through the back door by instituting charter schools in ~ntario."'" It remains to be seen whether the Harris government will accept the intent of the Supreme Coun decision or whether they will enact legislation to prepare the way for charter schools and a privatized education system thereby dismantling the public education system. In April 1998, The Globe and Mail's editor, Wiiiiarn ThorseIl, made clear his support for school choice. He stated: "Local cornmunities, parents and teachers must be free to create pedagogical and govemance models that suit their needs. Options should range fkom locally-detennined school missions and powerful school counciîs nght up to charter schools, subject to the integrity of the non- sectarian character of the public schools."'" Bill 104, the Fewer School Boards Act legislated in 1997, was Ontario's Education Omnibus Bill. Together with the new fbnding model introduced by the Minister of Education and Training, it marked the provincial takeover of local education. The existing boards have become virtuaiiy powerless; locally elected trustees have becorne superfluous. With the introduction of mega-boards, local communities have Little auence on the quality of education O ffered to their students. The disregard for the rights and responsibilities characterized by the Omnibus Bill are back in the form of Bill 104's Education hnprovement Commission. This Commission is composed of 5 to 7 members appointed (not elected) by Cabinet. Their decisions are final, not subject to court review, nor to the Statutory Powers Procedure Act, which protects due process of the law. They supersede the role of democratically elected trustees who represent parents, students and taxpayers at the local level. The Education Improvement Commission is "to have final authority over budgets, contracts, reserve fûnds, spending decisions, stafftransfers and out-sourcing non-instdonal jobs in education for every school board in Ontario. Its decisions can over-ride al1 other provincial legislation and may not be challengeci in the courts."'" The concept that a Commission responsible to the Minister of Education and Cabinet should have powers that supersede those of democratically elected representatives and that such a Commission should be above the rule of law and of due process of law, should be repugnant to every citizen of this province. Through the regdatory prows, it gives the government absolute powers to make decisions by fiat behind closed doors. The Commission represents a frontal attack on local democracy stripping the fundamental rights and insurances that protect and respect the interests of the province's children and youth. OSSTF believes that the proposed legislation is just one part of the provincial governrnent's political and ideological agenda: It will have an ominous and deleterious effect on the quality of public education. ifthe govemment were only interested in reducing school boards, why did it not merely introduce legislation to do so? Why did it grant itseif such enonnous powers and abrogate so many democratic rights? OSSTF believes that the proposed legislation is but the 6rst step in this government's agenda to replace public education with charter schools and eventually a privatized, voucher-fiinded system. For those who can afford to augment the provincial fùnding levels, this rnay sound appeaiing. But heaven help those students whose parents that can only aiFord the minimaiiy fbded public system: using out-sourced, less cornmitted hourly workers who are not COM~CW~to the school and its students; ded with underpaid, underqualifieci teachers, in old and poorly rnaintained buildings with insufficienttextbooks and technology, and psychological services, speech and language, or cumculum support for the cla~sroom.'~ Furthermore, OSSTF suspects that Bi11 104, and its clauses leading to the strengthening of school councils, prepare the way for charter schools. Iftaken, this giant step in the direction of pnvatization would be a severe blow to the schools in Ontario. In fact, existing research indicates that the move to impose charters is "driven by ideology, and not by results. Where t hey promise increased parental control and involvement and lessening of school bureaucracy, charter schools more often that not deliver the opposite. And they sound the death knell for equaiity of educational opportunity. They inevitably result in a two-tiered system of education based on social and economic class. Ontario does not need this disavowal of the values that have guided our public xhool system since the days of Egerton ~yerson."'". A report called "Analysis of Capital Funding for School Facilities," outlined the Harris administration's plans for school buildings until202 1. This report was the product of a public- private partnership between the Ministry of Education and Training and a few consulting fims. It was presented in the media as the foreninner of a long-needed and province-wide programme of government investment in school capital projects. Three private-sector consulting firms, Educational Consulting Services, RJR Educational Services and PMG Peat Marwick, have merged their high-priced talents to produce "Analysis." William Kennedy, a Toronto political activist and education critic, States in an OSSTF backgrounder report: "Analysis, like Megacity Bill 103 and Fewer School Boards Bill 104, is the product of a Harris government dominated by a modem day Farnily Compact of neo-conservative whiz kids, corporate aristocrats, and econornic hndarnentalists. They are united by the beliefs that local democracy is bad, authontarian centralism good, and that government should be left to 'experts' ready to apply one-sizeats-al1 fia-market principles to eveqone and to al areas of life, including yours and that of your classr~om."'~'Tirne wiil soon tell the direction that the Harris government will take in regards to "Analysis." One thing appears certain-the corporate ideology remains a strong, pervasive force in detennining Premier Harris's govemment agenda. But many still believe that tax dollars which pay for schools do not belong to just one child or one parent but to the entue cornrnunity. The public welfm not just the individuals' pocketbook is served when young people becorne productive, responsible citizens. Charter schooling is the educational choice for specid interest groups, not for a public education system in a democratic society: "Our public schools have created a democratic foundation for al1 students, regardless of who they are, what they believe, or what their ability is. In many instances, our public system has been flexible and creative enough to create alternative schools and programs which, in effect, dehrwhat charter schools do. The public school system has many innovative teachers who are using new ideas daily to improve their delivery systems. Political tides, no doubt, will bring much to bear on the fiiture of the charter school movement. Will enthusiasm fizzle in favour of other reforms, or will charter school momentum build? One thing is certain. Ontario does not need charter scho~ls."'~Barlow and Robertson assert: "One or two charter schools will not bring public education to its knees. What it will do, however, is divert dollars and attention fiom irnproving al1 schools to enhancing a few."ln The real issues of educational change include: teaching, leaming and assessing to meet the needs of al1 students, the cumculum of the subject disciplines, the formal and informal activities of a school, building on cument successfùl practices, meeting the needs of an increasingly diverse shident body and breaking down barriers to success for al1 students. Education should respond, as Emberley and Newell so eloquently state, "to the amplitude of longings and passions which constitutes a human being . . . to the reality of politicai passion, of intellectual achievement, of historical awareness, of cultural sensibility, and of the need for meaning."'" Charter schools have a direct reiationship 4th media cartels. For example, Norte1 Networks, a major player in the telecommunications arena, has expanded aggressively and globally from its Canadian roots. Syrnbolic of Nonel Network's expanding reach is its membership and participation in TechNet, a lobbying organization dedicated to promoting the polit icai int erests of America's high-technology businesses which have increasingly begun to focus on the education market. Advancing the cause of charter schools is a major part of the TechNet agenda. TechNet lobbying and money were instrumental in the passage oflegislation in which lifteci the cap on the number of charter schools in that state and ascd the conditions for setting them up. Techhiet is involved in the charter school movement because it is "loosely-regulated and atorni~ed.""~ It provides particularly "fertile grounds for contractuaMy-arranged sales of computers and teIecornmunication devises which, in certain cases, have even been embedded in their individual constitution^.""^ Norte1 Networks is a member of the Toronto-based organization The Leaming Partnership which is not supported by OSSTF because of its lack of overall cornmitment to publically run and fiindeci education

and its close ties with the present right-wing conservative administration. ln At present, Nonel is negotiating a partnership arrangement with Western Technical High School in Toronto. The corporate agenda is very pervasive. The concentration of cllrporate control through the vast communications systems has empowered the few to manage the many. The importance of a fiee press in our "democratic" society is being reduced to an advertisement for corporate shareholders. There has been an infiltration of business models, values and cumcula. There are corporate-sounding mission statements, talk of clients and consumers, investment and outcornes. As a result, the language of education has "undergone a sea-shift into business temünology and the mechanistic discourse of corporate culture" and now students compete in the '"international economy' for what used to be the search for tmth . . . and members of the academy themselves, lost in the shadows of the corporate media cave, can only see the global marketplace and its demands as the ultimate hework of human fieedom and Big business has atternpted to play a vital role in redefining the purpose and meaning ofpublic schooling. James Downey addressed the University of Toronto in June 1998. He spoke to Northrop Frye's argument that "it was the world represented by the university that was the real world because its essence was a body of knowledge and a set of values that were abiding and wnstantly being venfied by rational argument, empincal experiment, and imaginative perception. Within that corpus of knowledge and that constellation of values were the tools and materials to build out of the world we iive in a vision of the world we aspire to live in."'" Downey wntinued: "It is the empowering of this idealism that is the overarching purpose of the university. It is this we must ensure is not sacrificed to economic functionalism. Important though is to serve the current needs of the society that supports us-to forge, disseminate, and transfer usehl knowledge, to educate and to train for the professions, to respond to labour-market demands-it is even more important to hold fast to the transcendent and transfomiing vision of which Frye speaks, for it is that vision which, when realized, will harmonize and ennoble disparate human aspirations and activities and weave a pattern of meaning and significance into the seemingiy random nature of human experien~e."'~A society's educational process bears Yhe best that humanity has thought and said" to its next generations.'81 When the solution to society's problems is posed in terrns of the marketplace, 4th privatization plans encouraging people to look out for themselves with Little regard for others; there is "no movement beyond itseif towards understanding and consciousness as a human end in it~elf."'~We need to question the assumptions of the corporate elite before they undercut or destroy "the only remaining institutional ground of human intelligence and reason."lm Endnotes to Chapter Two 1. Gustave Flaubert, cited in John Raiston Sad, The Unconscious Civilization (Concord, On. : House of Anansi Press Lirnited, 1995) 46.

3. Saul 54.

4. Socrates, cited in Saui, 7 1.

5. Ben Bagdikian, The Media Mono~oly(Boston: Beacon Press, 1997) xlv.

6. Bagdikian xlv.

7. Edward S. Herman and Robert W. McChesney, The Global Media: The New Missionaries of Comorate Ca~italism(London, Eng. : Cassell, 1997) 3.

8. Herrnan and McChesney 3.

9. Herrnan and McChesney 3.

10. Herman and McChesney 3.

1 1. John Dewey, Democracv and Education: An Introduction to the Philoso~hvof Education (New York: The Free Press, 1916) 36.

12. Saui 31.

14. Bagdikian xii.

15. Ben Bagdikian, "The 50,26,20. . .Corporations That Own Our Media," Extra! [Online] http ://www. fair. org/extra/best-of-extra/corporate-ownership. html June 1997.

16. Bagdikian, The Media Mono~olv2.

17. Murray Dobbin, The Mvth of the Good Comorate Citizen: Democracy Under the Rule of Bie Business (Toronto, On.: Stoddart Publishing Co. Limited, 1998) 127.

19. Saul 18.

20. Bagdikian, The Media Mono~olvix.

2 1. Bagdikian, The Media Mono~ol~xliv. 22. James Winter, Democracy's men:How Cornorations Control the News (Montreal, Que.: Black Rose Books, 1997) xM.

23. Dobbin 4.

24. Dobbin 152.

25, Dobbin 152.

26. Donald Gutstein, e.wn: How the Intemet Undermines Democracv (Toronto, On.: Stoddarâ Publishing Co. Limited, 1999) 238.

27. Dobbin 152.

28. Me1 Hurtig, At Twilidt in the Countrv: Memoirs of a Canadian Nationaikt (Toronto, On. : Stoddart Publishing Co. Limited, 1996) 293.

29. Dobbin 167.

30. Dobbin 170.

3 1. Dobbin 170.

32. Dobbin 174.

33. John Calven and Lany Kuehn, Pandora's Box. Cornorate Power. Free Trade and Canadian Education (Toronto, On. : Our Schools/Our Selves, 1993) 91.

34. Maude Barlow and Heather-jane Robertson, Class Warfare: The Assault on Canada's Schools (Toronto, On.: Key Porter Books Limited, 1994) 108.

3 5. Barlow and Robertson 1 17.

36. Barlow and Robertson 1 18.

37. David Langille, cited in Hurtig, 293.

3 8. Hurtig 252.

39. Dobbin 178.

40. Dobbin 180.

4 1. Dobbin 180.

42. Hurtig 252.

43. Dobbin 1 90. 44. Dobbin 192.

45. Dobbin 209.

46. Dobbin 192.

47. Fraser Institute: Annual Report 1996, cited in Dobbin, 194.

48. Erika Shaker, Education. Limited: Monitoring Cornorate Intrusion in Canadian Public Education (Ottawa, On.: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 1997) 4.

49. The "Education industxy" is the tem used to reflect the increased private sector involvement in public education. It includes corporate donations, outsourcing of prograrns and school services, to the complete pnvatization of the school system. It represents over $660 billion (US dollars) in both Canada and in the United States. Shaker 4.

50. William Thorsell, cited in Dobbin, 156.

5 1. Dobbin 154.

52. Dobbin 162.

53. Saul 2.

54. Saul 27.

55. Thorsell, cited in Dobbin, 156.

56. Bagdikian, The Media Mono~olv58.

57. Bagdikian, The Media Mono~oly58.

58. Dobbin 126.

59. Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufactunnsz Consent: The Political Economv of the Mass Media (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988) 13.

60. Hugh Winsor, "Time for Clear Look at CRTC Choices," The Globe and Mail 6 Apd 1998.

61. John Ralston Saul, Reflections of a Siamese Twin: Canada at the End of the Twentieth Centurv, (Toronto, On. : Viking, 1997) 49 1.

62. Saul, Reflections of a Siamese Twin 49 1.

63. John McMurtry, Uneaual Fradoms: The Global Market as an Ethical Svstem (Toronto, On. : Garamond Press, 1998) 6.

64. McMurtry 9. 65. Saul, The Unconscious Civilization 19.

66. Saul, The Unconscious Civilization 20.

67. McMurtry 28.

68. Saul, The Unconscious Civilization 3.

70. Douglas Kellner, Television and the Crisis of Democracy (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, Inc., 1990) 18 1.

7 1. Herman and Chomsky xii.

72. Herman and Chomsky 2.

73. Herman and Chomsky 14.

74. Herman and Chomsky xii.

75. Herbert Schiller, Culture Inc.: The Cornorate Takeover of Public Expression (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989) 4 1.

76. Herman and Chomsky xi.

77. "There are thrw national newspapers in the United States-the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and U.S.A. Todav-and several others that aspire to that roitfor example, the Washinmon Post and Los Anneles Times-which do mmpete with one another, and, dong with the news agencies and government, set the agenda for the rest of the press and for broaduisters as weU. This cornpetition, and the professional standards that have evolved in the newspaper business over the y-, has ofien yielded impressive news results; but these are elite institutions closely linked to the corporate comrnunity and governrnent, and they tend to limit debate and investigative zeal within acceptable dite parameters." Herman and McChesney i 38.

78. Herbert Schiller, Information Ineaualitv: The Dee~eninaSocial Crisis in Arnenca (New York: Routledge, 1996) 12.

79. Schiller, Information Ineaualitv 12.

80. Maude Barlow and James Winter, The Bia Black Book: The Essential Views of Conrad and Barbara Amiel Black (Toronto, On.: Stoddart Publishing Co. Limited, 1997) 11.

8 1. Barlow and Winter 11.

82. Tim Jones, "That Old Black Magic," Columbia Joumalism Review [Online] Available httb://-,cjr.ornlhtlm/98-03-04-black. hüq 83. Dobbin 210.

84. Barlow and James Winter 5.

85. Herman and McChesney 70.

86. The Mulroney govemment instructed Investment Canada to allow the Rupert Murdoch empire (News International) to establish Harper-Collins Canada Ltd. This allowed a new foreign-owned fimi to take over the relatively lucrative distribution business fiom the Canadian-owned firm of Fitzhenry and Whiteside Ltd.

87. William Thorsell, "Reading Mr. Murdoch's China Strategy," The Globe and Mail 9 Mar. 1998.

88. Thorsell, "Reading Mr. Murdoch's China Strategy."

89. John Fraser, "Press Baron Mer Biggest Market of All," The Toronto Star 1 Mar. 1998.

90. Arthur Kent, Risk and Redem~tion(Toronto, On.: Viking, 1996) 295.

9 1. Saul, The Unconscious Civilization 40.

92. Walter Jens, cited in Saul, The Unconscious Civilization 41.

93. Henry GIassie, cited in Schiller, Culture Inc. 45.

94. An example of information that is not included in the information system due to a conflict in the interests of large corporations is in the area of unde products. "If there is knowledge, for example, that a product is unde-whether it be an automobile, a tobacco product with 4,000 additives, or a carcinogenic substance in foodstuffs-this knowledge will be excluded fiom the market's information system. Hundreds of thousands, in some cases millions, of innocent people have died torturous deaths as a result of these hazardous or lethal products and process-lor example, fkom exposure to the chernicals of cigarette smoke, which the Amencan Journal of Public Health has reported is 'by far the largest single preventable cause of premature mortality in the United States. Such knowledge will be denied and, wherever possible, erased by uiy aEected corporate producer by invoking the constitutional right to 'freedom of speech' in order to rnisrepresent facts. "' McMurtry 182.

95. McMurtry 180.

96. Tom Brtustowski, cited in McMurtry, 180.

97. McMurtry 182.

98. McMurtry 181. 99. Saul, The Unconscious Civilization 42.

i 00. McMurtry 186.

1 0 1. John Polanyi, "Knowledge as Property in Universities," The Toronto Star 5 Apd 1999.

102. Observers, such as Duncan Cameron, perceive changes in universities as they embrace the corporate view which becomes intertwined with their academic goals. Carneron, in an interview with Dobbin, States: "The entire university community in Canada has become hostage to the new type of university president, who is in large part a hd miser. The university president is no longer someone who takes a leadership role and speaks out on matters conceniing society. They lunch, they raise money, and the terms of the relationship are quite clear. Money for seMces rendered." (Duncan Cameron, inte~ewwifh Murray Dobbin, cited in Dobbin 18 1) Derek Bok, in his fhl "President's Report" to Harvard's Board of Overseers, conciuded that the most severe threat facing higher education was the cornmercialization of universities. He asserted: 'Wniversities appear less and less as a charitable institution seeking tmth and se~ngstudents and more and more as huge commercial operation that differs from corporations only because there are no shareholders and no dividends." Derek Bok, cited in Schiller, Information Inequality, 47 Profit-seeking ventures threaten to undermine the openness of the scholarty comrnunity whereby research universities no longer exist and become fee-for-service corporations. Indeed, in mid- 1993, Harvard Medid School announced its intention to invite the Health Care Investment Corporation, the largest venture capital hin the biotechnology field, to share facilities in a new building. The site has become 611ed with companies that turned Harvard science into health care products by working closely with the research tearns and even financing some of them with Harvard holding the patents and the companies paying the licencing fees. Schiller, Information Ineaualitv, 47.

103. McMurtry 179.

104. Calvert and Kuehn 43.

105. Caivert and Kuehn 44.

106. Calvert and Kuehn 43.

107. Calvert and Kuehn 48.

108. Caivert and Kuehn 48.

109. "Transnational Corporations in the communications industries lose several billions dollars to 'piratecl' films, books or CDS. For example: it is estimated that China produced % 1.8 billion, Russia $726 million, and Italy $5 15 million-worth of U. S. films, books and recorded music without compensating the onginating firm or artist. Over 30 percent of the world's 'pirate' music sold in Italy in 1995 was reportedly produced without respect to copyright. There is grave concem arnong media finns that the shift to video compact disk will create 'unpredentd piracy' of films and television program, that wiii make today's piracy look like petty thefi." Heman and McChewiey 50.

1 10. Ed Finn, "The Deficit Made Me Do It," Education Forum, Winter 1994 20B.

1 11. Linda McQuaig, "The Debt Obsession," The Toronto Star 18 Feb.1995.

112. Ottawa never seems to mention the kind of tax dodge exploited by Conrad Black's Hollinger Inc. late in 1986. In an intricate series of manouevres, Hollinger paid $4 million for a company which had $1 13-7 million in losses on its books. Within a week, it sold the company for $20, but not before transfemng the huge losses ont0 its own books, thereby creating a tax daim worth $56.8 rnil!ion over two years. The government denid its daim but Hollinger says that it was al1 perfectly legal. The dispute wents to the Tax Court of Canada. Loopholes like this suggest that corporate tax laws are not nearly tight enough. Cited in Wiiiiarn Thorsell, "The Profit in Losses," The Toronto Star 29 Jan. 1995.

1 13. Ruby Day, ed., et al., U~date,November 1994, 2.

1 14. Linda McQuaig, "The Politics of Letting the Deficit Keep Growing," Toronto Star 18 Feb. 1995.

1 15. Linda McQuaig, Shootinp the H~DDO:Death Bv Deficit and Other Canadien Myths (New York: Penguin, 1995) 257.

1 16. Walter Stewart, Dismantlinn the State: Downsizinn to Disaster (Toronto, On.: Stoddart Publishing Co. Limited, 1998) 5.

1 17. Saul, The Unconscious Civilization 34.

1 18. Lit Barkley, "Reinventing Society," Fomm Surnmer, 1994, 9.

1 19. Saul, The Unconscious Civilization 44.

120. John Ralston Saul, Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorshir, of Reason in the West (Toronto, On. : Penguin Books, 1993) 7.

121. Heather Menzies, Whose Brave New World? The Information Hi~hwavand the New Econorny (Toronto, On.: Between the Lines, 1996) 15.

122. Menzies 11.

123. Menzies 18.

124. Menzies 15.

125. Saul, The Unconscious Civilization 54.

126. Sad, Voltaire's Bastards 9. 127. Menzies xiv.

128. Shaker 3.

129. John Snobelen, cited in Stewart, 82.

130. William Spady, Outcorne-Based Education (Australian Cumcuiurn Studies Association, 1992) ü.

13 1. Peter Emberley and Waller Newell, Bankru~tEducation: The Decline of Liberal Education in Canada (Toronto, On.: University of Toronto Press, 1994) 25.

132. Ron Brandt, "On Outcornes-Based Education: A Conversation with BU Spady," Educational leaders hi^ January 1993, 70.

133. Brandt 71.

134. Bruno V. Manno, "The New School Wars: Battles Over Outcornes-Based Education," Phi Delta Kaman May 1995, 724.

135. John Dewey, cited in Robert A. E. Myers, Current Philosoehical Directions in Education in the Province of Ontario: The Influence of Outcornes Based Education & thc Common Curriculum (University of Toronto, 1996) 10.

136. Northrop Frye, cited in Myers, 10.

137. William Spady, cited in Myers, 16.

138. Brandt 69.

139. Maurice Holt, "Why Deming and OBE Don't Mx,'' Educational leaders hi^ Sept. 1994, 85.

140. Maurice Holt, "Why Deming and OBE Don't Mx,"Educational Leadership Sept. 1994, 85.

14 1. J. Moffat, cited in Schwarz, 88.

142. Andy Hargreaves, citied in Schwarz, 88.

143. Schwarz 88.

144. Holt 85.

145. Holt 85.

146. Created in 1972, the Business Roundtable is made up of CEOs of 200 of the major corporations with headquarters in the US. The purpose of the orgmhtion is to have less intrusion by government into business &airs. In 1988, it published 'The Role of Business in Education Refom: Blueprint for Action." The Roundtable was concernecl that "if education paid for by the public was not adequate in providing skills for woriq then the cost to corporations for training could increase dramatically and becorne an insurnountable obstacle to US international competitiveness." David Noble describes this motivation as socialiting the cost and pnvatizing the benefits. David Noble, citd in Calvert and Kuehn, 57.

147. The Conference Board of Canada, "Employability Skills Profile." March, 1993.

148. Emberley and NeweU 3 9.

149. Jennifer Lexington and Graham Orpwood, Overdue Assimment: Takinq Res~onsibiIitvfor Canada's Schools (Toronto, On. : John Wdey & Sons, 1993), 120.

150. Jim Cumrnins and Dennis Sayers, Brave New Schools: Challennina Cultural llliteracy (Toronto, On. : OISE Press, Inc., 1995) 98.

15 1. Curnmins and Sayers 1 14.

152. Emberley and Newell43.

153. John P. Miller, "Concerns for the Future," Orbit: The Common Cumcufum 1995, 52.

154. Dobbin 240.

155. Stephen Lawton, Bustinn Bureaucracv to Reclaim Our Schools (Montreal, PQ: The Institute for Research on Public Policy, 1995) 69.

156. Murray Dobbin, "Charting a Course to Social Division: The Charter School Threat to Public Education in Canada," Issues in Ontario Education [Online] htt~://www.osdon. ca/~r~~ri~~~eS/Cbart~f/charttt. html28 Oct .1996.

157. Barlow and Robertson 207.

158. Milton Friedman, a Nobel laureate in economics, wrote what many consider to be the classic argument against corporate social responsibility. He believes that the prirnary responsibility of a "corporate executive is to serve the owners of the business. As the owners' agent, it is his responsibility to conduct business in accordance with their desires, mainly the desire to make as much money as possible. Corporate social responsibility is not in the interest of the company's owners because it costs the owners money and reduces their profits." Milton Friedman, "The Social Responsibility of Business 1s to Increase Its Profits," New York Times Sundav Magazine 13 Sept. 1990, 53.

159. Dobbin, The Mvth of the Good Comorate Citizen 2.

160. Dobbin, The Mvth of the Good Comorate Citizen 2. 16 1. Ralp h Klein had carnpaigned for his job by promising he would take govenunent away tiom the bureaucracy and put it in the hands of the people!

162. Tom McConaghy, ''Charter Schools, Alberta Style," Phi Delta Kaman April 1996, 5 80.

163. Liz Barkley 8.

164. Bauni MacKay, "Address to the Annual Meeting of the Provincial Assembly, OSSTF," Toronto, Ontario, Mar. 1994.

165. Scott Feschuk, "When Parents Set School Agenda," The Globe and Mail 18 Oct -1994.

166. Earl Mamers, "OSSTF Praises Suprerne Court of Canada Decision Supporting Public Schools," Media Release 2 1 Nov. 1996.

167. William Thorsell, "The Future of Schools after School Boards," The Globe and Mail 29 Apd 1998.

168. OSSTF Presentation to the Standing Cornmittee on Social Development on Bi11 104, "Bill 104: Education Quality at Stake," [Online] http://www. osseon. calwww/issucs/sba/dtfl04.html 1997. 169. "Fewer School Boards Act," OSSTF Issues in Ontario Education, [Online] htt~://~~~.osSft.on.~/i~~~ed&a/bill104.html 1997.

170. "Fewer School Boards Act," 5.

17 1. William Kennedy, "Capital Punishrnent: The Queen's Park Politburo's 25 Year Plan for School Building," District 15 Backerounder Jan. 1997, 2.

1 72. OSSTF Update 25 Nov. 1996, 3.

1 73. Barlow and Robertson 20 1.

174. Emberley and Newell4 1.

175. William Kennedy, "OSSTF District 12 Communications Paper: Brief on Nortel Networks," 3 Apri12000, 2.

176. Kennedy 2.

177. The establishment of an expanded type of education swings accounts (ESAs) is another TechNet objective. TechNet has assisted in legislating ESAs to include private and charter school tuition fees as well as purchases of cornputer and other equipment used for school purposes. The govenunent of Ontario has considered the establishment of both charter schools and ESAs. The Fraser Institute and other right-wing think tanks endorse both of these measures. Norte1 has made financial as well as other positive contributions to education. However, it should be remembered that "much of this educationol phüanthropic activity, for which the company receives ample public credit, is heevily and anonymously subsidized by the great mars of Canadian cituenry through tax deductions. Norte1 Network's specific acts of educational charity should be carefuliy weighed agaïnst its overall cornmitment to a pubücly run and fiuided syaem and its record as a taxpayer." Kennedy 2.

178. McMurtry 188.

179. James Downey, "Hold Fast the Vision," Universitv of Waterloo Magazine- FdI 1998, 3.

180. Downey 3.

18 1 . Matthew Arnold, cited in McMurtry, 1 9 1.

182. McMurtry 191.

183. McMurtry 191. CHAPTER THREE: CORPORATE COMMERCIALISM GAINS DIRECT ENTRY TO SCHOOLS: CHANNEL ONE AND YNN At any given moment there is a son of aiî pervading orthodoxy, a generai tacit agreement not to discuss large and uncomfortable facts. Today, ddedby technology, we are being led into what we are told is an information society, but is reaiIy a media society in which those 'large and uncomfortable faas' are eliminated or pass unmnembered on a moving belt of images shot and edited to the rhythm of a Coca-Cola advertisement.

George Orwell

A great deal of activity, in dl areas of society, has been undertaken to advance the interest of the cornpetitive-corporate ideology of the right-wing. The corporate influence in education is becorning widespread. One of the rnoa successful expressions of new corporate agenda may be found in the interaction between business and government to commerciaiize the classroorns of our public schools. At present, government officiais and wrporate interests are developing commercial partnerships which would restructure the school system. Corporations now play a vital role in redefining the direction and meaning of public education. Their supporters argue that schools can upgrade themselves by changing cumcula and restructuring and re-engineering management systems to reflect corporate values, social practices and goals. An enhanceci education could be financed through financial arrangements developed by creative partnerships. Certainly, the potentiai of a $300 billion youth market in North Arnerica is a strong motivating factor for companies such as Sean, Nie, McDonaid's, Pizza Hut, Disney and Coca-Cola to seek opportunities to enter into partnerships with schools.' Many schools are underfbnded and the offers of partnerships are tempting. This entrepreneurid spirit of the corporate world can be seen in the corporate partnership of the United States' Channel One and Canada's Youth News Network 0.

Channel One Channel One was the brainchitd of Tennessee's media magnate, Charles Whittle. Channel One began daily broadcasts to four hundred junior and senior high schools in March 1989 and now reaches over 12,000. Each ten-minute show provides a digest of the previous day's news, tailored for teens and interspersed with an additional two minutes of sponsored messages. Along with the original newscasts, Channel One offers two broad categories of news programmhg. Of these, Classroom Channel features educationai material chosen by an independent advisory board which also determines whether the charnel will accept advertising, while Educational Channel offers instructional services for teachers and school administrators. This ambitious scheme is funded by the four 30-second advefiisements during Channel One's daily newscast. Furthemore, a vitai cornerstone of Channel One's communication and marketing strategy is a weli-designed, complementary education program. The network can accommodate CNN's Newsroom, a 15-minute daily newscast, and Discovery Channel's "Assignrnent: Discovery," an hour of instructional programming. Advertisers are guaranteed a direct pipeline to the teen market with access to students in an environment in which attention would be high, distractions minimal, and therefore, impact great. The deal offered to high schools is dmost too good to refuse. In addition to the 1,000 hours of public television and noncommercial educational programming, the schools receive more than $50,000 worth of hardware. This includes a 6xed satellite dish, a 19-inch colour television for every participating classroom of 23 students, and two video recording machines, one for recording the 12-minute programs with sponsored messages and the other for recording programs broadcast over the Classroom and Education Channels. Schools are permitted to add a second satellite dish to bring in outside programming as long as it does not carry competing advertisements. Channel One installs al1 the intemal wiring and al1 equipment is serviced fiee of charge. Although there are excellent commercial-free networks offered to schools at no cost, many school districts cannot aEord the necessary , cable equipment, satellite dishes and VCRs. Channel One created an option that relieves schools of this problem.' By the end of its first broadcast year, 5,000 schools had signed on. It is estirnated that eight million students and 400,000 educators in more than 12,000 schools now view Channel One daily.' Understandably, Chris Whittle was interested in making a profit. Channel One accounted for about 4% of the revenues of Whittle Communication, half owned by Time Warner, Inc. Channel One's growth helped boost the company's revenues 30% or S207 million, in the fiscal year, June 1991.' To make it worth his while, Whittle rounded up commercial sponsors for the project. Advextisers included Guette Co., Wrn. Wngley Jr. Co., Levi Strauss & Co. and many others. Companies are highly motivated to purchase ads on Channel One because "school is the ideal time to influence attitudes, build long-tenn loyalties, introduce new products, test markets, promote sampling, and trial usage and, above ail, to generate imrnediate sales."' Channel One earned S630.000 a day fkom the four 30-second cornrnercials that accompany the broadcast and although Channel One remains embroiled în controversy, there has been little impact on advertisement support for the school news network.Most advertisers fa1 Channel One is very appropriate to their needs. Despite the cnticism associated with the cornrnercials on Channel One, the market has been and promises to be a lucrative one for shareholders. If you accept the deal, you Iive with the advertising. While this is not the first time schools have partnered with commercial interests, Channel One has moved the question of corporate partnerships in the schools to centre stage. Supporters argue that the prograrnming provides access to technologies and resources to improve educational opportunities for students in an age of scarce public tiinding. Some researchers found that "Channel One does an excellent job in providing news wverage, investigative reponing, providing imponam idormation to students and its substance surpasses the depth and scope of most broadcast news and information pr~grarnming."~ Educators might use the shared Mewing experience as a catalyst for in-class discussions of how to interpret commercial and noncommercial messages and techniques in the mass media. Some see it as an important link to current events: "My seventh graders watch Channel One each day. It is an important link to current events, especially geography. This week, for example, my students have seen pararnilitary troops fight in poor areas in Ireland; they've seen widespread floods in China, the tragedy of a plane crash in Canada, and the economic and political crisis in Russia."'Michael -4pple realizes the opportunities Channel One offers teachers to promote a cntical orientation to media and societal power relations: Channel One offers criticaily oriented teachers an opportunity to do some very interesting educational work with students in rniddle schools and hi& Jchools. It provides the context for a serious deconstruction-with students-of its content and form, of its ethics of selling shidents as audiences, and of its interests. It does offer technology that students themselves can 'play' with, using the VCR and the monitors to broadcast their own productions and meanings, and to make parodies of and reconstrua 'the News. "

Significantly, schools are gaining two valuable resources: a news program providing "real world" information to youths, and media technology they could otherwise not aEord. The cornplaint that the advertising is wrong is regarded as a "minimal cost given that students are already inundated with commercial messages outside of school."%ducaton might use Channel One's shared viewing expenence as a catalyst for in-class discussions of how to interpret commercial and noncommercial messages and techniques in the mass media. Educators recognize rnany possible instructional benefits derived from the uses of television programs. Teachers can enhance student leaming by making information more accessible, creativity more possible and intellectual discovery more stimdating . Video prograrns may supplement class discussions and lectures, and students could produce their own prognvns for classes, extra cumcular activities or even community projects. Teachers could teach students how to make an informed choice by weighing the benefits and disadvantages of advenising. The possibilities are endless. Hugh Rank elaborates on the benefits of media literacy for students: Ads should be studied as part of a ianguage arts prograrn or a critical thinking prograrn: analyzed as units of persuasion, treated seriously as examples of carefiilly crafted nonrational persuasion. The 30 seconds of 'real tirne,' as viewed by the audience, is the end-product of a complex and costly process in which scores of people (writers, psychologists, actors, artists, carnera crews) may have spent months putting together the details. TV ads are oAen the best compositions of our era-the rnost skilftl synthesis of purposefil words and images, in which every word, every camera angle, every gesture is carefully planned. Such an ad may have 40-50 quick-cut scenes, associating the product with 'good tirnes.' An audience perceives these images simultaneously, but must discuss them sequentially, one at a tirne. Thus, analysis takes time. Ideally, such viewing and analysis of ads should be planned and controlled by the teacher (not the advertisers), using magazine ads or videotaped TV cornmercials. Preferably, this should be done by a trained teacher, in a coherent program, with the goal of teaching the greatest number of young citizens how to analyze persuasion from any source. Instead, however, schools nationwide are eagerly running after Whittle's money. Perhaps the real sharne is not so much that they are selling their kids as audiences to the few persuaden, but that the schools are neglecting to teach children how to cope with per~uasion.'~

Apple offers teachers hope for the "cntical oppominities" that Channel One offen. "Good teachers," he says, "have always somehow managed, with students, to challenge the limits of accepted bureaucratic and ideological structures. Channel One provides not only a way of making this harder to do, but an opporninity to once again show what can be done."" Those opposed to Channel One consider that the daüy newscasts arnount to cynicai commercialization of the classroom. Schools are turning over students to advertisers as a captive market-the Iargest captive teenage audience ever. This captive audience can't zap. . .can't gaze . . .can't plug its Nintendo into the set. Furthemore, the ads seen in an educational context may hiriher heighten their credibility and impact. Rank argues: Commercial television is the appropriate venue for such persuasion. In our society, commercial television is the main 'marketplace,' where (as the courts have often ruled) people expect puffery and 'seilers' talk' that intensify the 'good' about a product and downplay the 'bad.' In a society that values fiee speech and fiee enterprise and that accommodates diverse political and commercial persuaders, we must expect to live in a verbal environment of many persuaders in competit ion. The schools, however, are the appropriate venues for neutrality and objectivity, the place to teach the young how to analyze and understand the techniques and patterns of many persuaders comrnon to al1 persuaders. Instead, however, Whittle has blurred the distinction between the marketplace and the sch~ols.'~

Len Masterman maintains: "One of the principal fiinctions of commercial media is not so rnuch the provision of information or entertainment, but the segmentation and packaging of audiences for delivery to advertisers."" Stuart Hall elaborates on this fundamental concept: "The commercial mass media tend to direct popular consciousness toward consumption and away fiom production. They present social actions and expenences as atomized individual events in order to fiagrnent groups into isolated consumers, and they resolve the tensions conf?onting their audiences by binding them together in false unities and collectivities defined for the convenience of capital acc~mulation."'~McMurtry also illustrates the powemil nature of commercial mass media on Our identity and on "human aspiration itself" Mass production cannot by its nature individuate its produas or its processes, however much advertising assures us that it is only by purchasing such products that we can prove Our individuality. A handfûl of transnational corporate producers, with interlocked production and distribution processes, manufacture more or less identical commodities for billions of consumers. Diversity of peoples and ways of life are increasingly ruled out by the requirements ofworid product mandates, and transnational esonornies ofde are instituted for the global production and distribution ofgoods. The giobal pattern of increasing uniformity grows as more fields of human life are penetrated by the manufacture of commercial produas to subdhite for autonomous activities-for example, mas-audience television programs in the home and the community centre instead of independent, local cultutal activities. '' Benjamin Barber ernphasizes this view: "It is kss the goods than the brand Mmes that do the work, for they convey Nestyle images that alter perception and chdenge behaviour. They make up the seductive software of the McWorld7s cornmon world. . . . An efficient fiee market after al1 requires that consumers be free to vote their dollars on wmpeting goods, not that citizens be fiee to vote their values and belief on competing political candidates and pro gram^."'^ By using convincing persuasion techniques, ads are efféctive. According to W. Key: Commercials are absorbed and not watched, not scrutinized, not analyzed. Comrnercials are carefiilly produced. Some 30 second television ads have been known to cost about $1 -2 million to produce, and have taken up to six rnonths to complete. The average individual in Our culture perceives well over one hundred ads daily, fiorn a variety of media. Some or all of this information is retained in the individual's perceptual system, though few people have any conscious idea about their unwitting involvement. Merchandising battles are fought almost entirely at the unwnscious level."

Saul elaborates. He argues that modem communications technology can actually stand in the way of self-examination: The modem propagandists have become experts at using the images and nonlinguistic sounds of modem communications technology to provoke feelings which stand in the way of self-examination . - . .What we now recognize as the two forces of politicai salesmanship and commercial advertising first coalesced in Leni Riefenstahl's film The Triumvh of the W-. There she celebrated the 1934 Nuremberg rally of the National Socialist Party. Her use of the camera and the way she juxtaposed images with music removed even a hint of conscious meaning. People saw and believed. The selling of Coca-cola or Calvin Klein undenirear is drawn directly hmthese methods, as is the staging of most contemporary politicai events. Many of you may react to this sort of argument by saying, but that is just advertising, as if to Say, this is to be expected and can be ignored. That would unfottunately be naive. Advertising production costs are high multiples of those devoted to programming. The money used to produce a twenty-second spot for McDonald7s would finance hours of television programming. In terms of straight expenses, the money paid for pnnt news is a fiaction of that paid for print advertising. Propaganda is therefore the purpose. Content is the fiil or decoration . . . .TheStream of images and sounds overwhelm meaning."

The overall effectiveness of advertising is demonstrated by its spectacular growth. The number of commercial messages targeted at teenagers suggests that they are a profitable market. It is estimated that teenagers spend $34 billion a year and influence another $44 billion in sales.'g This multibillion-dollar advertising business stimulates demand. A set of stimulations reinforces the desire for the produd until there is sufficient dernand to buy it at a maximum market profit. Spinrad believes advertising is "a powefil form ofpropagandathat moulds Our society's outlook and values, especially insidious because it is seldom acknowledged as propaganda. It has bornbarded ail of us fiom an early age, preying on our deepest desires and fears, and you're deluding yourself ifyou believe it has not affecteci how you think and what you ~ant."~McMurtry illustrates the pervasive forces of advertising: "The world's multibiliion-dollaradvertising business 'stimulates dernand, ' ensuring consumer wants are conditioned to demand to buy the products that are on the market for sale. . . .Advertking firms only attract clients by achieving successfbily conditioned responses. Corporations do not invest unless they can count on multibillion-douar advertising conditioning customers to select their produas."*' The corporate drive for commercial sales is omnipresent and corporations will go to great lengths to reach maximum profits. McMurtry explains: Corporations also construct an invisible wall against any public criticism that might reduce their sales or market control. They manage this through a myriad of channels, lucrative contracts ofpurchase, interlocking directorates, arts and science sponsorships and programs, political action cornmittees, public relations gants, and watcffil editors in the media. The result is hardly a democratic marketplace of consumer choice, but it follows fiom the value program of seeking to maximize sales and profits by any legal means. The law itself is then rolled back fiom interferhg with this process, through the weakening of antimonopoly or antifalsehood regdationa.

TV broadcasters are in the business of selling attention spans to the highest bidder. They want multibillion dollar ad campaigns fiom McDonald's and Nike. Product placement, advertising and promotional support for the media is a means of selling their product. Many consumers even identifi with the brand name and product. It actually can define who a person is! Moreover, public service announcements that may actually offend the corporate agenda are not usually subscribed to. It is instructive to analyse the values and ethics that these cornmercials send out to young people. A content analysis of a sample of advertisements on Channel One shows that 86% of the cornmerciais were for products and 14% were public service announcements. Public se~ceads stress staying away from dmgs, defensive driving and self-actualization. Certain product categories are not advertised during student viewing. These include dcoholic beverages, tobacco products ferninine hygiene products contraceptives, anything with a sexual content and guns. Apple has expressed concern that Channel One might air comrnercials that promote inappropriate values. He explains: Channel One signifies something well beyond what happas to students in the classrooms. It is a paradigm case of the social transformation of our ideas about public and ptivate, and about schooling itself. . . .The cornmon ground of the school becomes no longer based on a set of democratic political cornmitments (no matter how weak before); rather, it is replad by the idea of a cornpetitive marketplace. The citizen as a politid being with reciprocal nghts and duties is lost. In its place is the self as consmer. Schooling (and students) becomes a 'retail product.' Freedom in a democracy is no longer defined as participating in building the cornmon good, but as living in an unfettered commercial market, with the educational system now being seen as needing to be integrated into the mechanisms of such a market ."

The question of what values are projected in advertising directed at young people has no simple answer, but it is a critical one. Advertking has the presumed power to infiuence social development, to reinforce or to weaken the values of the audience. Everything is measured in terms of money. Intangibles with no dollar sign, including values like integrity, trust and sincerity do not appear to be of much woxth. Bagdikian also comments on the impact of corporate advertising on children: The role of children in modem commercial television is that of targets-targets for commerciais that self snacks, soft drùiks, fashionable clothes, and toys. The idea of the child as future responsible citizen seems not to exist on commercial TV. That role seems to be left to public television, whose appropriations conservatives and commercial interests have done their best to kill, and which in response has itself become dependent upon corporate advertising ."

Advertising has been used to convince us that consumption bnngs happiness. Our addiction to buying has become a personal, social and recreational activity which fits well with the goals of a business market that never becomes saturated. The market economy, with its emphasis on endless production and consumption, has become one of the most destructive forces ever unleashed on the planet and has lured us into participation as over-consumers. Miller expresses hii concern about a fragmenteci society which encourages consumerism. Such a society emphasizes the accumulation of as many material goods as possible, thus missing spirituality or "a sense of the awe and reverence for life that arises fiom our relatedness to something both wondehl and rny~tecious."~Accordhg to Marshall McLuhan, "fragmentation is the only obscenity!" The loss of a sense of co~ectjoncannot be compensated by the accumulation of more material possessions. It is possible that young people are assimilating the value system of a shdlow entertainment industry rather than the mord standards, discipline, and intellectual curiosity that equip a person to learn and finction in society. Charles Whittle was adarnant that advertising was the only fdbleway to foot the bill and viewed the wrnmerciais as a pragmatic trade off, considering the crisis in American education. He fought back vociferously against those who opposed the cornmerciaikation of education. In a series of fbll-page ads in the New York Times, he argued that young people see thousands of television ads each year and that two minutes more a day is a sdlpria to pay for a show that will enhance their knowledge of world aEairs. "1 don't see why we can't bring comrnercials into the senice of education," said Whittle. "It's a reasonable trade-off."% The trade-off, however, could be Our access to information and knowledge. The public educational system, which has provided access to information and knowledge, is being brought into the corporate sphere, either through financial dependence or the transformation of information into a saleable good. 1 believe that the power to choose and mandate what students will view is aitogether too significant to be left to the judgement of corporate America. Channel One is not in the business of education; it is in the business of promoting products. Channel One's interest in students is their purchasing power. Although most of the cnticism is focussed on Channel One's commercials, many feel that advertising is the least of the problems posed by Channel One. The entry of commercial television into the public school market does more than simply trivialize learning by subordinating it to the dictates of commercial interests and corporate values. Far more troubling is the program's underlying assumption that news is palatable only in srnall doses, resembling a video game approach to news. It has the look and feel of a music video, heavy on the bass, with 'anchon' who looked like 'vee-jays'. The fast-paced program is hosted by young news readers and state-of-the-art graphics are used to enhance the visual impact of the stones. Up front is the news-an airline strike, trouble in the Middle East, smis control talks in Vienna-presented at a pinball pace. More care has been lavished on the snazzy graphics than on the news writing. The editoriai content of Channel One, wrote the New Rmublic, "is sornething you wrap around advertising to make it pre~entaûle."~ The appd of Channel One is oAen superticid. The fa,s~ey graphics tend to overwhelrn the content and the rapid succession of facts may leave the Mewer little time for reflection and appraisal or thoughtfiil analysis. The intention of Channel One may weU be to address the "cultural Literacy" of today's teenagers; yet it promotes the fiction that visual acrobatics, sound bites and hyperactive camera work add up to informative news programmjng. It provides an illusion that quick facts equate to literacy and a weU-informeci citizenry. It rnay further Hunt their toierance for complexity. Channel One promotes the fiction that knowing these newsbites has something to do with understanding the leaming process. It creates an illusion that leaniing has taken place. In launching Channel One, Whittle pledged to produce news and cultural events-broadcasts that would bolster the cultural literacy of students. Mark Fitzgerald reported that the total amount of time devoted to hard news was four minutes or less and although there is a wide range of current event topics covered each day, the broadcast rarely follows a news story for any length of time or makes connections between news events? William Hoynes systenratically studied Channel One programming in order to evaluate the substance of the news. He reviewed and dyzed36 Channel One programs from late November 1995 to early March 1996. He evaiuated Chaume1 One programming by conducting both a quantitative and qualitative study. His research concluded that the packaged Chamel One news programming would not meet even minimal standards for materials that educators would define as "educationai." His research is important if we are to analyse Channel One as an educational force in 12,000 schools. His study found that only 2.4 minutes each day were devoted to recent political, economic, socid and cuiturd stones; the rest of the programming was made up of ads, contests, music and filler. He States: Slightly more than haif, 58 percent, of the airtime is devoted to news content. The remaining 42 percent consists of ads, the pop quk, Channel One wntests and activities, and the music and banter that serve as filler. Breaking news stones that focus on recent events constitutes 43 percent of the airtirne that is allotteci to news. This means that 25 percent of the total Channel One airtime is devoted to wverage of breaking news stones. And almost one- quarter of the breaking news wverage focuses on sports, weather, and plane or train crashes. The result is that a total of 19 percent, one-mh, of Channel One news time is spent on recent political, economic, social, and cultural stories other than sports, weather and disasters . . . The most striking result shown is the near-total absence of coverage of the economy in Channel One news?

According to Hqnes, the absence of economic news does not mean that there are not economic messages in Channel One's news programming. In fact, economic messages appear daily in the advertising and are reduced to the general promotion of consumption. Corporate spokespersons are virtually nonexistent: "The corporate message is a central part of each day's newscasts, and, without any substantive economic news to give students the ability to make sense of the economy, the advertising becomes the principal lens through which economic questions are addressed on Channel One news. Indeed, the irnplicit message is that students' relationship to the economy is solely as consumers, well-prepared to purchase the products and lifestyles that Channel One promotes."" Furihemore, Hoynes's study indicated that the most in-depth reporting on Channel One focussed on teen related social issues. Stories that examined teenage drinking, abusive relationships, teen health and others were longer and better researched than international or domestic politid news. A the-part story on school prayer is "emblematic" of the strengths of Channel One's news programming. The report provided in-depth coverage and a multi-sourced view of the religious, legal, and cornrnunity issues involved in the debate over prayer in public schools. "Voices from various sides of these debates-including school officiais, parents, students, and expert cornmentators were al1 featured in this report that explored a complex question without reducing it to a dramatic confli~t."~'The problem with Channel One's coverage of these issues is that it condenses them to stories about individual moral choices. They ignore the broader social questions at stake in a fiill discussion of a complex issue. Reports on teenage pregnancy suggest that teens are responsible for their own poor choices and the resulting consequences. This casts Channel One in the role of a moral educator. Hoynes illustrates this point: Most critics will agree that schools provide more than subject-specifk education; they act, often rather subtly, as moral educators, imparting lessons about appropriate (and inappropriate) attitudes and behavior. This is one of the rasons why local school boards are so ofien the site of controversy, as communities struggle over what such moral lessons should include and how they should be incorporated into the curriculum. Because Channel One is neither accountable to educaton and parents nor wmected to the communities where it beams its news program, there is good reason ta scrutinize the moral lessons that Channel One t eaches."

In his conclusion, Hoynes finds that Channel One presents students with a version of the news that is dramatic and exciting, yet it does not meet educational standards for students: This study of news content suggests that marketing questions are paramount at Channel One. The news is not just constructed to be relevant to teens, as Channel One suggests; it is packaged to be dramatic, exciting, hip, and ftn. In short, the packaging of news to attract and hold the teen audience turns Channel One into a multifaceted promotional vehicle. Channel One serves as a promotional vehicle for itself and for youth culture and style, and provides a fnendly environment for the explicit advertisements that have been the principal source of controversy. This may be the kind of news that sells advertising time, yields a high retum in school T-shirts, and helps to promote a consciousness of Channel One as a youth-oriented brand narne. However, it is dubious whether such dramatic and personalized news meets even minimal standards for materials that teachers or school administrators dehe as 'edu~ation.'~~

In addition to studies determining the impact on student learning, research is being undertaken to determine the financial con Channel One imposes on public sch~ols.~ According Marianne Manilov, the actual cost to for Channel One's services is SI 58,000 per year for the use of the communication systems and programfning hmthe company. She explains: "This means that Channel One costs taxpayers $1.8 billion a year in classroom tirne4300 million just for its two minutes of cornrnercials. The only one who profits is Channel One, wwch gets close to $200,000for uich 30-second commercial it n~ns."~'Ifwe accept Manilov's calculations, the hidden billion-dollar prie tag means that public school taxpayers are subsidizing corporate marketing to students. There have been consequences for teachers who chose the option of teaching their students during the broadcast rather than watching educational television with comrnercials for jeans, burgers, candy and pimple cream. In Woodhaven, a Michigan school district, four veteran science teachers reiùsed to show Channel One during their class time. They did not have time to show the program and ais0 complete their lab work in the 55-minute class period. The teachers' union filed a grievance in support of the teachers which was denied by the board. The four staffmembers resumed showing Channel One when so ordered. It would have been "insubordinate for them not to have done so and insubordination is grounds for dismissal."" Channel One's cntics contend that the broadcast is paying heavily forits new emphasis on style and is contributing Little to educational endeavour. Central here is the issue of a politics of representation, particularly amund issues of who speaks, for whom, and under what conditions. While it is true that teachers and students can mediate the material in a variety of ways, the issues of what students learn is related not only to the content, form and context of the show, but also to what is rnissing tiom such programs. Given the corporate slant that structures thesc programs, one must question the opportunities to view prograrns that are controversial and at odds with the politicized stand of corporate Arnerica. Chomsky repeatedly, and often quite persuasively, drives home a central point: "That in American society the role of the mass media, overwhelrningly controlied by large corporations, is to manufacture the majority's consent for the continuing rule of the rich and the p~werfûl."'~' Chomsky has long argued that what he calls "the agenda-setting media define the parameters of public debate on issues of U.S. domestic and foreign poiicy. Major newspapers and network broadcasts choose which topics are covered, fiame issues in certain ways and ensure that dissenting viewpoints rarely receive space. They determine, they select, they control, they restrict."" Chomsky contends that the national media sets an agenda that serves the ends of the dominant elite. He traces the routes by which "money and power are able to tilter out the news fit to print, marginalize dissent, and allow the govemment and dominant private interests to get their messages across to the public. . . .The raw material of news must pass through successive filters, leaving only the cleansed residue fit to print. They fix the premises of discourse and interpretation, and the definition of what is newsworthy in the first place, and they explain the basis and operations of what amount to propaganda mpaigns."" The epic scale of US global power is created by the electronic media. Chomsky is extremely critical of joumalists who have lost their objectivity and have bought into the system. They vigorously defend it rather than seek the truths fundamental to good journalism and essential to a well-informeci and heaithy democratic body politic. In Manufacturinq Consent, Chomsky clearly demonstrates the bias of the media. Signincantly, control of television by powerhil groups ensures that certain points of view wül not be articulatecl and that the salient aspects of the capitalin system will be endorsed. This point is made clearly by KelIner in his critical account of corporate control of the media: The worst aspects ofthe commercial system ofbroadcasting intensified during the 1980s, when the television networks merged with other corponte conglomerates and thus fell into the hands of blatantly commercial and conservative interests. As a result, the arnount of advertising has increased, commercial pressures for ratings have greatly diminished the number of documentaries and public flair broadcasts, and the arnount of innovative, challenging prograrnming has declined. At present, therefore, commercial imperatives determine the nature, format, and structure of television, and the commercial networks are more obviously serving the interests of the transnational conglomerates that own and control them?

Chomsky concurs with Kellner's Mew. Advertisers work to exclude or marginalize or eliminate dissenting voices or alternative perspectives. Projects unsuitable for corporate sponsorship tend to die an early death and networks have learned to be sympathetic to the most delicate sympathies of corporations. For example, in his book, Necessarv illusions: Thoueht Control in Democratic Societies, Chomsky refers to the London journal, the Economist (December 5,19871,which cites the case of public TV station WNET. WNET lost "its corporate underwrîting fiom Gulf& Western as a result of a documentary called 'Hunger for Profit,' which was about multinationals buying up huge tracts of land in the third world. These actions had not been those of a fnend and the documentary was vimlently anti- business, if not anti-Amencan."" As television becomes global and as national television loses its hegemony, a handfùl of private corporations enjoy unparalieled cultural power. This corporate control ofthe communications system has undermined democracy. Ultimately, then, the struggle for a democratic broadcasting system is a stniggle for democratic society. In light of such manipulation of the media one questions the worth of any news broadcasts let alone Channel One. Triggered by a default in June 1994 on a $100 million bridge loan, Christopher Whittle's media empire headed for a breakup. Insiders say the dernise of Whittle Communication was engineered by Donald Johnstone, who was installecl as president-CE0 in the spnng of 1994. Mr. Johnstone previously was president-CE0 of Philips Consumer Electronics Co. and came in &er parent NV Philips increased its stake in Whittle. By July 1994, Whittle was negotiating the sale of half of Channel One to Goldman, Sachs & Co. Wali Street executives say Ooldman was squeezing Whittle for every last nickel. With his businesses fding and his wmpany facing bankniptcy, Whittle seerned to have Linle choiebut to accept the deal. A few weeks later, K-IIi Communications Corporation stepped in and bought Whittle Communications for a distress-sale price of $259 million. The only profitable division ofhis wrnpany was Channel One. The financial troubles ofWhittle Communications have tended to overshadow the impact he has had on public education. Lincoln Caplan of Newsweek Magazine states: "Born in controversy, it has lived for five years amid Whittle's economic turmoil and the education establishment's fierce objections to ads in the classroorn. But what doesn't kiil broadcasters evidently makes them stronger: Channel One has emerged as a hot property, one that speaks the language-and holds the attention-of a new generation of news con~umers."'~ Under K-III Communications," a multi-national corporation with sales of nearly S 1 billion a year, the strategy they employ will "look less iike courtship and more like saturation b~rnbing."~According to the Wall Street Journal, K-III plans to crarn even more commerciaIs into the hour per week students spend watching Channel One. Since K-III already owns the biggest distributor of high school videos and nIm nrips, dong with school book clubs and school newspapers, the acquisition of Channel One means the conglomerate now controls a large proportion of the media going into US classrooms and is ploughing ahead with an aggressive strategy to profit from moulding young ~ninds.~'On October 30, 1997, K-III Communications changed its name to Primedia, Inc. It placed the assets of its supplementary education group for sale in May 1999. Not included in the sale are Channel One and Workplace Leaming. The education group had total sales of $330 million in 1998. Primedia, Inc? reported that it is selling the group to better target its operations on the consumer and business-to-business market^.^' The interlocks discussed in Chapter One ofthis thesis, can be seen in the connections that Primedia, Inc. has devetoped. Tom Rogers, President of NBC Cable and Executive Vice President, NBC, was appointed this fall(1999) as Chairman and ChiefExecutive Officer of Pnmedia, Inc. This appointment signifies a much deeper new media focus building upon its already existing intemet operations and its strong portfolio of print and video brands. The following biographie sketch of Rogers was released: Mr. Rogers is credited with having been the driving force over the last decade in the reshaping of General Electric's NBC fiom a traditional broadcast Company to a highly diversified and integrated mas media company with major interests in many cable program channels, international television services, as well as multiple internet, digital and interactive businesses. Among his many accomplishments. Rogers founded CNBC, the nation's leading business news channel; established the NBCMcrosoA cable channel and internet joint venture, MSNBC; established a wide number of intemet businesses culminating in the creation of NBC, soon to trade as a public entity, of which he was slated to become Vice-Chairman; and most recently, he put together NBC's new relationship with the Paxson TV network and station group. . . .He was named as one of the 'Net 21 '-the twenty-one most influential people of the internet economy. Among the more than two dozen internet businesses that Rogers has steered NBC into ownership positions with are C-Net, iWlage and Net2Phone."

Apple's conclusions on the wmmercialization and privatization ofour schools are compelling: Schools [are] increasingly incorporated into the market govemed by the 'laws' of supply and demand and by the 'ethic' of capital accumulation, and students themselves become commodities. They too are bought and sold as 'targets of marketing opportunity ' to large corporations. Of course, schools have always been subject to pressure-often intense-by econornically powerfiil groups. At the level of a curriculum, as well, wnglomerate publishers of textbooks have always seen schools and their pupils as sites for the generation of profit. Yet there is an immense qualitative difference between wanting the educational system to do a better job at the 'production of human capital' or at buying textbooks and material for classroom use and the actual sding of students as potential ~onsumers.'~

The transnational media conglomerates have "more influence over what Arnericans see and hear than private firms have ever before possessed."" If their goal is to shape citizens into docile consumers and passive spectators fed on a diet of incessant indoctrination in commercial values, then we must question and reexamine our education and business partnerships much more closely. Youth News Network In Canada, ministries of education and school boards across the counw have been examining the proposed Youth News Network put forth by Athena Educational Partners (AEP), Inc. AEP, Inc-is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Telescene Film Group Inc. According to publicity releases fiom AEP, the Youth News Network will present a daily TV news and current flairs package modelled on Channel One. As provincial govemments reduce education budgets more and more, the offers of corporatelschool partnerships seem impossible to resist. Rod Macdonald, President of AEP, began his pitch for the YNN project to school boards and ministries of education across Canada in early 1992. A prominent critic claims that the purpose of YNN in tems of media education is "to help students understand how the media create a picture in our minds of what the world is and how it works, and influences OUT beliefs and the role that economics play in television joumalism. . . .By becoming active producers and critics of the media, students therefore can becorne more aware of themselves and the ~orld."~'The proclaimed mission ofYNN is "to increase student awareness of Canadian and international current affaU.s and prornote greater access to state- of-the-an information technologies."" The Globe and Mail reported that the goals of YNN were to "make young students become independent, criticai thinken. Using YNN can help to initiate debate between students and teachers, and between peer~."'~By that fall, MacDonald was promising that schools would receive at no cost to the school: televisions, VCR's, a satellite transmission and receiving system, video cameras, and an interactive video system. This "gift" would have an approximate value of $50,000. Like Channel One, YNN would include a 10 minute daily news broadcast and 2.5 minutes of comrnercials and public service announcements. Schools who took the seMce would be obliged to show the program four or five days a week dunng classroom time for five years. Macdonald described the YNN package as "simply the motor that dldrive what will be the largest commercial satellite system across the country, when schools in al1 the provinces are Iinked up. It is recognizing the need to integrate technology and television in the classroom, and we feel we have put enough checks and balances in place to lave the find control to the ed~caîor."~ YNN planned to locate its national headquarters and studio in Halifax, Nova Swtia. Loan negotiations between Halifax City Council and the provincial Department of Economic Developrnent began. It was claimed that more than S lOO million of investment and corporate sponsorship was cornmitted to launch YNN for the 1993/1994 school year. Discussions with investors in YNN included Proctor & Garnble Inc., Electronic Data Systems Corp., Canadian Satellite Communications Ltd., Grenada Canada Ltd. and Unitel Communication Inc. The Canadian critical response can be compared to Americans' concerns with Channel One but the Canadian opposition was stronger and better organized. A vigorous campaign against YNN was led by the Nova Scotia Home and School Association and the Association for Media Literacy of Nova Scotia. an a££iIiate of a national organization set up to oppose YNN. Pat Kipping, a strong opponent to YNN and the Halifax representative of the Association for Media Literacy, saw the service as "the thin edge of the wedge in the corporate privatization of education. It turns students into a captive audience of potential consumers, and it's not at al1 char who or how the advertisements will be rnonit~red."~~Anne White, president of the Nova Scotia Federation of Home and School Associations, said the provincial parents' organization opposed YNN for several rasons: "It will be a loss of 12 minutes of cumculum time; it 's not clear how the content of the news will be deterrnined and why it should be very different fiom other Canadian newscasts . . . And if students really aren't aected by advertising, why do major corporations spend millions of dollars on advertising in order to reach them?"" Barry Duncan, one ofthe founders of The Association for Media Literacy, concurred: "The corporate supporters must howthat their commercials are going to be &Eective. It wouldn't be worth their time or money othenvise. Today, there is serious debate about whether we are educating young people to be prharily consumen or citizens. As the corporate sector continues to make inroads on public space and expression, the notion of rnaintaining a critical democracy is eroding."" Nova Scotia's Assistant Deputy Minister Carola Lane advised the Minister that the province's Education Ministry "does not endorse the insertion of commercial advertising in the school curriculum, nor does it endorse the compulsory viewing by students of advertising as intended by YNN . . . School boards should be aware that permitting this advertising may be a precedent for other requests of a sirnilar nature."" The classroom provides an influentid environment to corporations to market to fbture consumers and the search for new marketing strategies will continue. Erika Shaker illustrates the advertising phenomena: Not content with print or electronic media, biliboards, clothing and public transportation, marketers are turning to new and imaginative means of reaching their target audience. Zoom Advertising and New Ad have made names for themselves by putting ads on the backs ofwashroom staii doors and above urinais 'for the tmly captive audience.' Billboards can be launched into the atmosphere to reflect the corporate logos beamed ont0 hem fiom earth, rivailing the moon. Space shuttles will cany corporate messages into sprce. Cows in the British wuntryside will sport ads for the benefit of passing automobiles. Children' s television programs are entirely built around marketing concepts. . . .Edible dyes are king formulated to apply corponte logos onto eggshells and ice cream cones. The quest for innovative ad surfaces is never-ending and ever-more intrusive. It was inevitable that attention would eventually be tumed to the school."

Duncan questioned the feasibility of the goals of YNN, arguing that only a few teachers will become media literate on the basis of a daily news program and offenng the opinion t hat YNN lacks the will andlor resources to train teachers in media literacy skills. The Association of Media Literacy predicted that during in-senice training sessions, "facüitaton would be reluctant to encourage important ideological and commercial cntics of rnainstream television and media culture."60 Without extensive training, teaching of media contexts and discourse analysis, many of the cornplexities of media analysis will escape the Mewen of YNN. Duncan concluded: "Media Literacy often involves the deconstruction of commercial messages, a criticd examination of the ideological underpinnings of the commercial, and a decoding of fdse information and spunous emotional daims . . . .YNNis nothing but hollow rhetoric, an attempt to dress up the product and to legitimize intellectually a fundamentaliy commercial enterprise.'"jl As a result of the opposition fiom parents, educators and citizens fiom across the province and Canada, the YNN proposal was rejected by most of the school boards in Nova Scotia. The loans were refiised and local and provincial governments withdrew their suppori. In 1992, the roadblocks encountered in Nova Scotia prevented Rod * MacDonald from meeting his objective of establishing a national school news nehvork, but as we will see, he is tenacious. In January 1996, YNN began a new plan to test its program in four school boards, one in Alberta, two in Ontario and one in Quebec. IBM had been approached by MacDonald and had agreed to supply multi-media work stations. The approximate wst of 'fiee' technology for each school committing to a partnership with YNN was now more than double that promised in the early negotiations in 1992/93. YNN was now prepared to invest more than S 100,000 per school. Lesley KNeger, reporting in The Globe and Mail's Fifth Column, "Schools Don't Need Partners Like YNN," quoted MacDonald as saying, "the Ontario government has paid 50 per cent of the cost of multi-media equipment that wül be installed in its three test schools, a sum slightly in excess of $100,000 which amounts to about 25% of the cost of the entire pilot program in ~ntario."~~This was never canfirmed. By late February 1996, YNN's second major attenpt to pilot its network was aborted. The Canadian Teachers' Federation, the Ontario Teachers's Federation, the Ontario Conference of Catholic Bishops and many other groups and individuals continued to oppose YNN's effort to enter our public schools. Thus, YNN has found that its dever proposal to ministries of education and school boards was not as well received as it had hoped*Barlow and Robertson assert: "The backwardness of canadians in this regard must have corne as a surprise to YNN's backers, who no doubt believed their enterprise would be as successfùl as Channel One, the U. S. original fiom which it was cloned. . . .However, educating students was never the point, so if YNN is before its time, what patience won? remedy, 'restmcturing' may.'" Perhaps the time is now! In 1998, MacDonald was back again with a national marketing campaign aimed at 2,300 Canadian high schools (under AEP, Inc.). This time, he had the support ofthe Federal Government and some Provincial Governrnents as well. The new partner on the block was SchooiNet." Donald Gutstein describes YNN's new approach: YNN's new approach was al1 about hardware, software, education content, and backbone infiastructure. MacDonald could rest assured that he had all the bumords correct: he retained the services of Hill & Knowlton Canada, one of Ottawa's most powerfùl PR and lobbying operations. Hill & Knowlton consultant Jeff Smith, who came to the firm fiorn the office of Liberal Cabinet minister Sheila Copps, was the registered lobbyist for Microsofl Canada in all its information highway activities. MacDonald has chosen wisely: Hill & Knowlton know exactly what moves Industry Canada. He launched his marketing campaign on February 8, 1999. The news release was on the SchoolNet Web site the next day, with a link to the YNN site. MacDonald hopes to have a million pain of eyes watching his ads by June 2002. With SchooiNet's help, he might just do it."

Other partners in AEP, Inc. include BKM Research and Development Inc., Canadian Satellite Communications (Cancom), Gage Educational Publishing Company, Star Choice Television, Telescene Film Group and others to be narned soon." AEP, Inc. proposes to meet the capital costs of the project through third party sponsorship and advertising revenues. Its plan is to link Canada7s high schools through integrated networking systems, thereby creating a national distance education network. Participating high schools uiil receive the following neîwodr infrastructure: 1. A closed-circuit audio/visual network linking classrooms to a satellite anaor terrestrial receiving unit.

2. The backbone infiastructure or 'wiring' to enable transmission of audio, video and data information.

3. Educational programfnjng relevant to the cuniculum, selected with the guidance ofan Educatiod Advisos. Council and oniy shown at the discretion of each school.

4. A daily news and current affairs program, specially created to be of interest to Canadian teenage high school students.

5. Independent distance leamhg centres (IDL Centres) instafled in most participating high schools, which dlconsist of a number of multi-media computer workstations based on the school population. The IDL Centres will be able to be used as computer laboratories by students and faculty and by the Company for adult education and training requirements, in off-school hours, on a shared revenue basis with sch~ols.~

AEP, Inc. is presently negotiating agreements for satellite and terrestrial links to facilitate access to video servers and the Intemet. This would provide opportunities for growth in areas of video conferencing and web-tv. With the utilization of high-speed broadband communication links, interactive communication connections would be possible. The program seMces offered by the new and improved YNN include a News Channel, Classroorn Channel, Educators' Channel, Special Events Prograrnming and a variety of other senices detennined and paid for by panicipating ministries of education and school boards. The News Channel will be specifically designed for high school students, giving them a "greater awareness ofthe political, economic, scie.ntificand environmental events in their region, their country, and the ~orld."~'YNN aims to encourage students to produce approximately 100h of the progamming with the benefit of supervision by YNN qualincd media S* crew, remers and producers where requested. Students participating in the production ofthe news have the opportunity to leam and may have their own produa show nationally to their peers. High standards ofquality broadcasts will be ensured by the Telescene Film Group inc., an award winning Canadian television production and distribution company. AEP, Inc. wiU produce and acquire education programming to supplement the school cuniculum at little or no cost to the school. The advertising revenues will subsidize this programming. Live intemationai events can be broadcast direct by satellites to ail participating schools. Teacher developmemt courses can also be transmitted to participating schools. The Educators' Channel will provide teachers with programs on teaching techniques, classroom strategies and updates on current trends and research findings in education. Schools will receive a monthly guide previewing weekly themes, features and programs planned for broadcast. ïhis programming will be provided to educators in the high schools at little or no cost and subsidized by advextising revenue fiom the News Channel.w Educational authorities and concerned teachers have discussed the need for training in media literacy skills with AEP, Inc., but no details on how to accomplish this objective have materialized. I use the media in an instructional setting with students and find good prograrnming does provide the context for serious classroom discussions. 1 believe that it is important to provide Our students with critical viewing skills in a communications media age. 1 find it takes me considerable time to prepare adequate lessons and provide support materials to create an effective leaniing/teaching environment for each television program that 1 use. Not al1 teachers have my interest or training in media literacy and therefore a strategy on the process or method by which ail teachers would be able to impart these skills requires development. At this time, YNN and the Mnistry of Education and Training lack the resources to train participating teachers in the skills that would enable students ta evaluate critically mainstrearn media culture and advertising. Furthemore, it is unlikely that this training will be available to al1 teachers or that they will have the opportunity to digest the day ' s offering of news and advertising wit h their students. Pre-seMce and practising teachers need education in the deconstruction of media and their impact, and, thus fa,this component of their cumculum has been uneven at best, and often non-existent. AEP, Inc. intends to provide commercial training for govemmental, industriai and other organizations by offering its network for distance leaming and training purposes. The agreements that the schoovboardlministry/~~untrywould enter would allow access to the DLCentres during non-school hours on a revenue sharing basis. Al1 sponsored programming that airs on YNN will be subject to review and approval by an independent self-governing body of educators and parents, the Educationd Advisory Council (EAC). The EAC is chaired by Scott Conrod, former Director-General of the Laurenval School Commission in Quebec. According to AEP,Inc. programming including professional development programming for teachers will be directed by policy established by the EAC. The EAC will review programming with stricter guidelines than those of the Canadian Code of Advertising. Conrod States: "It is important for our young people to harness an awareness of current events and technology skills in this knowledge-based society. At the same tirne we have to be responsive to legitimate community concenis about advertising in ~chools."~~Yet the advertisements wit h which students will be presented are predicated on having a captive audience, and "by virtue ofbeing show in school, they appear to have the implicit endorsement of both the school system and the classroom teacher."" Ody time wiil tell how the ads are perceived and what impact they dlhave? As this is being written, two schools in the Calgary Board of Education have signed up for YNN. The Quebec govenunent initiaily "pulled the plug" on YNN throughout the province; the Minister of Education, François Legault, nixed the contracts YiW had with Quebec's schools on the basis that the partnership would be contrary to Article 94 of the Education Act. Legault said the arrangement would constitute "without a shadow of a doubt commercial solicitation that is contrary to the mission of the scho01."~When YNN proposeci using federaily-sponsored public seMce announcements and optional viewing, the Quebec government reconsidered and three schools in the Lester B. Pearson Board decided to go ahead. YNN also hit a roadblock in Manitoba. A newly elected provincial govemment promised to oppose YNN as part of their election platform, but eight schools had already signed contracts and will go ahead. The Deputy Minister of Education has instructed the schools to get out of their contracts at the first legal opportunity." Schools in Saskatchewan and one school in Newfoundland have also signed up. In Ontario, the Peel District School Board trustees have approved a six-month contract to pilot YNN's equipment and program content at Meadowvde Secondary School. The stakes have been raised. AEP, Inc. has installed $200,000 worth of equipment, including a state-of-the-art mutti-media cornputer lab with 25 workstations." Meadowvale Secondary School has been set up as the test site for various applications on the network. At a meeting of parents, teachers and students in Mississauga, Robertson commented: "Somehow, when technology is involved, we're prepared to set aside Our values. We don? care if Barbie is teaching our girls how to do theu nails, as long as it 's on interactive CD-ROM."76To deflate the concerns expressed by critics, the contract the board has signed with YNN includes the following measures to ensure that the best interests of the students are met: School control of the broadcasts-A staff cornmittee at Meadowvale will review each program and decide whether it wili be shown that day. The school will also have representation on a National Educational Advisory Council of educators, parents and students who will provide on-going counsd and advice regarding programming.

Student viewing-There is no requirement for compulsory student viewing. Students can be exempted fiom viewing the programs and be given an alternate venue to work on other school work for the duration of the 12.5 minute program.

Instructional day-The advertisement ( 2.5 minute) portion of the program will not be counted as part of the five-hour instructional &y.

Teacher viewing-No teacher will be required to incorporate the YNN news program into hidher instmctional day?

Supporters of YNN claim that teachers can use the programs to analyze the dynamics of advereising and to discuss issues. However, one must keep in mind powerfbl corporate interests will have total access to teachers and students evety day of the school year for 12.5 minutes of unintempted time to emphasize a specific and particular view of the world. If YNN is to be an effective educational tool, then critical evaluation of each program should take place. Furthemore, the measures outlined in the Peel agreement do not include a time in the instructional day for discussion. Analysis takes time. An in-depth analysis of the content of news programs and advertising needs a teacher with an extensive understanding of media and a coherent program aimed at discerning the arts of persuasion. Are there "measures" to ensure that these goals are met? Jim Cumins and Dennis Sayers observe that if our schools "abdicate the cultivation of critical literacy, the next generation will be even more subject than ours to manipulation by those who control the media (and rnany other resources in Our society). The more consent can be manufactured through media persuasion and omission of divergent perspective, the more democracy merges into totalitarianism."" Across Canada, various groups have reanirmed their opposition to YNN. They hold to their view that it is a crass commercial venture that exploits impressionable young people. A widespread cornmitment has developed in an attempt tc keep YNN out of Canadian schools. People Against Commercial Television in Schools (PACTS) claims that more than 1 100 Peel secondary school teachers have signeâ a petition rejecting YNN in their schools, but this could not be confirmeci, and the broadcasts are going ahead. The opposition to the YNN initiative has been dismisseci by the Peel Board of Education as "a small gr~u~."'~ Although student viewing is not compulsory, another critic ctaims that YNN has "built into the contract and into its Ws, a two-way watchdog that knows everything, nght down to whether anyone (like the teacher) tums down the volume. The [principal] then has to £iilout a 'Please excuse me for not watching . . . form', with rea~ons."~This again could not be confirrned. Critics continue to claim, without evidence, that YNN wili be about control: "It denies classroom teachers control over decisions on how best to use instructional time. It caretùlly monitors every television in each classroom and leaves teachers with virtually no choices over its daily presence."" Ironically, even before YNN broadcasts begin, there is one student who wishes it was about more control! Stephanie Lake, a Grade 12 Meadowvale Secondary School student, writes: "The television stations are supposed to be monitored and used for educational viewing only. During lunches they don't seem to be monitored enough. Students crowd into the fiont foyer of Meadowvale S. S. to watch music videos and talk shows. It's disgusting walking into my school derlunch and seeing the front foyer filled with teenage zombies in a daze staring at videos. Personally, 1do not find half- naked females parading themselves around in provocative clothing and throwing themselves at gangsters educational. What kind of a message is being sent?"* AEP, Inc. has provided the TV network, but the school should supervise how resources are used. The partnership YNN offers schools is in question. The advanced technology that is to be provided to schools is to be paid for by cornmcrcial sponsorships and other "partnerships." The amount of cost-swing by taxpayers is however in dispute. This kind of business-education partnership is endorsed by such orgktions as the Conference Board of Canada and the Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC). ITAC is a high- tech lobby led by AT&T, Beli, IBM, and Northern Telecom who are also profit minded. It sees investment in education as an investment in the friture ofbusiness. This shared fûture wiU be realized "through a restnicturing ofthe classroom curriculum to pedtthe fU integration of information technology in the delivery of education."* In 1994, ITAC stressed the importance of partnerships in education fiom a social and democratic context: "Worbing together al1 governments, educators, businesses and society must develop a new approach to education. The separation of schools fiom society, (family, work and wmmunity) combines to undermine the bea efforts of enlightened leader^."^ The National Alliance of Business argues that the "job" of schook is "to teach what students need for employrnent in today's global marketplace, but there is currently a gap between slds taught amd skills required by the corporate se~tor."~ITAC concun: "The vast majority of the Young people who pass through Canadian schools are uitimately destined for the labour market. There are, however, growing concems that Our children are not leamhg the skills and acquiring the knowledge they will need in tomorrow's global economy. Employers are womed about finding quaiified ~orkers."'~Corporate partnerships in education such as YNN, with its technologicd components, are regarded as highly innovative by those endorsing our students' placement in the global economy. Gerry Smith, principal of River Oaks Public School in the afauent cornmunity of Oakville, Ontario, spoke to the role of education in the new global economy: The ultirnate role of education is to help students leam the skills necessary to play a productive role not ody in the workplace but also in the community. . . .Glance through the classified ads and you will realize the number ofjobs that require knowledge of computers. We as educators have the responsibility to prepare students for their fiiture and help them leam the skills necessary to be productive members of Our society."

Smith "provides a succinct encapsulation of haUyevexy rationaie behind restruehiring education dong business lines, and incorporating more technology into the classroom. The purpose of school is to train future workers. Society needs computer operators-just check the classifieds. Preparing students for the future means giving them job skills. Productive citizens are determined by their pay stub. What business wants, business gets, and if these demands are not met, schools and educators are not fulfilling their roles in s~ci~."~~On the other hand, Saul sees this approach to education as illusory: "Concentration on technology-computers for exampltwill simply produce obsolete graduates. The problem is not to teach skjlls in a galloping technology, but to teach students to think and to give them the tools ofthought so that they can react to the myriad changes, including technological, chat will inevitably face them over the next decades."" 1 agree and this is the critical argument. Millions of dollars paid out by advertisers each year to provide a television news broadcast will not necessarily improve education. What is needed to irnprove student leamhg is not YNN, but rather small classes, better-qualified teachers and the cooperation and support of parents and the community. I would welcome corporate dollars and the suppon of the business cornmunity in schools but only as reul partners in the education of young people. Schools are the appropriate venue for neutrality and objectivity, the place to teach students how to analyze and understand the techniques and patterns of persuasion wmrnon to aii persuaders- Canadian Teachers' Federation (CTF) President, Jan Eastman, has called on provincial and territorial ministers of education to stem the growing tide of school commercialism through such initiatives as YNN. According to Eastman, the curriculum of our students WU be taken out of the wntrol of local educators, school boards and parents, and put into the hands of corporate marketers: "YNN represents an insidious and aggressive takeover of instructional time and cumcula content with students as a captive audience. . . So-called 'partnerships' between education and the private sector are part of a growing trend of business involvement in schools and, more generally, the increasing influence of market principles on education. Unfortunately, business involvement in schools is being fûelled by a nurnber of factors including education under fbnding which is driving rnany schools and school boards to seek desperately needed money and materials fkom private bus in es^."^^ Those opposed to YNN in the classroom believe that advertising to students promotes consumerism and that the commercials may be pushing products and life choices that go against the aims of the curriculum. The Canadian Association of Media Education Organizations (CAMEO)~' opposes both the material and the principle behind its dissemination. John Pungente, its president, States: The objections to operations such as Channel One and YNN seem obvious. Tt is not ethical to force students to watch cornrnercials on TV in their classrooms. . . .We have no knowledge of the beliefs, values, politics, and commercial interests of the people at YNN.No commercial interest should have the right to present its exclusive spin on the news, with money-making comrnercials, to a captive audience of students. . . . The issue is not fiee equipment, no matter how cash-strapped schools may be in this tirne of auaerity and cutbacks. Nor is it an issue of sellng out to big business. It is an issue of choice. Never before have Canadian schools allowed commercial interest to decide what is to be done with lesson tirne, or what the content of a class will be, or the slant, or the text?

A less direct effbct of corporate advertising concem the news and ment events content. There is the question of the degree to which program content might be infiuenced by the advertisers or sponsors. Commercial networks try not to offend advertisers by ensuring that the news content does not clash with the advertisers' messages. Why would YNN's programming be different? We hope that the information sources for the broadcasts will be easily accessible so that interested parties can assess whose interests are king served, whose values, viewpoints and political orientations are being promoted. Lorimer and McNulty argue: "To avoid offending advertisers, media enterprises must tailor their program content to fit with the advertisements. The mythology of the mass media suggests that the two types of material-content and ads-are managed quite separately and that journalists or program producers are insulated from advertiser influence. In reality, it does not work that way."" Furthemore, powerful corporations that control the system of mass communication ensure "that certain issues will not be adequately covered and that certain points of view will not be articulated."" One can only hope that the news media will wend their way among the various discourses at their disposal and attempt to offer a balance between those with vested interests and their critics. Schools have available to them a variety of educational programming that is both copyright cleared and commercial-free at no cost. Cable in the Classroom (CITC) was launched by Prime Mnister Jean Chrétien to provide television programs for use by teachers in their classrooms. Many programniing seMces provide tesson plans for teachers to select and then tape to enhance their cumculum. Cable in the Classroom magazines are mailed to ail publicly fùnded schools across Canada. Individual teachers may also receive their own copy at no cost by subscription. Additional support materiais are made available in print form and on the Internet. CITC makes an extensive selection of news, current-&airs, science and other programs available. Approximately twenty-five special ty channels are offered, including CBC Newsworld, TVOntario, YTV, Discovery Channel, A&E, TLC, TV5 and RDI. The cable companies pay for the cost of one cable hook-up and provide fiee service. Alas, just as in the United States, schools in Canada increasingly cannot afford the television sets and interna1 networks that would allow them to exploit this resource and sa some tum to AEP, Inc. AEP, 1nc.also daims that it meets the needs of midents and schools by providing fke technoiogy and programrning. Yet, Chris Worsnop has calculated what he claims as "the actual cost" of YNN's ''fiee" gift. He uses the tirne required to watch the program under the conditions of the YNN contract and the money spent by taxpayers to nuid the instructional day. According to Worsnop, YNN is asking the Ontario taxpayer for tirne worth almost $322 million for 300 schools dunng a five year period; in retum they receive "some pieces of 'fiee' electronic hard~are."~'Worsnop's clever use of mathematics and dollar values puts an interesting spin ofthe actual cost of YNN. If the schoof instructional day is not used, then the figures are irrelevant. Furthemore, the technology resources that are offered to schools are considered by many to be enormous. Barlow prophesizes that the current debate surrounding YNN will "seem a mere skirmish when its Amencan cornpetitors expand into Canada. NAFTA and GATT have established an international framework to protect the private investments of telecommunications firms, while opening public systems to pnvatization."% The corporate rights contained in NAFTA and GATT have potentially wide implications for education. She continues: "When the deregulated infiormat ion highway becomes a reality, dominated by transnational phone, cable and retail giants, and when non-Canadian companies are guaranteed national treatment in Canada, there will be no way to prevent the mass marketing of Amencan for-profit 'educational services' once the precedent has been set by YNN.''97 Caivert and Kuehn concur: "YNN is currently viewed as a Canadian operation. But it could easily be bought out by a U.S.media corporation intent on showing U.S.-produced materid which it is already prod~cing."~~While much of this rnay as yet be only conjecture, Canadians need to be alert to the possibilities of any fiirther erosion of theù culture, content and cumculum. In conclusion, the debate conceniing the ethics of corporate news and commercials in the classroom is certain to continue. With a projected eight million student viewers in the United States alone, Channel One and YNN raise issues that should and certainfy will be studied in greater detail. It is already clear that high school students are affected by commercials and that commercial sponsors in tum influence news content. The pater our understanding is of the impact of media news and advertising on the value systems of young people, the greater is the possibility that we wili discover how to deal with cornmercials and mass media messages in everyday life outside the classroom. Channel One and YNN, Pfter dl, take 12.5 minutes per day and their potential to influence students can only be assessed within the wider context of young people's televison-viewing in general. The irnpticit endorsement that cornes with their physical presence with schools may, however, become the crucial difference. It is reaily a matter of studying the way media manipulates, evades and packages the news. The solution to reforming education is not going to be found by injecting comrnercials into the school cumcula or turning schools into sites for capital accumulation. Commercial television in the cjwroom amounts to "a slick MIV advenisement for eievating greed to the status of pedagogical virtue."" A sound education for Our children warrants more than appeals to glitzy technology and the commerciaiization of aimaila. It requires an impartial public discourse to make an ethical, financial and political investment in creating schools that educate dl students to govem rather than be governed. At present, there is senous debate as to whether we are educating young people to be primarily consumers or citizens. As the corporate sector continues to make inroads on public space and expression, the objective of maintainhg a critical democracy is being eroded. Educators have a responsibility to examine critically the current emphasis on consumerism. Corporations have discovered students offer business the lucrative market that they desire to capture. In this scenario schools would produce workers who could and would dlingly perform the specialized tasks required by an economy facing increased cornpetition fiom abroad. The goal is "to produce cornpliant consumers for capitali~m."'~This narrow framework which Thomas Merton once called "the mass production of pe~ple,"'~'drives us to compete and consume so that, as Miller argues, we are "no longer able to feel or sense the world around us."'02 Miller continues: "Fear and greed infiltrate into every corner of society so that the school system is not a place for people to gain wisdom and compassion and to lem how to live with joy, but a place where students leam to grimly compete so that they can eventually compete in a global society."'" Corporate money has been pounng into public schools as boards of education wheel and deal with YNN, Pepsi and the long line-up of other corporations wanting to become involved in the "Education Industry." The money may be accompanied by perceptions about how schools should be organized, what should be taught, how teachers should teach and how students should learn. The power to choose and mandate what our students wili view is altogether too signincant to be left to the judgement of corporate America, actuated only by the desire to increase profit margins. We should offer a bdanced and inclusive hework within which educators may work. The public welfàre, not just that of certain individuals' , is served when young people are nurtured intellectually, emotionally, socially, physically, creatively, aesthetically and spiritually. Our system ofuniversal education cumently suffers fiom the fdlout of an ideological orthodoxy, the belief that it is more important to be a consumer than a citizen. Living in liberty with wisdom and compassion is no small task, but it is important work for our educators and schools. YNN and Channel One are buiit on the assumption that 12.5 minutes per day of advertising and news is an essential component of the cumculum which will make our students not only wiser and better informeci but more able to finction for persona1 survival and profit in the global marketplace. This assumption, as aif assumptions in education, should be questioned. "Watching the news" amounts to nothing more than observing in Northrop Frye's phrase "a dissolving phantasmagoria. . .where we have constantly to focus on an irnmediate crisis, where a long-term memory is almost a handicap."'@' Give human Life the small measure of dignity it possesse~-commitment and continuity. Where does "liberai" education fit in this educational scheme of things? Will they use the revolution of high technology or will they be used, and used up, by it? These are fùndamental and critical questions-ones that the classroom tacher-if still fiee to use herhs own powers of intellect and questioning will be able to discuss with her/his classes-classes made up of students whose birthright it is in anything approaching a fiee society-to question, to criticize, to embrace or to reject. Frye also speaks of the unbreakable social contract: When 1 Say that education is the study of society in its stable and permanent form, 1 do not, naturally, mean an unchanging fonn. 1 mean that genuUK society preserves the continuity of the dead, the üvhg and the unborn, the memory of the pst, the reality of the present, and the anticipation of the fbture which is the one unbreakable social contract. Continuity and consistency are the only sources of human dignity.loS Endnotes to Chapter Tbree 1. Maude Barlow and Heather-jane Robertson, Class Warfare: The Assault on Canada's Schools, (Toronto, On. : Key Porter Books Limited, 1994.) 159.

2. Research suggests that socioeconornic factors may influence schooI districts to subscribe to Channel One. "A study of 17,344 public schools found those with the greatest concentration of low inwme students were more than twice as likely as the schools with the wealthiest students (37.7% vs. 16.6%) to have Channel One. The data also show a strong relationship between the proportions of Afncan-American students in a school and the likelihood that the school has Channel One. The most glaring discrepancies revolve around clusters of attributes reflecting class, incorne and race. Channel One schools do not represent a typical cross section of American schools. They differ in consistent, systematic and troubling ways fiom other schools." Janice Barrett, "Participants Provide Mixed Reports About Leaming fiom Channel One," Joumalism & Mass Communication Educator Columbia, Summer 1998, 56.

3. Ninety-nine percent of schools that carry Channel One Network choose to renew at the end of their three-year contract. "Primedia to Seli Supp.Edn. Group," Publishers Weeklv 3 May 1999, 1.

4. David Banks and Bruce Ledford, "Channel One: To See or Not to See," International Journal of Instructional Media 1994, 97.

5. Banks and Ledford 99.

6. Paul Folkemer, "Channel One's Impact," Educational leaders hi^ Feb. 1999, 1.

7. Matthew Bean, "Channel One Defended," National Education Association Today Oct. 1998, 3 .

8. Michael Apple, cited in Jim Cummins & Dennis Sayers, Brave New Schools (Toronto, On.: OISE Press, 1995) 174.

9. Christine Bachen, "Channel One and the Education of Arnerican Youths," Annals of the American Academv of Political and Social Science May 1998, 26.

10. Hugh Rank, "Advertising in Educational Media: Channel One," Educational Leadershiv Dec./Jan. 1994, 54.

1 1. Michael W. Apple, Officia1 Knowledee: Democratic Education in a Conservative A=- (New York: Routledge, 1993) 1 17.

12. Rank 53.

13. Len Masteman, cited in Barry Duncan, "YNN:The Youth News Networlq" MAq Winter, 1992, 10. 14. Stuart Hall, cited in Lynn Spigel and Denise Mann, ed., Pnvate Screenings: Television and the Female Consumer (: University of Press, 1992) 99.

15. Even the world's system of food supply is dominateci by a few corporately owned product-lines. Of seventy-five types of vegetable available at the beglluiing of the twentieth centuy, about 97 per cent of the varieties of each type are now extinct. At the same time thousands of local varieties of rice, wheat, and maize-dong with the potato, the basis of 50 per cent of humanity's total calorific intake-have bezn elhinateci. John McMurtry, Uneaual Freedoms: The Global Marketplace as an Ethical S~stem(Toronto, On.: Garamond Press, 1998) 152.

16. Benjamin Barber, "Jihad Vs. McWorId," Atlantic March 1992, 8.

17. W. Key, cited in Banks and Ledford, 99.

18. John Ralston Saul, The Unconscious Civilization (Concord, On.: House of Anansi Press Limited, 1995) 63.

19. Tim Wulfemeyer and Barbara Mueller, "Channel One and Cornrnercials in Classrooms: Advert king Content Aimed At Students," Joumalism Ouarterly Fa11 1992, 730.

20. Paul Spinrad, "Meme Warfare," Adbusters Winter 1995, 42.

2 1. McMurtry 170.

22. McMurtry 17 1.

23. Apple 1 16.

24. Ben Bagdikian, Media Monooolies (Boston: Beacon Press, 1997) xxi.

25. John P. Miller, The Holistic Curriculum (Toronto, On.: OISE Press, Inc., 1996) 2.

26. Richard Zoglin, "The Battle Over Classroom TV," Time 19 March 1990, 59.

27. Thomas Moore, "The Blooding of Chris Whittle," US News and World Re~ort6 Nov. 1989, 43.

28. Mark Fitzgerald, "Classroom TV Has Negligible Effect," Editor & Publisher 16 May 1992, 20.

29. William Hoynes, "News for a Teen Market: The Lessons of Channel One," Journal of Curriculum and Supervision Summer 1998.341.

30. Hoynes 344.

3 1. Hoynes 345.

32. Hoynes. 346. 33. Hoynes 347.

34. The school district of Manhattan, Kansas, rejected Channel One overtures of communications equipment &er it was detennined that the annuai lost theof classroom instruction would cost taxpayers nearly S4W7000.Theu calculations indicate that Channel One is subsidized by the taxpayer. C. Stone Brown, "Free TVs Bring Commercials to the Classroom," The New Cnsis December 1998, 33.

3 5. "No Class Comrnercials," National Education Association Today September 1998, 16.

36. Dudley Barlow, "Conversations in the Teachers' Lounge: Sands Wouldn't Do It," Education Digest May 1992, 32.

3 7. Noarn Chomsky, cited in Victor Dwyer, "Against the Grain: Nom Chomsky Condernns Washington's Ways," Maclean's 22 March 1993, 48.

3 8. Chomsky, cited in Dwyer, 48.

39. Edward S. Herman and Noarn Chomsky, Manufacturinn Consent: The Political Economv of the Mass Media (New York: Pantheon, 1988) 2.

40. Douglas Kellner, Television and the Crisis of Democracy (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, Inc., 1990) 18 1.

4 1. Noam Chomsky, 1 (Boston: South End Press, 1989) 8.

42. Lincoln Caplan, "For Kids, Not Kids' Stuq Channel One Comes of Age," Newsweek 27 Oct. 1994, 90.

43. K-III use their power to shape information and inculcate their value system into Iiterature for very young school children: "The Weeklv Reader goes to miifions of Amencan children fiom kindergarten to grade six. In 1966, the Reader carrieci an article on "smokers' rights" - an odd advocacy in a magazine for children aged five to eleven. At the same time, the owner of the magazine was K-III Communications, controlled by Kohlberg, Kravis Roberts, holder of a large financial interest in RJR Nabisco, the second- largest maker of cigarettes." Bagdikian xix.

44. Caplan 90.

45. Margaret Spillane, "'Unplug It!" Nation 21 Nov. 1994, 600.

46. Primedia, Inc. publishes the largest nurnber of magazine ad pages of any media company in the country, and has a total circulation across aU its businesses of 70.3 million. It has begun an aggressive effort to expand into intemet and E-commerce. The company presently operates over 200 intemet sites tied to its many pubbcations and other international businesses including Seventeen.com and Channe1One.com. Both web sites focus on the exploding web market aimed at teenage users. "Primedia's existing media properties are a consistentiy performing, powefil coUection of assets that address a substantial number of highly targeted consumer interests and business nds, that are vey welf suited for creating signrficant internet value and acceierated growth," Rogers said. "1 am very excited about being able to apply my background as a GE-trained executive to the opportunity at Primedia to do what 1 do best-update a company's straîegic focus by creating new media businesses out of a traditionai media base." Tom Rogers was Senior Counsel to the House of Representatives Subcornmittee on TelecommWljcations, where, among other things, he was instrumental in writing the Cable Act of 1984, which helped reshape the fable industry. "Primedia Names Tom Rogers Chsimirui and Chkf Executive Officer," [Online] htt~://www.k-iii.comihtml2/news/99 09 27.htd 27 Sept. 1999.

47. "Primedia to Sel1 Supp-Edn Group," 12.

48. "Primedia Narnes Tom Rogers Chaiman and Chief Executive Oflicer," 27 Sept. 1999.

49. Apple 101.

50. Bagdikian x.

5 1. Duncan 6.

52. "YNN Press Release," htt~://~~.elan.on.ca/~weleaseehtm18Feb. 1999.

53. Duncan 6.

54. Rod Macdonald, cited in Stephen Godfiey, "Ads In Classroom Caux Furor," Globe and Mail 24 Dec. 1992.

55. Godfiey, "Ads In Classroom Cause Furor."

56. Carola Lane, cited in Godfiey, "Ads In Classroom Cause Furor."

57. Duncan 5.

58. Godfiey, "Ads In Classroom Cause Furor."

59. Erika Shaker, Education. Limited: Monitoring Cornorate Intrusion in Canadian Public Education (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 1998) 4.

60. Barry Duncan, "TV Cnc. In The Classroom," Forum Fa11 1992,20.

6 1. Duncan, "YNN: The Youth News Network," 6.

62. Lesley Krueger, "Schools Don't Need Partners Like YNN," The Globe and Mail 15 Jan. 1996.

63. Barlow and Robertson 159. 64. SchooiNet, under the guise of providing access to students, was really about "developing markets for the so-called learning and training industry." and "In the new phase, which extends broadband comectivity to 250,000 classroorns, SchooiNet acts like a broker, which ailows information and technology companies-the leamware -or, Doug Hull calls it-to market their produas and seMces at ait-rate prices directly on-lhe to budget-conscious schools. The new SchooINet Web site intermingles onerings from educational institutions and wmmercial vendors without iden-g th& ongins." Donald Gutsîein, e-con:How the Intemet Undermines Democracy (Toronto, On.: Stoddard Publishing Co. Limited, 1999) 2 15.

65. Gutstein 218.

66. Athena Educational Partners (AEP) Inc. "Athena Offers Canadian High Schools Free Access to Youth-Oriented Information Programming and Technology Infiastructure," [Online] http:l!www.vnn. ca/~res'920899.htm 8 Feb. 1999.

67. At hena Educational Partners (AEP)Inc. "Canadian High School Network," [Onlinel htt~://www.ynn.ca/com~anv*o. htm, Oct. 1999.

68. Athena Educational Partners (AEP)Inc. "Canadian High School Network."

69. Athena Educational Partners (AEP) Inc. "Canadian High School Network."

70. Athena Educational Partners (AEP)Inc. "Athena Offers Canadian High Schools Free Access."

7 2. Media Awareness Network, "The Youth News Network," [Online] htt~://www. media-awartness. ca/&rndcl6 h Oct. 1999.

72. AEP, Inc. has contractecl with OISE/UT for an independent study of the first six months of YNN's operations. The goals of OISENT's approach to the YNN Evaluation are to:

1. Study the process, prograrns and in-school responses in enough detail to permit: A. a thorough, non-judgrnental description of the events, the programs and the responses to everything by students, tûichers, principals and parents. B. a preliminaxy assessment of the impact of the YNN presence on the school community, and

II. Do this in such a way that OISE/UT's description and assessment are: A. credible and persuasive, and B. accepted as unbiased by ail parties Les McLean, "Approach to the YNN OISUUT's Evaluation," [Online] htt~://www.oise.utoronto.~-~i~tva~~ro~. hW

73. François Legault, cited in Flipside Staff, Quebec Zaps YNN in Schools Throughout Province: Says Commercial Solicitation Contravenes Education Act, [Online]htt~://www.fli~side.orn.h.oi2i~1199/99i1 12a. htm July 1999.

74. Nick Martin, "January Prerniere Promised for YNN," Winnima Free Press 27 Dec. 1999.

75. John Scholfield, "Ads Corne to Class," Maclean's 5 April 1999, 2.

76. Scholfield 2.

77. Athena Educational Partners (AEP) Inc. ''P~eelBoard Approves Six-month YNN Pilot at MeadowvakMust Try Program to Judge Value, Says Chair," [OIiline] htt~://www.~ui.ca/DrtSS/060899.hm 8 June 1999.

78. Jim Cummins and Dennis Sayers, Brave New School s: Challennina Cultural flliteracv (Toronto, On.: OISE Press, 1995) 172.

79. People Against Commercial Television in Schools, "Peel Region School Board Sets Dangerous Precedent by Endorsing Controversial YNN,"[Online] http://m.fü~side.or&oW/99in 14a. hün June 1999.

80. People Against Commercial Television in Schools, 'Teel Region School Board Sets Dangerous Precedent."

8 1. Media Awareness Network, "The Youth News Network."

82. Stephanie Lake, "A Student Essay on the YNN Project," [Online] htt~://www.~~side.ordfc8tw~studcnt~hW October 1999.

83. Heather-jane Robertson, No More Teachers. No More Books: The Commercialization of Canada's Schools (Toronto, On.: McClelland & Stewart Inc., 1998) 6.

84. Shaker 18.

85. Shaker 19.

86. Shaker 19.

87. Geny Smith, cited in Shaker, 22.

88. Shaker 22.

89. Saui 66.

90. CTF News Service, "Teachers Don't Want YNN in Schools," [Online] htt~://www.ctf-fce.~e/~r~ss/pr41.htm, March 1999.

9 1. CAMEO's cornmitment to ethical education for students: 1. No commercial "partnership" in schools must ever be allowed to have access to compulsory time in the daily schedule of al1 students. 2. The ethical issue of the introduction of commercial messages for compulsory vicwing by al1 students as a daily activity is not negotiable. "Stop the Youth News Network," [Online]

92. John Pungente, More Than Meets the Eve: Watchine Television Watching Us (Toronto, On.: McCleliand & Stewart Inc., 1999) 15 1.

93. Rowland Lorimer and Jean McNulty, Mass Communication In Canada (Toronto, On.: McClelland & Stewart, 199 1) 47.

94. Kellner I 80.

95. Chris M. Worsnop, "YNN:What is the Cost of the Free Equipment?" htt~://www.fli~sidt.ordf~~1.hW October 1999.

96. Barlow and Robertson 103.

97. Barlow and Robertson 103.

98. Calvert and Kuehn 48.

99. Henry Giroux, "Cultural Politics and the Pedagogy of commercial kat ion,^' Transitions 1990, 30.

100. Curnmins and Sayers 169.

1O 1. Thomas Menon, cited in Miller, 154.

102. Miller 154.

103. Miller viii.

104. Northrop Frye, The Stubbom Structure: Essavs on Criticism and Society (London, Eng.: Methuen & Co Ltd., 1970) 21.

105. Frye 21. CEAPTER FOUR CYBERSPACE-COMMERCIAL TOLL ROAD???

The information highway is barely under construction, the Wtual workplace still largely experimental, but their consequences are readily predictable in the light of recent history- In the wake of five decades of information revolution, people are now working longer hours, under worsening conditions, with greater anxiety and stress, less skills, less secunty, less power, less benefits, and les pay. Information technology has clearly been ddoped and used during these years to deskill, discipline, and displace human labour in a global speed-up of unprecedented proportions. Those still working are the lucky ones. For the technology has been designed and deployed as well as to tighten the corporate stranglehold on the world's resources- . .there has been a greater concentration of weal th, and a greater concentration of power in the hands of the world's econornic, political, media, military, and intelligence elites. In their hands-and it is now more that ever in their hands-the latest incarnations of idonnation technology will only wmpound the crime. . . .However empowering the new technology might sometimes seem, the appearance is deceiving, because the gains are overwhelmingly overshadowed, and more than nullified, by the losses. In short, as cornputer screens brighten with promise for the few, the light at the end of the tunnel grows dirnma for the many.

David Noble

The introduction of computer technology, beginning in the early 1980s, has been rapid. Computers have had an irnmediate and profound impact on the way we communicate. The development of digital technologies has opened up enormous new vistas for meamring and monitoring information transactions and for packaging and repackaging Uifonnation products. In the Information Age, high technology and high-tech skills are considered to be the linchpins of the economy. The creation, manipulation and distribution of information have becorne the engine that drives econornic growth. As Marshail McLuhan told us, "electronics reverses al1 processes." New technologies give us new flexibility in teaching and research and allow for better access to up-to-date information. Some believe that the information highway is the road to universal knowledge and conneaiveness. One thing is clear, cornputers have made an impact upon individuals and communities in ways previously unimagineci. 1 take pleasure in computer technology: 1have been able to take advantage of online communication and obtain almost instant access to woridwide databases fiom the cornfort and convenience of my own home. The information highwayl is a medium for free and open communication. The briiliant use of the Internet has allowed citizens of the world to shate resources and discuss strategies and concems on the debate surrounding the Multilateral Agreement on Investments. This gras-roots movement was able to have a pwerfiil voice and effect change on a global scale through communications which took place over the Internet. But the warning issued by Noble, at the beginning of this chapter, disturbs me. As previously discussed, a long-held hurnan desùe to have control over others' thoughts and actions has been documented throughout history . Who will shape the use of communications computer technology-the communications cartels or governments representing the interests of the public? Will ail citizens have access, or will the information highway become a digital divide creat ing an imbalance between those wit h money, power, assets and expertise, and those who lack these advantages? These are important questions and in attempting to answer them, we rnight discover how to ensure that the information highway serves all citizens and that the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

The Information Eighway: A Struggle for Control 1 believe that connecting Canadians to the vast network of communications systems and the development of information technology policies which will ensure public access should be the goal of the Federal Govemment. In the early 1990s, CA*net, the Intemet in Canada, was funded by public monies through university computer departments and the National Research Council (NRC). CA*net was estabüshed with strict guidelines for extending its lines and services as the needs arose. Gutstein explains its operation: CA*net, an exercise in massive co-operation, was managed by U of T's C omput ing Services Deputment. Integrated Nehvork SeMces Inc. (Xnsinc) was a Canadian network reseller that provided the network by leasing circuits on long-term contracts fiom Stentor carriers and Unitel at tariffed rates with high-volume discounts, and then re-leasing a portion of the circuits, dong with support services, to CA*net. IBM Canada was part of the consortium too; it provided the technology that routed messages around the network. CA*net then resold its leased capacity to the ten regional member networks so they could comect with each other and with the outside Internet. Each regional network in turn provided access to end users, such as computer centres at universities and comrnunity coUeges, which acted as nodes on the regional networks. A cornittee was established by the NRC to oversee proposais to provide a national backbone to link the provincial networks. Individual users co~ectedto a local node through dedicateâ connections or through dial-up lines to the university's central cornputer or network server. To access the global Internet, users ofthe provincial networks fkst ~0~eCted to CASnet and then to one of three direct Links to NSFNet.2

This public information network was the result of five years of publically supported and financed computer-network engineering able to increase its capacity as usage rose. CA*net was govemed by a cornmon philosophy of exclusive public and non-profit use providing equitable benefits to all Canadians? However, soon PAer the establishment of CA8net and without any public consultation, our federai government began an industry-dominated organization, the Canadian Network for the Advancement of Research, ïndustry and Education (CANARIE). Its purpose would be to upgrade CA*net and basically tum it over to the private sector.' Beginning with the Free Trade Agreement and the North Arnerican Free Trade Agreement and continuing today with annuai meetings of the Asia-Pacifie Economic Group and World Trade Organization agreements, the liberalization of trade essentially put in place the institutional fiameworks that facilitated the global marketplace and neo-liberal restructuring. The emphasis on a diminished regulatory role for govemment led to mostly corporate control in the development of the information highway's infiastmcture. Furthermore, this lack of government intervention reflects the strong profit motive and powerfùl forces of corporations steeped in the values ofthe global marketplace. Herrnan and McChesney argue: Everywhere, govemments are preparing new laws and regulations for the digital era, but in virtually ail of these debates the supenority of the market and the profit motive as the regulator of al1 branches of communication is taken as a given. Nonmarket intervention is also disrnissed as foolish, because regulation in times of technological upheaval rnight slow down the rate of change, and rapid change is presumed for the better. In these debates, the only justification for regulation is when the market does not provide enough competition. There is little sense of markets having inherent flaws that must be addressed; as one observer puts it, govemments have moved fiom being proactive policy-rnakers to being the 'market policeman enforcing competition law. ' The liberal U. S. Aspen Institute, for exarnple, argues that 'open-market, pro-cornpetit ive potiçies' for communication 'are unarguably sound, and ought to be adopted by al1 nations.' It dismisses the notion that govemments rnight have to intervene to address flaws in the market as 'thinking the unthinkable.' . . . .In many respects this need to have pnvatized communication to participate in global capitalism accounts for the lack of democratic participation in communication debates, and the narrow range of the debate that have ensued. The only issue to be debated was the speed of the liberalkation program, not the ments of it6

Initially members in CANARIE came fiom people represmting aü levels of government; academia, research institutes and nurnerous corporations. Public-sector representatives dominated an executive cornmittee. But within a ye.CANARIE Associates was established and the public interest got left behind. A large portion of the membership in CANARIE now came from bureaucrats in Industry Canada, private companies, particularly senior corporate executives rom telewmmunications, cable, and cornputer-networking firms and their iobbyists who were in the business of providing Intemet access and services. The members included: Stentor Resource Centre (representing the major telcos); Unitel Communications (telecorn successorto CP Telegraph and precursor to AT&T Canada); Northern Telecom; major multinational IT firms such as IBM Canada, Digital Equipment Canada, Hewlett-Packard (Canada), and Unisys Canada; and two Canadian-based companies, Newbridge Networks and GandaIf Technologies. Several associates were, or would be chairs of the Information Technology Association of Canada, the leading lobby group for the IT industry, which represented more than 1,200 firms in computing and communications. One major financial institution, Canada Trust, was also present, as were several smaller high-tech companies and consulting hs. The private sector couldn't help swamping the three public-sector representatives: the University of British Columbia's Jack Leigh, CAenets Andrew Bjemng (who went on to bemme CANARIE'S second president), and Gerry Miller from the University of Manitoba.'

CANARIE'S pursuit of a parallel network serving the marketplace was initiated in September 1990, the same month CAtnet was launched as a public network. CANARIE determined that the new network would evolve fiom CAtnet and it would be a co-operative private-public commercial venture. It would fùnd developers and researchers to corne up with applications to make profitable use of the network. Canadian taxpayers would still support technologid expansion of the new cornputer network but it would no longer be directed through the research-oriented NRC; instead, ali decisions would be determined by the business-dorninated CANARIE board. The govemment allocated CANARIE over $100 million to build the multimedia information infiastructure and support seMces to go dong with it. A lurther $6 billion infiastructure-renewal program was uimiarked for info-highway projects. Furthemore, over $3 billion has been spent on information tedmology since 1990.' As it stands now, the telecommunications and idonnation-seNice sectors, whichbenefit from huge govenunent handouts, have increased their profit margins. In addition, they search for new markets to increase their investment returns. The education system certainly offers industry a fiesh, new, relatively untapped and lucrative market. Considering the powa of the transnational corporations in the communications sector and the staggering amount of money involved, one might wonder how well the values imbedded in a îiberal eâucation will stand up to the powerfùl forces of the neo-liberal market economy. The goals and values of the marketplace are not necessady equivalent to the public interest. in fact, they are increasingly at odds with it. Although CANARLE built a fasts computa network for university md government research, it was required to have financiai payoffs. Moreover, Gutstein maintains that CANARIE made no "provision in its programs for public information access. Non-profit and comrnunity projects were specifically excluded fiom support uniess they had private- sector partners. . . .Its tentacles reached everywhere, into education through its SchoolNet program, into libraries through LibraryNet, into scientific research through its responsibility for federal granting councils and its control over federal research labs, into international trade through its responsibility for patents and trademafks and the ail-important area of intellectual- property right~."~According to him, Ottawa brought the private sector into the policy process "to ensure that whatever govermnent decided it would be acceptable to business. In CANARiEyscase, government even let business decide what the poticy would be, and then gave its starnp of approval."'O We have tumed one of the moa important decision-making bodies in the Information Age over to the pnvate sector, and although there are stiii a number of benefits available to the public, few regulations have been put in place to guarantee that they remain. Their decisions will help determine and shape the future of acadernic research in Canada. 1 fear that researchers will become more and more tied to the requirements of industry, rather than to the more fiindamental social and public-interest needs ofsociety. Most universities, which have been recipients of CANARIE gants, must promote projects that will lead to commercially successful product development." 1 have discussed the ramifications of this concept as analysed by acadernics such as Polanyi: they merit more discussion ifwe are to maintain acadernic integrity. 1 believe that we have both the right, and the obligation, to discuss, debate and determine the place and role information and communication technologies will have in Our society. The decisions relating to universal access to information and information services, lifdong le-ng, pnvacy and aiFiordaôility which lead to the enhancernent of societal goals are too important to leave to an unregulated privaîc sector. Indeed, it is the public's tax dollars which establish the cornputer networks and put government databases on the Intenet. Thus, it can be argued, public uiformation resources should not be sold as electronic business transactions for the sole benefit ofthe private sector. If however, they are to be sold it is reasonable to expect that the profits should be retumed to government to enrich public life. Perhaps then, we might capture the potentiai of the information highway as a nctwork for building a new sense of Canadian community and opportunity for our citizcns. In early 1994, the Minister of Industry Canada created the Information Highway Advisory Council (MAC) to assist the federai government in developing and implementing a strategy for the information highway . Aithough its membership included representatives from education, the cultural sector and labour, IHAC, like CANARIE, was dominateci by big business interests; especially those in the telecommunications industries such as Bell, Fogers, Unitel, Videotron and Teleglobe. The corporate focus was established and once again the traditional, Canadian private-public approach t O communications was relinquished. The govemment was to act as a facilitator and create a flexible and innovative econornic and regulatory environment conducive to investment and job creation by the private sectod2In its September 1995 report, iHAC recornrnended "not oniy that business and business investment should control the highway construction, but aiso that 'outdated and unnecessary reylatory barriers' should be removed to facilitate cornpetition and business investment."" The corporate driving force behind the highway is apparent in the report. Menzies's sumrnation of the report is worth studying. The report's first policy recomrnendation calls for the govermnent to do whatever has to be done to 'ensure the right environment for cornpetitive development.' Its second recommendation is that 'the Highway network and new infiastructure should be left to the private sector, and the nsks and rewards of the investment should accrue to the investors.' The third calls for the highway to be 'driven by existing or potential market dernand.' A fourth says that the highway should be technology-neutrai; in other words, any media can be plugged in. And the fifth defines a 'limite& govemment role as financiai supporter*model-user, technical-standard facilitator, and intervener to ensure 'universal access' to the highway only when the market has not adequately fiilfilled this role. '' The concems expressed by labour representative Jean-Claude Parrot were iswed in a minonty report and included as an appendix to the MAC final report. It reflected the detenoration of the work expenence and implored govemrnent to address the "excesses of market forces."" Parrot wrote: For more than a decade in Canada, we have witnessed the ixnplementation of policies specifically designed to diminish the government's role in society in favour of markets and compet itiveness. Free trade, deregdation, privahaîion and cuts to social programs and public seMces have been at the core of this agenda. . . . 1became concemed that the same ideological approach that had already produced so many negative consequences for workers was dominating the Cound process. l6

The IHAC's report reflects the changes occumng in the cyberspace culture. We continue to see the domination by corporations and the loss of public discourse. As the new global economy extends into cyberspace, communications cartels expand their holdings, increase their power and centralize their control. The new economy is extending the sale ofmonopoly organization to its fillest, while ironically making it invisible through the new digital fomof corporate organitation called the "WNal enterprise." 1agree with Menzies' s analysis on the relations of power and control imbedded in the information highway. 1 found her argument to be disheartening but accurate as well: People are not only losing control to increasingly remote information systems, but they are also coming to be controlled by them, and by the corporate consciousness accompanying them. This happens particularly as they corne to be enclosed in a context and definition of work entirely programmed by cornputers. Software programs for cornputer-monitoring and pefiormance review, buttressed by corporate cultural training and new management programs such as total quality management (TQM),are adjusting people's minds to see through the eyes of the corporate vision statement, to innovate in purely systems ternis of faster and cheaper equal better, and to work at the dynamo-like Pace at which the technology itself is advancingdoubling its capacity every two years.

I cal1 this 'training for cornpliance' and a filfilment of Fredenck Taylor's original philosophy of scientific management. Once people are totally closed off inside a fiilly programmeci work environment, once they are wired in through cornputer-monitoring and performance measurement, they have little choice but to comply: to wülingly follow the logic of flow-through optimization, willingly participate in fine-tuning the new work model. Once restructuring has reached the point of closure, it is hard not to think as the cornputer thinks; it is hard to think for yourself . . .In their dl-encompassing, totalinng effects, the issues also signal a dangerous closing down of public imagination around how to structure and govern the infonnation highwiy and the political economy it will enable. They recall John Ralston Saul's more recent prophecies of a new corporatist society in which experts fiom labour as well as business and govemment assist in adjusting people to filfil roles in a metasystems society instead of fùlfilling themselves as citizens in the larger social comrnunity."

By the mid-1990s, the World Wide Web (WWW) had been Myestabiished as the easier-to-use multimedia portion of the Intemet and user-fiiendly browser software had made the Intemet mainstream. The US Telecommunications Act of 19% gave fundamental rights to policy making for the Xnternet over to the marketplace. It seemed that the corporations who generated the most profit where in a position to set the temfor the development of cyberspace. The Telecommunications Act had eliminated the Intemet's restrictive barriers. As a result, the Intemet was turned into the most direct mass merchandizing vehicie ever created. It has been estimated that by the rnillenniurn the Internet wiU be worth $1 trillion annually." Bill Gates has included the Bettmann Archives, the most important collection of histonc photographs in the world, in his Microsoft Empire! Still photographs are considered to be a major commercial product in the communications rnedi~rn.'~Subsequently, the Intemet infiastructure became a primarily commercial enterprise and its implications for education are alanning. Robertson elaborates: The Net was suddenly the hot advertising medium of the new rnillenniurn. Its interactive features are guaranteed to entice, cajole, manipulate and plug directly into the personal data Stream of a new generation of consumers. The Net's cornmerciaiism has not diminished support for it as an appropriate, even essential, medium for education's content. Nor has the inevitability of steeply increasing user fees cuhed enthusiasm. If schools becarne hooked on the Net, as weli as hooked up, the tollbooth would becorne a money machine, financing the expansionist business plans of the communications transnationals."

Furthemore, Canadians are unaware of the vast information services held by govenunents and perhaps even more unaware of the commercial value of its informational resources. Gutstein illustrates its worth: As taxpayers, they have paid billions of dollars over the years for every smap of information in govemment files. They have paid to fÙnd research, collm statistics, publish health and consumer-education pamphlets, maintain archival records, undertake a census every five years, pubiish financial accounts, ensure the dissernination of knowledge to the public through patent and copyright statutes, adrninister fieedom-of-information laws, provide weather and climatic information, and much more. A system has been built up since Conmeration to distribute this information, and this system consists of the communication and program msof govemment departments, the distribution and sales network of Supply and Services Canada, the National Library of Canada's cataloguing and dissernination fiinctions, and the Depository Library Program, which distributes government publications to libraries across the country. Idormation has either been provided fiee, as part of the govement's duty to inform the public, or been offered for sale, sometirnes in partnership with private-sector publishers, and this latter information could be read in libraries. If information has commercial value, then these governent databases are the crown jewelse2'

We should ensure that our publicaily supported resources are not sold through the private sector for private gain. We should take steps to guarantee that information for the public good is accessible and affordable for al1 Canadians. For example, StatsCan had provîded public access fiee of charge to general statistical data on govemment information. More than $250,000 a year of taxpayers' money is used to compile reports on virtually wery facet of Canadian life. Yet, during the past decade, StatsCan has become a market-driven, private- sector-oriented enterprise that eliminated publications, raised prices and moved decisively into electronic publishing. It is in the business of selling custornized data research to companies and individuals. This new business focus of StatsCan has profound implications for Canadians. Important publications have been eliminated. Furthemore, there were major gaps in pertinent information on poverty, econornic productivity, Canada's international competitiveness and the state of the environment. Information on such controversial issues, such as the extent of foreign control of the economy, had been lost. There was no available information on small businesses, manufactunng or corporate profits.* The public could ailï access important information on Industry Canada's business information Web site. Until 1999, this web site contained more than 3 million documents on-line. They were paid for and accessible to taxpayers at no cost, but at the end of 1998, policy changed. Mpact Immedia Corp., a subsidiary of Bell Canada, won contract to turn this Web site into an area where business information and services could be purchased over the ~ntemet." The federal govemment had set the precedent for other departments to contract out electronic-commerce projects. Canadians were now being charged for the privilege of accessing their publicaily supported information resour~es.~IHAC made the foliowing recomrnendation in its final report: "The private sector should be offered the opportunity to digitize, add value, and market govemment-owned materials, documents, ac., for which there is a perceived profit."= The important premise here is aptly stated: "But if public or popular information is to survive, the govenunent has a more important role to play than to act as a source of cheap content for information products, as James Madison foresaw in his oft-quoted observation to W. T. Barry: 'A popular Government, without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will ever govem ignorance; and people who mean to be their own Governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."" Although there is aill "non-commercial" materiai on the Internet, one might question how long it will remain considering the dominance of neo- liberdism. Govenunent Web sites provide access to thousands of documents; community, non-profit, and special-interest groups operate their own sites, with volumes of relevant, critical, and usehl information; and universities maintain a major presence. But at the millennium, the Internet is pre- dominantly a private-sector medium. Even the highly praised SchoolNet program, which connects schools and libraries to the Internet, is a partnership of public-sector organhtions (Industry Canada, provincial ministries of education, universities, and colleges) and private-sector companies (telephone and cable wmpanies that want to provide comectivity and other se~cesto schools; computer companies like Apple, DM, and Sun Microsystems, with their obvious interest; and information companies like The Globe and Mail, Southam, and Scholastic Canada, which want to sel1 schools their information and education products). And soon, SchooiNet-inspired initiatives wiii begin to earn e-commerce revenues for public- and private-sector partners.*'

To move Canadians online more effectively and efficiently, Madey calleci for increased partnerships with the corporate sector. When the computer networks moved to the pnvate sector, govenunent business partnerships were fomed. Public institutions were îùrther pressured to commercialize their resources. This resulted in a major shift in the movement of information in the public domain to information increasingiy under corporate control. Gutstein explains: 'PartnershipsT became the buuword for federal and mor provinciai govements, and these partnerships brought a vastly expanded system of copy-right and inteiie!ctual-property rights. Copyright - the nght of a creator to impose a monopoly on the distribution of his or her work - was originally conceived as a priviiege bestowed by Parliament on authors to encourage the creation of new ideas, which society needed to continue its development. Today that privilege has been distorted beyond aii recognition by global information and media corporations, which make billions of dollars fiom their control of inteliectual property. In the past few years, they've been able to extend the term of copyright protection beyoncf aii reasonable duration, and to apply copyright to the Internet, fbrther enriching themselves. They're even trying to impose - so far unsuccesdùlly - protection on compilations of information, which would give them ownership ofthe facts in their databases. Canada's Ken Thomson owns tens of thousands of databases, and will be the world's greatest beneficiary if this perverse law is ever implemented."

Regrettably, Canada has swung toward the marketplace favoring poticy supporthg commercial markets for selling information. Vicent Mosco outlines Canada's policy change and its implications: Information is a marketable commodity, best developed by private companies, which best thrive under the least possible regdation and the most cornpetitive situations. . . .Canada has taken up the market mode1 in several recent poiicy decisions. These incfude a new Telecornmunications Act that calls on the CRTC to forbear fiom regulating new communication technologies, the introduction of wmpetition in the long distance telephone market, the initiation of market prices, euphemized in the language of 'cost recovery' for the purchase of government information, and new trade agreements that enshrine the principles of the infonnation cornrnodity, preference for corporate solutions, and abhorrence of government intervention whether through crown corporations like the CBC, or through subsidy programs. . . . Markets are neither invisible nor apolitical-t hey favour those with market power, namely people with the rnoney to pay for information goods and for the capital to produce and distribute them." The development of digital technologies has opened up enonnous new Mstas for measuring and monitoring information transactions and for packaging and repackaging information products. Unforîunately, Our safeguards to protect public knowledge have broken down due to the insistence of operating in a ''free market." Public databases are increasingly controlled by a few transnational corporations who then lobby to forbid government to make that data accessible to the community. Private corporations are able to sel1 publicly financed information systems back to the public?" Hannigan makes clear that the fieedom to access public information becomes lirnited by its accompanying price tag: New media technologies combine computing and communications imovations in ways which create a wealth of possibilities; however, this new generation of interactive systems is likely to become absorbed into an 'idormation capitalism,' wherein corporations profit by using fieely obtained social knowledge to create private knowledge. Contrary to McLuhan's prediction, then, the 'global village' of the fùkire may be privatized, exclusive, and inhospitable to the emergence of new colleftive identities." Public interest issues do not appear to be a very high priority. Inaead, the foais is on business prospects which will bring entertainment and communication services to the "commercial highway;" thereby reducing Canadians to passive consumers of the "new age" products which the telecommunications industries want to pr~pagate.'~ The drive for liberalizaîion or privatization of the telecornmunications industry culrninated in the signing of the World Trade Organitation TeIecommunications Agreement in 1997. It was signcd by 68 countries, including Canada, and represented 90 percmt of the

$600 billion per annum telecomrnunications service market .33 The luge telecommunications cartels were directly involved in trade policy making. It was reported in the The Financial Times that AT&T saw the WTO pact as "an important step toward fully cornpetitive markets? The trade cornmissioner for the European Union and the US trade representative both observed the implications of this newly fonned pact. They noted that the development of the global information highway will "increasingly provide the infiastructure for doing international business."35As a result ofthe WTO telecommunications agreement, Hennan and McChesney concluded that a handfül of transnational communications cartels have significantly increased their control of the industry: They maintain that "each of the giant telecom firms has moved aggressively into deregulated domestic telecommunications markets around the world. almost always in joint ventures with other global giants and local investon. In these forays, the global 6nns and alliances have a decided advantage over the traditional national finns, due to the cost benefits they can offer business and the wealthy for global communication."' In February 1998, an Industry Canada officiai admittecl that the information highway is about commercial enterpri~e.~'In October 1998, Ottawa was host for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).Industry Minister Maniey presided over the conference titied "A Borderless World." Mïnisters representing the most-developed nations in the world and organizations such as the World Trade Organization and the United Nations were represented. The official US delegation included representatives fiom Microsofi, Disney, AT&T, and MCVWorldCom, and US-sponsored representatives fiom Thomson Corp.' s West Publishing (Canadian) and Reed Elsevier's Lexis-Nexis (British- Dutch), two of the larges electronic-database publishen in the world.'' The public-private partnership approach was clearly present. Participation in a democratic society is dependent on the, accessible and adequate information. Public information, supponed by taxpayers and made fieely available to ail citizens, is being lost to Canadians who cannot afZord to pay for electronic access. We are beginning to act with Our government as "individual consumers, not as citïzens or mernbers of communities," and the consequences could severely tirnit the survival of a healthy dernocra~y.~~'ïnstead of Bill Gates's 'Where do you want to go today?' question, we would ask, 'Where do we, as a society, want to go?'"* Perhaps the CoUowing scenario is most applicable for Canadians: Get al1 Canadians on-line so they can form a mass market for Intemet advertisers and businesses. Connect schools so they can become purchasers of electronic educational services. Connect municipalities to create a market for municipal govemment and other local agency information. Connect libraries so their resources can be exploited electronically by business and the information industry. Develop teleeducation and telehealth markets in the public sector, move them to the private sector, and then to the global market. Currently, people need to 'go' to school, to move physically to the site of education, be it a public school, a college, or a university. But once education is electronified, education services can be consurned anywhere in the world, and there will be less need for schools and teachers and even for a public presence in establishing cumculumthe private sector will do it."

1 hope we can create a better one-one where Our information networks are publicly owned, or at least, tightly reguIated. If this does not happen, as Gutstein suggests, our new knowledge-based economy will replace our democratic values as we accept a "Faustian" bargain. He concludes: To succeed in the knowledge economy, we may have to give up our democratic rights. . . .We wiil benefit from the Intemet economy by forcing public libraries and archives to become content providers for the information industry by commercialking the public-education cumculumand government- financed science research, and by privatiring health idormation. Connectedness depends on digitking and privatMng public idonnation resources so they can form the basis of commercial transactions on the Internet. These activities do not build a stronger democracy; they undermine democracy, a system that depends on the effkctive fùnctioning of these instit~tions.'~ Cyberspace and Public Librarics One of the most signiticant and enormous changes taking place as a result of the new technoIogies is in the area of library science. The role of the library is increasingiy important and relevant in this age of technology, communication and community. in order to ensure its rightfùl role in the Information Age, we must get closer to the perception that "the library is librarians rather than books, the library is communication rather than routine or a store house, and that the mission of the library is actually the social and inteileaual responsibility of the librarian to participate with our public in the solution of problems and the creation of new kn~wledge."~Today, the resources of many libraries and information services are brougbt together technologically by national and international telephonic networks with the speed and bandwidth essential to transmitting the largest and moa complex fiies of firll-text and digitized graphics and images making possible rapid changes in the delivery of information and creating what has been termed the virtual library. The virtual library provides remote access to the contents and services of libraries and other information resources, wmbining an on-site collection of current and heavily used material in both print and electronic form, with an electronic network which provides access to, and delivery fiom, extemal worldwide library and commercial information. Traditionally, of course, libraries have been based on the foundation Stones of universal access and ubiquity fieedom of expression, pluralism and intellectual tieedom and the right to privacy, intellectual property and copyright. In essence, the vimial library would extend this premise. Gutstein explains: For more than one hundred years, the public library has operated on two wre values: it is fiee and can be used by anyone regardless of ability to pay; and its mandate is to provide materials of aii kinds, on al1 sides of an issue. Some of the bea information required by citizens is kept in libraries: newspapers fiom other times and places; current directories on subjects as diverse as business, heaith, employment, and technology; basic information nom encyclopaedias, handbooks, and other reference sources; govemrnent studies and repons; extensive collections of magazines on a wide variety of topics; and up-to-date information books. By combining their collections through inter-library loan programs, libraries formed the first public information network long before 'network' became an overused word. They're local knowledge centres that help people inform themselves on their own terms. ... Librarians provide direct, personal, knowledgeable service that helps patrons answer their idormation questions. As Herbert Schiller and Anita Schiller see it, 'The public library has long been regarded, justifiably, as one of the most impressive achievements, and steadfast institutions, of the ...democratic experience.

Yet, those basic rights to information so necessary in a democratic society are threatened. Libraries have become increasingiy vulnerable to corporate interests. Federai and provincial budgets and subsequent tax cuts made the under-finding of public tibraries permanent. The Metro Toronto Reference Library, Canada's only public reference library, had its provinciai gant cut fiom $25.3 million in 199 1 to S19 million in 1996. This reduction of 25 percent occurred at a time when infiation rose 17 percent during the same penod." The results for library prograrns were significant. Some libraries closed and prograrns were cut al1 across Canada. Alternatives were explored. Gutstein explains: Faced with reduced public fùnding, iibrary boards and administrators had a number of options: they could campaign to restore fùnding; they wuld cut programs and services; they could look for alternative sources of tùndhg, such as user fees and corporate contributions; or they could replace expensive professional staff members with less highly paid para-professionals and with information technology, which was already making its presence felt through the actions of the industry. Boards and administrators did al1 of these except the most important: rally the public to their cause."

The library's ability to provide its traditional services has been fùrther undermineci by the information industry which has seized this opportunity to challenge the assumption ofthe free library-a library supported by public taxes, thereby ensuring equality of access to available information. Gutstein illustrates the change: But the rise of the information industry and the cornmodification of information threatened the library's traditional role as custodian and interpreter of public information. A process of colonization began quietly in the 1960s with the automation of library cataloguing operations, accelerated in the 1970s and 1980s with on-line database searching, and threatens to overwhelm the pubtic interest with a one-two punch of government cuts to library fùnding and the establishment ofcorporate-sponsored, for-profit digital librarïes, a combination that may not be entirely wincidentd."

Financial pressures opened the door to more public-private partnerships. For example, Bill Gates launched Libraries Online at the Toronto Public Library's Lillian H. Smith Branch. The Canadian launch of Libraries Online came with a donation fiom Gates of one million dollars worth of hardware, software, training, and support ta Toronto and Ottawa librariesu Mr. Gates's donation to libraries might be a case of vested interest! And now examples of corporate partnerships with libraries proliferate. There is Little criticisrn even arnong library professionals regarding the infiux of corporate logos and narnes covering bddings, rding materials, and even library cards." In Edmonton, Alberta, Library users pay a $12 user fee to borrow books fiom the Stanley A Milner Library. This library is the city's main downtown branch and was fonnerly known as the Centennial. The name change has interesting implications: For a laughably low $250,000 (how much did taxpayers invest in the facility without receiving recognition?), Milner, who is one of the city's corporate elite-president of Chieflain International 0i1 and a director of Canadian Pacik, the Canadian Imperid Bank of Commerce, Alberta Energy Co., and other corporations-gets his name enshrined for al1 tirne above the library entrance. . . . His donation set the benchmark -anyone who wants a library branch narned after himself or his company can write a similarly-sized cheque and the board will consider it?

Libraries dedicated to the public interest are in the process of becoming corporate- sponsored, for-profit commercial enterprises. When librarians insist on fiee access to information, they are "regarded as backward-loo king, if not obsolete, irrelevant, and unrealistic. . . .The inescapable conclusion is that libraries must embrace not only information technology, but aiso corporate control ofthe technology. Iflibraries surrender their traditional role, then democracy wili have lost a key foundation stone."" Schiller sees the corporate giants methodically stripping social democratic institutions of their character in the search for private gain: In the 1990s, with the indispensable assistance of cornputerkation, information is being produced, packaged, stored, and sold. Public stockpiles of information, govermental and academic, are being acquired in dl sorts of imaginative and pecuniary ways by private companies. A vigorous and aggressive private Information Industry Association successfÙl1y promotes its own objectives. In the pervasive atmosphere of privately acquiring, processing, and selling infotmation, the public library system, a long-standing custodian of the idea and practice of information as a social good, is tottering. Its function is being redefined and aripped of its social ~haracter.~

In tmth, Arnerican libraries and the profession of librarianship are confionted with a structural transformation in the overail economy. It is nothing les than thorough privatization of the idonnation function. The production, processing, storing and transmitting of information have been scuoped up into private, for-profit hands. Social sources and repositones of information have been taken over for commercial use and benefit. It is not because Arnerican libraries and library schools have fdlen behind in the rnastery of the new information technology that their existence increasingiy is cded htoquestion. It is their bedrock p~ciplesand long-tenn pracîices îbat coude with the realities of today's corporate-centered and market-driven economy. The extent to which librarians insist on fiee and untrammelied access to information, 'unrestricted by administrative barriers, geography, abity to pay or format,' they will be treated by the privatizers as backward-looking, if not obsolete, irrelevant, and unredistic."

Many are wondering whether there is a need for traditionai library schools and, indeed, academic and school librarians, if information c9n be supplied by entrepreneurs and private businesses unencumbered by social principles. In 1996, a srnadi group oflibrarians met with the Science Promotion and Academic Mairs branch of Kndustry Canada. They were interested in developing community networks and providing the public with Intemet access. Instead it was suggested that libraries should become "agents of economic development" and this economic venture would be delivered by a new program called ~ibrary~et?Indudry Canada hired Advanced Strategic Management Consultants (ASM), formed by two former Iibrarïans Stan Skrzeszewki and Maureen Cubberley, to prepare a concept paper. Their paper stated that industry should be a partner in LibraryNet. Libraries were regarded "as economic development sites, business incubators, distribution points for government information, providers of culturai and recreational services, and supporters of community network~."~~ Cubberley and Skrzeszewki helped form the Coalition for Public Information (CPI). This coalition was made up of librarians and information-industry representatives. CPI adopted a top-dom approach to public information and "threw its lot in with Industry Canada, CANARIE, and the information industry . . . .As a result, CPI never became a champion of the public interest."" Moreover, ASM organized a conference with the Canadian Library Association (CLA) in Victoria, May 1998. The focus of the conference was how libraries could provide idormation support services for business. The CLA's new executive director is Vicki Whitmell. She is a "keen advocate of fee-based information services, and she publishes a magazine called Fee for Service. She wrote a paper for the conférence which argued that fee-based seMces raise money for the library and also raise its profile in the local community. Since fee-based sewices are a source of competitive and timely information-and provide Uiformation not available to non-fee-paying library patrons, presumably-they wül help community officiais and businesses make the best choices for economic growth."" Ail across Canada, heads of public libraries are called chief executive officers. Many Librariam are into the business rhetoric of the information industry calling themselves "information brokers, their patrons customers, and their teaching institutions schoof s of information management. They've honed their business and financing skills and think of themselves as part of the information industry, not as representatives of the public interest."" The 113* Annual Conference of the Arnerican Library Association chose for its theme "Customer Senice: The Heart of the Library." The editor-in-chief of Librarv Journal responded : "My dictionary defines 'customer' as 'a person who purchases goods or services tiom another,' so 1 hope librarians expand the 'service' idea to al1 who need library service, not jua the cu~tomers."~ The role of the traditional librarian is changing to meet the needs of the knowledge economy. An article entitled, Here Corne the "Info~reneurs," illustrates t his change: "In the old days, they were known as librarians. Today, information-broken wend their way through hundreds of cornputer databases with the greatest ofease. Fora fee of course!]'" According to Schiller, "It is the burgeoning buying and seliing of Uiformation, according to the 'customer's' ability to pay, that is forcing librarians to yield their historic role as guardians of the public' s right to fiee and unrestricted information. Assuredly, commercial information activities have an important fùnction to fiilfill. Yet, to imagine that these services are the sum total of a librarian's contribution-as idormation bro ker-is to acquiesce in the emergence of a society in which social aims have been di~carded."~'It is important to note that the public believes that the traditional aims of libraries are the most valued. In 1998, Ekos Research Associates, on behalf of the Canadian Library Association and Industry Canada, conducted a public survey on library usage. It found that the "overwhelrning rnajority of respondents agree that public libraries should be involved in. . . promoting literacy and recreationd reading, providing information to citizens and helping Canadians to lem.Closely related, the notion of equitable access is also a strong belief held by the rnajority."" A recent project in Ontario, Network 2000, ignores the results of the Ekos survey on Library usage. Network 2000 will "provide electronic-commerce services for karies, allowing users to make municipal licence payments, access fee-paying provincial government services, and pay for library services."" The first Network 2000 library opened in Oakville in April 1998. Its e- commerce solutions to budget cutbacks will "help shape the Library of the future;" and the "person doing most of the shaping is Bill Gates, who is brealcing into the electroniccommerce market in myriad ways, including participating in Network ZOO0 and ensuring that libnries access the Intemet and e-commerce applications using Micros& produas.'* Academic freedom is lost as libraries become dependent on corporate grants such as thor fiom Microsoft. Free expression diishesas secrecy becomes a pnority when patenting ideas is a primary goal ignoring the broader questions of social responsibility and impact. Acadanic libraries must rernain "both a cntic and source of knowledge for society."" Eric Davis questions the direction that libraries will go in the fiiture: "Zn one scenario libraries will act as navigators in the seven cyberseas of information., helping scholars surf monstrous flows of multimedia, full-text data pumped out fiom databases networked across the globe. In another, librarians will kill the book, sel1 themselves off to a private sector, and end up as pawns in the corporate battle for information ~ontrol."~ Ln New Brunswick, school libraries are now staffed by volunteers. Alberta teacher- librarians "have become a dirninishing species." In Ontario, the Hdton Roman Catholic School Board replaced their low enrollment elementary school tacher-librarians and all the secondary teacher-librarians with employees lacking teaching qualifications and in some cases, wit h no Library training. This decision was made five weeks before the end of the school year, without consulting either parents, students or teachers. The negative impact of this ill- conceived and draconian decision was not made in the best interests of student learning." The story is the sarne across Canada. Information is expanding in quantity and complexity at a run- away rate; our need for tacher-librarians to work with teachers and teach Our students to negotiate the maze of information networks should be one of our first priorities. And yet the importance of libraries and professional staffappears to be diminishing. Dewey saw the library as an integral component of and the center of the leaniing process. It was the hem of the school. It was the "place where the children bring the expenences, the problems, the questions, the particular facts which they have found, and discuss them so that new Light may be thrown upon them, partiailady new light hmthe experience of others, the occumulated wisdom of the world-symbolized in the library.''a Nevertheless, the concept that the library provides an ideal workplace for students to apply theoretical and abstract concepts leamed in the classroom abatu. Clifford Stoll suspects that: . . .cornputers wiU deviously chew away at Libraries fiom the inside. They'll eat up book budgets and require librarians that are more cornfortable with computers than with children and scholars. Libraries will become adept at supplying the public with fast, low-quality information. The result won't be a library without booksit'll be a library without value."

Computer Technology and Education Industry Minist er JOhn Manley extended the industrial-development of technoiogy throughout the economy into the public education system. His mandate was ta provide Intemet access for schools. This was accomplished through its SchoolNet prognm SchoolNet was launched in 1993 as Canada's meam to provide Iife-long leaming skills for students and connect them to the world. It was set up to ensure that education was onside by providing Canadian students and teachers with electronic services t hat would stimulate and develop the skills needed in the information and knowledge e~onorny.'~Topics would be discussed and ideas shared across communication networks worldwide. Critics, such as Robertson, have a different view of SchoolNet: "Afthough SchoolNet began as a comectivity project, it gradually acquired the pretensions of an on-line content provider. Yet aside fiom a handfùl of teacher and student designed units that offer Little cornpetition to the commercial curriculum available on-line, the content is thin."" She found that the chmiistry newsgroup was shon on equations but long on "chah lener corne-ons, pyrarnid schemes, and offers for dubious se~ces."~SchoolNet had become "a handy publicly fùnded vehicle for corporate propaganda, for pitching in the guise of leaming opportunities not just produds, but corporate-friendly ways of seeing the world."" For example, Robertson States: When the SchoolNet menu brings up half a dozen main categories, click on Business and Economics. Then find the 'Global Vision's Global Classroom.' The global classroom turns out to be a corporate training centre, dedicated to 'giving tomorrow's business leaders a solid understanding of the marketplace.' The site is sponsored by a 'non-profit organization dedicated to helping shape today's youth through science, technology, business and entrepreneurship.' The 'non-profit' board is made up senior executives fkom Brascan, Laidlaw, Mitel, CIBC, Canadian Airlines, and Nova Gas, arnong others, who thank the Canadian taxpayer (via SchooINet and Industry Canada) for assistance with their site and the opportunity to reach 3.9 million students." Anyone astonished that the 'neutral' tool of technology (and dons of SchoolNet tax dollars) is king used to promote APEC's agenda in our classrooms has not looked closely at SchooINet7sbusiness plan. The plan expands on goals that go well beyond ~~ectivitynght to the hem of official knowledge: SchoolNet hopes to generate signifiant financial resources. . .and to sustain a mutually beneficid relationship with associated companies. ' Just under the win-win rhetonc cornes the fine print of the SchooINet CommunicationsPlan. This document identifies pressing issues, hcluding how to enswe that provincial curricula are rewritten 'to include a SchooINet component' and how to 'motivate educators to embrace the new technology .'"

SchoolNet's communication consultants pressed for partnerships to develop corporate connections and match marketing forces to the education audience. The new plan also positioned SchoolNet to export on-line cumculum to Mexico and New Zealand. When the SchoolNet advisory board refiised to implement the new directives, the board was convened only once in the next two years and was officially disbanded in November 1997." Gutstein is another cntic of the commercial for-profit side of SchooiNet. Aceording to him, the program was "really about developing markets for the so-called leambg and training industry. . . .SchooINet acts like a broker, which allows information and technology companies-the learnware sector-to market their products and services at cut-rate prices directly on-line to budget-conscious schools. The new SchoolNet Web site intermingles offe~gsfiom educationai institutions and commercial vendors without identifjhg their ongins."" The idormation highway may not serve the interests of Canadian students. Instead, it may serve giant multi-national corporations "rapidly mnsoüdating their interests on the way to becoming the superpowers of the 2 l* century. What is described as a partnership between schools, govemrnent and the private sector may instead be an arrangement in which schools become agents of multi-national corporations making sure that education serves the needs of the future economy."" School-business pmnerships often place educators in a resource- dependency position and educators are unable to act as an equal partner. Corporations provide cornputer equipment and other supplies to schools, and in tum become key participants in discussions of technology in education. The role of educators, teacher and school board associations and parents diminish gradually. Thus, it is not surprising that the result is "an agenda which assumes that what is good for business is good for everyone else."" A typical exarnple of partnerships is SFU7s Excite Centre. This Centre is a CO- applicant wi th CTV National News in a project cded Schoolsite which received CANARIE fùnding in 1997 to create a Web site where high-school students can use CTV resources to create their own news stones.1° Two problems are associated with the public participation in this project: Gutstein rnaintains: "Private-sector news media like CTV are too positive towards business and too negative towards govenunent, creating a serious distortion in the material with which the students must work. Further, the project must lead to a commercial product, and students will ïnevitably be guided in that direction rather than towards a more usefùl media literacy senice to help debunk commercial media."" The proposal to comect al1 schools to the information highway can be linkcd to the Clinton administration's strategy to position US-based information and communications industries in the forefiont of the global communications marketplace. The international rush to "comect" demonstrates the political and economic powers' ability to expand and consolidate rheir interests. It does not improve student learning. The fiindamental assumptions that underlie the corporate agenda should be questioned: 'Al1 you have to do is click,' says Microsoft, the digital fairy godmother in one of its advertisementsfor education products. Indeed, country after country has clicked on the program. A few striking examples include.. .. lapan's plans to install 900,000 network-equipped PC's in schools by the year 2000, Germany's three-year 'schools on the network project,' Denmark's plan to put al1 schools on-line by the year 2000. . .Finland's 'education, training and research in the information society' strategy. . .[and] the UK's 'superhighway in education' plan.

In the rush to deregulate the communications industries, the impact of such policies on national life remains unaddressed. What will it do to Our schools? What will it do to our comrnunities? Will we let the market decide how we cornmunicate, what we Say, and who gets to Say it? How much Canadian content can we reasonably expect from an information pipeline which originates in the boardrooms of giant multi-national corporations. The response appears to be, 'Al1 you have to do is click?

Even IHAC expresses concerns over Canada's ability to protect Canadian culture and content. The liberalking of telecommunications and increased reliance on market forces may lead to SchoolNet becoming "a conduit for providing American ldgproducts to Canadians," and thus, the Council urged government to "adopt policies that foster the development and delivery of Canadian produas and services."* One should question the ability of our govemment to act on this recornmendation conside~gthe nature of the fiee trade agreements negotiated. Vit means, as Mol1 maintains, "a probable 105s of sovereignty over the most strategic resource of the 21' century, an inability to maintain any kind of Canadian presence on the rapidly approaching idormation highway [then, the] resultant cultural dislocation may be more than a fragile national identity ansuniive. There rnay be no country to go back t~."~ The information technologies and corporate partners have aiiied thernselves with education. The corporate-state market-driven ideology is being nmily rooted in education. The overlap between IHAC solutions to education and those of the Conference Board of Canada and its afnliates demonstrates its predominant goal to develop business-education partnerships. The following quotations fiom the first meeting of the Conference Board of Canada indicate the strong ties between technology and business and their connections to education: Business leaders attending the conference made it clear they recognize that helping to irnprove the education system is the key to narional prosperity Md corporate success in the fiinire. . . .Every level of Canada's education system mut be enhanced to meet Our national needs. James Niger President of the Conference Board

Govemment must help Canada compete in the global workplace, where a hi@y skiiied, flexiblewoMorce is critical to productivity and competitiveness. . . .Thme is-and must -peration between business and education and a cornmitment to take spdc, conmete steps in building new partnerships. BaharaMcDouggall Minister of Employment and Immigration Canada

Eduûiton and business must develop strong cornmon goals to meet the crisis Fui education]. . . .[Today 's students] must becorne the highly quaiified professionals needed to aeate, produce and market high&&noIogy, value-added produds. NomKissick CE0 Union Carbide Canada8'

1 was present at this conference in 1990 and believe the examples Taylor used reflected the arong corporate interest expressed in education. Corporate initiatives such as providing awards to innovative teachers in the field of technology were established as a result of this conference. My coileague, Dorothe Feldner, and I were nominateci and received written recognition for the Prime Minister's Science, Mathematics and Technology Award in 1995.1 had joined the "culture of cornpliance." Student learning did not appear to be the focus of the recognition we received, rather the number of corporate connections we had tapped into was applauded. These included partnerships and connections with Canon, Hewlett-Packard, UMI and others. 1 was busy promoting techno-enthusiasm and embracing a "new religion." 1had succumbed to the corporate-dnven vision for education. The criticism Ievied by Robertson at tacher-librarians could be directed at me. As education's information experts, surely teacher-librarians should be outspoken about the limitations of the Intemet Did 1 buy into the techno-enthusiasrn fostered by our Library Associations and their publications? Did 1 believe that students with on-line access could "become independent, critical thinkers. . .able to express new knowledge in compelling waysTM The prevaihg orthodoxy of the corporate powers was a strong drug. Technology was a powerhl new god

and 1 had begun '%O think in their terms." McMurtry States: "The better the market, the more its agents depend on the produas and seMces of others to provide theù thinking and doing for them . . . .The accepted way in which to gain market favour, to offend no one and no vested interest, is the most cenain way to block critical inquiry and the search for the tmth."" He cautions us: However advanced in velocity, volume, and global range the instruments of electronic communications become, nothing in these technologies distinguishes between information and misidormation, or between knowledge and propaganda. To hail the &val of 'new information technologies' and 'knowledge transmission systems' is, therefore, a perfectly false clahenabling these commodities to be aggressively marketed to schools and universities. A 'dumbing-down' process is thus prescribed across education systems by educationists who fail to acknowledge the most fundamental non-sequiturs of thought. Marketing slogans are not questioned, but prescnbed as given truth by education administrations, who are thereby empowered with new leverages of rule over 'the delivery of education.' Machines do not talk back or conceni themselves with requirements of critical understanding. Once we confùse the means of conveying cornputer contents with the wholly different process of seeking tmth, education itselfbecomes indistinguishable from incioctrination."

Running parallel to CANARIE is another set of nworks combining university researchers and corporate sponsors. The Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE)program combines research results and divides the benefits gamered fiom discoveries. NCE works with TeleLeamhg which was created in 1995. The goal of TeleLeamhg is to digitize and cornmercialize education so it can be bought and sold on the Intemet." This concerns leadimg academics. In 1993, in his address to the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, Polanyi stated: "If we increasingly restrict our basic science to the areas which wiii benefit existing Canadian industries, we run the nsk little by little, of converthg our university laboratories into state-subsidized industrial laboratories," and, nearly four years later, he warned that "to go much furiher dong the path to comrnercializrition of university research would dearoy our universitie~."~~Leslie Millin, former Secretary of the Science Council of Canada, argues that sufceeding federal governments have squandered Canada's world-renowned scientinc legacy: "Nor have they [the feded govemment] understood that wealth flows not so much from applied research as fiom basic research, because it is basic research that produces the major breakthroughs that in tum produce the huge profits."' Gutstein also outlines the ramifications of the NCE's approach to turning knowledge into a commodity: Whether the research is pre-cornpetitive or applied, the emphasis placed on the comrnercialization of that research distorts the national research agenda. Worthy questions are being ignored because there is little money to support them and the graduate students working in these fields. In the realm of applied research, many issues of great concem to Canadians go unstudied because there are no corporate sponsors. One troubling consequence is that the new generation of researchers, scientists, and technicians having corne to maturity in an era of corporate-oriented research, may perceive that to be the nom. Non-commercial, public-interest research, which could support a public information network and democratic media, for instance, is becoming an endangered species."

Furthemore, McMurtry depicts the Limitation of the global market's knowledge economy:

The primary movement and obligation of al1 knowledge are to overcome partiality towards a more comprehensive taking awunt. But this requirement of al1 truth-seeking is in systematic conflict with seeking above al1 to rnaximize profits for corporate shareholders . . . . What knowledge requires, the 'knowledge-based economy' des out. What wider comprehension and impaiality demand, the 'rationality' of profit-maximiration blinken fi0111 view. When we examine the assertion ofthe 'new knowledge-based economy' more closely, we corne to realize that it selects against whatever das not conform to its demand stmctures. It is, in this way, more properly designrted as 'an ignorance-based e~onomy.'~~ Altemate methods of delivery in education have been explored. At a 1997 business- education conference, the focus was managing idionnation and technology to enhance education and tacher training. The message that "speakers shared examples of ways technology was changing education, and workshops highlighted partnenhips that use technology to support alternative methods of delivering education comes through loud and clear."%The IHAC report tied alternative deliveiy of education through technology to the discourse of fiscal crisis. According to Taylor's research on the report, the authors had "no choice but to use information and communications technologies to improve productivity and service to save rnoney. . . .Given existing fiscal pressures to rduce educational spending, governrnents and institutions wiU be forced to evaluate the benefits and costs of using new media leaniing technologies. Because of the indirect costs of time and travel, applying new technologies may well be more effective and less costly than producing traditional matenals. . . .Using the technology can make the learning process faster and more efficient, therefore cutting co~ts."~'In the province of New Brunswick, for example, lectures were delivered by TeleEducation. Education was seen as a lever of economic development. Courses and prograrns could be delivered anywhere in the world over the Intemet. Its director, Rory McGred stated, "We in New Brunswick see education as an industry"'" The promotional reading material for me Canadian Edrtcation Industry Summit held in Toronto in September 1997 indicates the profits to be made in this industry: The North Arnerican education industry is currently a S700 billion industry. There are investors eager to commit significant capital to the for-profit segment of this industry. The educational index (a portfolio of 30 US education stocks) grew by 75 per cent in 1995 and was up 35 per cent in 1996. Education wmpanies are currently trading at very high multiples. Clearly, the education industry has arrived."

Accordinp to Gutstein, the goal of the New Brunswick Ministry of Advanced Education and Labour and TeieEducation is to have "10,000 students taking on-line courses by the year 2000."~~One of the institutions offering online courses to midents is Scholars.com. It received most of its initial financing fiom the New Brunswick govemment. Scholars.com is a "subsidiary of CBT Systems, the worid's largest developer of seKpaced training in information technology. CBT is based in Men10 Park, California, and the parent company's head office is in Dublin, Ireland. Scholars.com specializes in soAware training, and offers Microsofl (and a few Novell) training courses to prepare stuclents to write certification exams. It is nothing more than a private training institute, of which there are thousands in Canada. Such institutes Iiillil a valuable fiinction for a narrowly dehed purpose. The Merence here is that because Scholars.com is on-line, it is sanctioned and promoted by TeleCampus and the ministry of advanced éducation. And it provides one more link between the McKenna govemment and MicrosoA.'* In 1995, MicrosoA used New Brunswick as its test site for its Windows 95 and Microsofi Network products: Al1 public schools in the province were tied into the Microsofi Network when it was launched. Under the Microsofi plan, courses fiom kindergarten to Grade 12 are offierd via computer link-up through a school's computer centre, a library, or at home. After signing on, users become registered students, fketo roam the campus and use its resources, and are charged a fee for courses they take. Microsoft provides the network and some computer training, while the education department approves courses. The network can be expanded to encompass training schools accredited by the New Brunswick govement, such as Scholars.com. Al1 participants, of course, have to use Windows 95.'*

There may be real benefits fiom on-line education technology but there needs to be an arm's-length relationship between private and public education authonties ifthe foxmer is not to exercise absolute power over the latter. Questions regarding the ethical propriety and pedagogical value of corporate gifls and sponsorships should be considered. The benefits, as Gutstein points out, "need to be placed beside the costs of tuming education into a market. With hundreds of partnerships being consummated in dozens of locations in each province, al1 creating content to be usecl intemdly or to be marketed elsewhere, there is a great danger that authonties will lose control of the public education agenda and the setting of cornmon curric~lum."'~'His concems and questions warrant study: Many teachers worry that the emphasis on computers is corning at the expense of programs in art, physical education, and music, al1 hit by government cutbacks to education. Then there's the concem, expressed by labour leaders and others, that corporate partners will influence the cumcuIum, if even unconsciously. Will a curriculum unit on technology, with BMas a partner, provide the views of technophobes iike Neil Postman and Clifford Stolle? Will ail points of view continue to be presented impartially to students? Will the concept of technologid determinisrn be subjected to cntical study in a Microsoft-sponsored cumculum unit, or will it be presented as fact? Wd1 Microsoft rewrite history?'" in the discussions about Lifelong leaniing and the knowledge economy, hardly any thought has bem directeci to the purposes of education beyond providing skiils industry wants. 1s there no nobler aim that this? Why are we educating Our chiidren?. . . .Information technology might have a role in the vision of education, but not a major one. Face-to-face communication and group interaction are the dominant information networks. How distorted, then, that IBM's worldwide adverîising slogan is 'Solutions for a Small Planet," without acknowledging the problems its products and services are meant to solve. . . .But 'Solutions for a Small Planet' works because it is classic propaganda, confiating society's need to sunive with business's need for profit. lai

Equity and Acccss to Information The new idormation technologies should embrace the concepts of equity and access for al1 and not succumb to corporate ambitions in the drive for private gain. The new information technologies with their commercial arrangements have effected changes in our ability to access information. The marketplace detennines who will receive and who will be excluded fiom the benefits of the information society. Schiller outlines the effkct of this change on Our basic democratic nghts: "Transforming information into a salable good, available only to t hose with the abiiity to pay for it, changes the goal of information access from an egalitarian to a privileged condition. The consequence of this is that the essential underpinning of a democratic order is seriously, if not fataiiy, darnaged. This is the ultimate outcome of cornmercialking information throughout the social sphere."'

No matter the source, some of the relevant data are already available. Despite the ideal potential of the new technologies to create a global, egaütarian community, a virtual world without bamers or divisions, the scene down on the ground is arikingly different. In ways we can appreciate and ways we do not yet fùlly comprehend, the real people in the real worJd are king divided up into the idormation-rich and poor: the 'master minds' and those who are 'kept in the dark.'* l0

The Ministry of Education and Training demonstrated cornmitment to providing opportunities for Ontario's students with equal opportunities to achieve their potential. The Mïnistry recognized in its documents that access to information, information technology and information literacy instruction was findamental to meeting that wmmitment. In 1982, the Ministry's document, "Partners in Action: The School Library Resource Centre in the School Cumculum," created awareness arnong educators of the importance of resource based learning and collaborative partnerships. However, the world of information and learning has changed dramatically, and significant changes must be made in the approach to information technology and information skills instruction if students are to be prepared for success in the future. In 1996, "Information Literacy and Equitable Access: A Framework for Change," an across Ontario for discussion and response. The document called for school boards and schools "to build on the strengths of their school library resource centres as they adapt their information systerns and information skills programs to achieve the goals of education. It provided guidance for the transformation of school resource centres into infocmation centres that, in addition to penorming the traditional hnctions of iibraries, would be the nucleus of a school's information network and the window to the wodd ofinformation beyond.""' There was a belief that siudents should be given the knowledge, skills and values they needed to become lifelong leamers who would be capable of responding wnstructively not only to conditions we can foresee, but to those we cannot yet imagine. Three fundamental goals and objectives embraced in the document were: Our cornmitment to equity is crucial as we become an information society. To thrive in a world of constant change and to succeed in an economy increasingly based on information, students must be information literate; that is, they must be able to find, critically examine and use information to solve problems as they continue their studies, as they work and change careers, and as they strive to achieve satisfaction in their personal lives.

If al1 students are to have equal opportunities to participate and succeed in tornorrow's world, educators must ensure that they have access to information technology, information skills, instruction and a wide range of information. Equitable access is fundamentai to achieving the goals and expectations of our education system. In particular, information literacy is the key to helping students become lifelong lea.rner~.~~*

The social and political reality is very different. A new technocratie elite has been created. The OISENT Survey replicates Statistics Canada's finding that youth nom duent homes are twice as likely to be cornputer literate as those from economicaily depressed famüies."' Livingstone points out that the Royal Commission on Learning conveniently ignores the "fact t hat the demonstration school projects to which pnvate corporations have devoted thernselves have typically been in affluent suburban areas. It is not just coincidental that Apple selected River Oaks in Oakville, historically one of the richest census areas in the country, for its major project ."'lA He argues that the intent here "appears to be the numiring of a technological elite in a largely middle-class comrnunity, with lucrative spinoff profits to boot. Class affhities and cost-benefit calculus make it unlikely that many private corporations will offer comparable support to such projects in Our inner-city areas, such as Regent Park or the Jane-Finch Aess to information as a human nght is distant. In order to survive as active and participating members of Society, women need to understand the opportunities the new communication technologies can provide. Women can significantly contribute to the content, design, and usability, guiding and directhg how the technologies evolve and develop so as to be included in the content, organization and processes. To ensure that they have a voice in the Information Age, women need to becorne involved in this decision-making process. Cornputers are the site of "wealth, power and influence," new communities are being formed and new human values are being forged. Women cannot afFord to be margindised or excluded fiom this new medium-to do so will be to nsk becoming the information p~or."~Perhaps, most importantly, women wiii have neither the infonnation nor the language to offer a critical voice. Women repeatedly remark that they "feel" something is profoundly wrong-the chasm between rich and poor, the lack of hope among the Young, the hunger and despair of the old. Yet we have been "carettlly taught" to devalue such intuitive ponderings and many of feel ill-equipped not only with gadgetry itself but with the actual language of cyberspace to voice our concerns. Unless there is a greater presence of women on-line, women will become increasingly information-poor-our most recent fom of disenfianchisement. Ellen Balka maintains that for women to reahe equity in cyberspace, they will "need to apply the Uisights gained fiom years of productive organizing, and that at the sarne the investigate the social biases of technological systems that, lefi unconsidered, threaten to create cornputer networking systems which reproduce rather than challenge the power relations charactenstic of western capitalist so~ieties.""~Some steps are being taken toward equity, Canadian public policy statements on universal access to the information infiastructure are outlined in the document "Building the Info~nationSociety: Moving Canada into the 21st Centuxy.""' This document should ensure the nghts of ail Canadians to participate fully in the emerging information society and it should dlow us to address the differences in knowledge of, access to and use of new technologies within society. While universality of access is being discussed and computers and related telecornmunications appear to have the potential to change society and revolutionize teaching and leaming in the most positive and exciting ways imaginable, the actuality is put in question by the Canadian Teachers' Federation: Much has been written about the promise inherent in this technology and its potential to enhance educational processes. However, the filfilment of this promise will lie in how the unique needs of the educational environment are met as policy objectives are implemented. The imrnediate and ovemding concem of the education community is the potential for this technology to widen rather than narrow the gap between advantaged and disadvmtaged environments in schools and in communities. These concems are based on the realities of infiastructure in place in schools and communities today, and the need for education to provide an environment in which al1 participants are given an equai opportunity to succeed."'

Our transition to an information society and a knowledge economy will require not only a concerted action by al1 levels of govermnent, but also the private sector and social institutions. Ai1 parties wiU have to rnake a cornmitment to ensure that all humanity' women and men alike, share in the benefits of the information society and the ability to be critical about its applications and implications. As a woman, an educator, a teacher-librarian and a very concerned citizen who believes in equity of access to information, 1 want to be involved in the cyber-society. 1 believe that 1 echo the voice of Spender and her attitude to cyberspace: Given that I have to lemto live with the cyberworld, 1want the best possible outcome that can be realised. This means that I want to be involved-dong with countless others-in the decision-making process of shaping the information infiastructure. 1 want national forums set up, public discussions organised, worhg parties created to determine pnonties. I want some indication that there are plans to use the technology to improve the quality of life for JIhuman beings; 1 don? want to see it used (or rnisused) to enhance the lives of the few at the expense of the many.Im

1 am persuaded that technology is not the answer to this nation's educational problems. The power of technology for educational benefit will come fiom its combination with various educational reforms. Before they can understand the ways in which technology can help them, schools need to be clear about their own mandates. What do students need and deserve that the schools can offer? What principles and philosophies really drive our cumculum and daily practice? When technology is integrated into a broad effort for school reform, and is considered not as the instigator of refonn or a cure-dl but as a set of tools to support specific kinds ûf instruction and intellectual inquiry, then educators, students, parents, and cornrnunities have a powerful combination that may indeed bnng necessary, positive change to this nation's schools. 12' If technology is to be used to maximum advantage in the classroom in the future, it will be necessary for technology and pedagogy to advance together. The unfettered motive for profit is hught with danger. Control over content in the maging information technology by large transnational communications cartels will mean eventual determination by them ofwhat we shall be perrnitted to kn~w.'~Will we have the opportunity to have access to independent free thought considering the aimost absolute power of the multi-nationals who control theuSuper Highways"? High technology is the powemil medium- of-choice for commercial interests to reach students-technology is the method to bypass the system and go directly to students? Corporations have the financial resources to ride the highway into the schools. The development of digital technologies has opened up enormous new vistas for rneasuring and monitoring Uifomtion transactions and for packaghg and repackaging information products. Dale Spender points out why we can not ignore the information highway and must not let it remain in the hands of for-profit corporatio~~s:"The dismissal of the information superhighway by critics of the lefk ignores the fact that it is here to stay and will play a detennining role in the life of every student who graduates in the next millennium. Rather than abandoning the field to narrow corporate interests, it seems imperative to us to articulate how powerful a teaching and leaming medium it can be when aligned with a pedagogy of collaborative critical inquiry."'*' The power to choose and mandate what we view is too significant to be leA to the judgement of the private arrangements made by transnational corporations. Endnotes to Chapter Four

1. Me~es'description of the highway is apt: ''The highway is a webwork of powerfiil (high-capacity) cornputer-communicatio~~~networks capable of bandling everything nom video to voice, text to cornputer data and graphies, interchangeably, interactively, and at lightning speeds. Including private corporate networks, the Intemet, and conventional cable broadcast and cornrnu~cationscarriers now venturing into multimedia, the information highway is becomùig the site of business deals, of money changing hands. It is the place where work is dispatched to new global and local labour markets, where work itself is done and supe~sed,and where value is said to be added. The restructuring associated with it is transfonning the foundations of society and al1 its major institutions, by digitizing them and, increasingly, transforming them into extensions of remote information systems and savice suppliero." Heather Menzies, Whose Brave New World? The Information Hiehwav and the New Economy (Toronto, On.: Between the Lines, 1996) 7.

2. Donald Gutstein, e-con: How the Internet Undermines Democracy (Toronto, On.: Stoddart Publishing Co. Limited, 1999) 9 1.

3. Gutstein 9 1.

4. Gutstein 2.

5. Gutstein 93.

6. Edward S. Hemand Robert W. McChesney, Global Media: The New Missionaries of CorDorate Ca~italism(London, Eng.: Cassell, 1997) 109.

7. Gutstein 82.

8. Menzies 53.

9. Gutstein 3.

10. Gutstein 75.

1 1. Gutstein 86.

12. lnfonnation Highway Advisory Council (IHAC), cited in Manta MOU, ed., Tech Hi&: Globalization and the Future of Canadian Education (Ottawa, On.: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 1997) 19.

1 3. Menzies 54.

14. Menzies 55.

15. IHAC, cited in MOU, 20. 1 6. Jean-Claude Parrot, cited in Moll, 20.

17. Menties 12.

1 8. Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Mono~oly(Boston: Beacon Press, 1997) xi.

19. Bagdikian xviii. . . 20. Heather-jane Robertson, No More Teachers. No More Books: The Cornmeraalization of Canada's Schools (Toronto, On.: McClelland & Stewart Inc., 1998) 167.

2 1 . Gutstein 1 7.

22. Gutstein 2 1.

23. Gutstein 19.

24. Gutstein 19.

25. WC,cited in Gutstein, 18.

26. James Madison, cited in Gutstein, 18.

27. Gutstein 17.

28. Gutstein 4.

29. Vincent Mosco, "Information Policy: The Superhighway Meets the Great White Way," FeIiciter October 1994, 32.

30. John A. Hannigan, cited in Benjamin D. Singer, ed., Communication in Canadian Society (Scarborough, On. : Nelson Canada, 1995) 3 18.

3 1. Hannigan, cited in Singer, ed., 3 18.

32. Leslie Regan Shade, "Being Digital, and Domestically Challenged: A Gendered Perspective on Access," (A discussion paper prepared for "Bridging the Gap", Information Highway Advisory Council--Working Group on Access & Social Impact, Toronto), [Online] htt~:~/schoolnet.carleton.ca~ccwesthesourcJbdini I . html9 March 1995.

3 3. Herman and McChesney 1 12.

34. Frances Williams and Alan Cane, cited in Herrnan and McChesney, 112.

3 5. Frances Williams, cited in Herrnan and McChesney, 112.

3 6. Herman and McChesney 1 13. 37. Gutstein 14.

38. Gutstein 15.

39. Gutstein 12.

40. Gutstein 32.

4 1. Gutstein 14.

42. Gutstein 1 1.

43. D. Kaye Gapen and Lavema M. Saunders, ed., The Vimial Lib-: V~sionsand Realities (Westport: Meckler Corporation, 1993) 5.

44. Gutstein 35.

45. Gutstein 48.

46. Gutstein 49.

47. Gutstein 36.

48. Gutstein 48.

49. Gutstein 53.

50. Gutstein 52.

5 1. Gutstein 3 7.

52. Herbert Schiller, Infomtion Ineaualitv: The Dee~enina- Social Cnsis in America (New York: Routledge, 1996) 35.

53. Schiller 36.

54. Gutstein 38.

55. Gutstein 39.

56. Gutstein 39.

57. Gutstein 40.

58. Gutstein 37.

59. John Berry, cited Schiller, 37.

60. Schiller 37. 61. Schiller 37.

62. Ekos Research Associates, cited in Gutstein, 41.

63. Gutstein 4 1.

64. Gutstein 42.

65. David Suniki, Inventinn the Future (Toronto, On.: Stoddart Pubtishing Co., Limited, 1989) 75.

66. Eric Davis, cited in Dale Spender, Nattering on the Net: Women Power and Cvbers~ace(Toronto, On-: Garamond Press Ltd., 1995) 150.

67. 1 became head of a public secondary school library in the 1970s. Today, 1 teach "information skills" and maintain the overall administration of the library. I have been allocated 190 minutes in the library per day. I am the only tacher-librarian. Mike Hams' 125 min time is used to cover a lunch period and the library technician works in the tibrary during the aftemoon when 1 teach history. There was once a full-time stafFof six: teacher- li brarians, library technicians and secretarial support. (The student enrollment is over 1300 students.)

68. John Dewey, The School and Societv and The Child and the Curriculum (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990) 85.

69. Clifford Stoll, Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thowhts mew York: Doubleday, 1995) 38.

70. Marita Moll, cited in Robertson, 167.

71. Robertson 172.

72. Robertson 173.

73. Robertson 173.

74. Robertson 172.

75. Robertson 174.

76. Robertston 175.

77. Gutstein 2 15.

78. Moll 34.

79. Alison Taylor, cited in Moll, 28.

80. Gutstein 86. 8 1. Gutstein 86.

82. Moll 38.

83. MC,cited in Moll, 22.

84. Moll 36.

85. Taylor, cited in Moll, 25.

86. Robertson 182.

87. John McMurtry, Uneaual Freedoms: The Global Market as an Ethicai Svstem (Toronto, On.: Garamond Press, 1998) 190.

88. McMurtry 187.

89. Gutstein 6.

90. John Polanyi, cited in Gutstein, 164.

9 1. Leslie Millin, cited in Gutstein, 164.

92. Gutstein 165.

93. McMurtry 187.

94. Moll 26.

95. IHAC, cited in MOU 2 1.

96. Rory McGreal, cited in Gutstein, 221.

97. The Canadian Education Industry Summit, cited in Moll, 41.

98. Gutstein 22 1.

99. Gutstein 222.

100. Gutstein 222.

101- Gutstein 226.

102. Gutstein 227.

103. Gutstein 229.

104. Herbert 1. Schiller, Culture. Inc.: The Cornorate Takeover of Public Exmession (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989) 75. 105. Michael Goldhaber, Reinventinn Technoloav. Policies for Demmtic Values (New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986) 64.

106. Goldhaber 7 1.

107. Goldhaber 172.

108. John Ralston Sad, The Unconscious Civilization (Concord, On.: House of Anansi Press, Limited, 1995) 44.

109. Philip Bereano, cited in M. David Ermann, ed. Com~uters.Ethics. & Societv ( New York: Odord University Press, 1990) 279.

1 10. Spender 249.

1 1 1. Ministry of Education and Training, Information Literacv and Eauitable Access: A Framework for Change (1995) 1.

1 12. Information Literacy 5.

113. David W. Livingstone, "The Uses of Cornputer Literacy", Orbit (Toronto, On. : OISE and Nelson, 1995) 39.

114. Livingstone 39.

1 15. Livingstone 39.

1 16. "At the moment, most of the forums in which cyber-poiicy is being made are exclusionary. White, professional, English/American-spealdng males have got the floor and they are focussing primarüy on technological issues-on pomography, property, and privacy problems. It is easier to talk about the latest 'toys' and to defend the concept of 'free speech' for the boys than it is to address the major social and political questions which go with the new technologies; it is the human factor that now demands attention". Dale Spender, "Talking Power and Equality, (Paper presented at the 28th Annual Conference of the International Comrnunity Devclopment Society, Austraiia), [Onlinel http:I/www. scn.orn/i~/çdd~b«lder.htm July 1996.

1 17. Ellen Balka, "Women's Access to Cn-line Discussions About Ferninism," (Memonal University of Newfoundland) [Oniine] hp://m.cosr.or&s~/~dm/~.dimm.fm1996.

118. Federal Government, "Building the Monnation Society: Moving Canada hto the 2 1st Century," [Onlinel htt~://info.ic.c.cdnfo-hiahwadsociee/~art 1 e. htd 1996.

1 19. Canadian Teachers Federation, "Access, Mordability and Universal Service on the Canadian Information Highway," (Response by the CTF to the paper produced by the Information Highway Advisory Council) [Online] htt~://www.dtf- fce.ca/dtfYrestcch/accas.hm 26 Jan. 1995. 120. Spender, Nattennn on the Net, 249.

12 1. Barbara Means and Kerry Olson, "Tomorrow's Schools: Technology and Refonn in Partnership," in Barbara Means, ed. Technolo~vand Education Refom The Reality Behind the Promise (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1994) 220.

122. Spender voiced her concern over this condition: "When there is only a srnail group doing the naming-and white, middle-class males are a minority-it's easy for thern to leave out the views and values of those who aren't members. Even the best-intentioned group that sincerely wanted to set up a gender-neutral sign system, for example, risk leaving out the experiences and understandings that are not known to it. And, of course not dl such groups are weU intentioned: 'Those who rule have the niling ideas', and this is not good news for the ones who are ruled over. It means that we can be manipulateci into 'thinking' what the rulers want us to." Spender, Nattering on the Net, 157.

123. Sumki argues: "If the researchers, writers and reporters are upper-rniddle-class white males, chances are their unconscious social and cultural biases and values will colour the way the report is finally presented. 1 say al1 this not to denigrate the medium, but to point out that there is no such thing as objective reporting. . . .So while we have access to more information than ever in hurnan history, ifloglut, rather than educating and infonning us, can make Me much more complex and difficult. Ifwe are going to take advantage of information, we have to understand the media and their limitations. We need to assess the source of information. We have to believe in Our own ability to judge the pros and cons of controversial issues and to demand access to primary information." Suzuki 122.

124. Spender, Natterinn on the Net, 246. A TENTATIVE CONCLUSION

Authorities have always recognized that to control the public they must control information. The initial possessor of news and ideas has poiitical power-the power to disclose or conceai, to announce some paris and not others, to hold back until opportunistic moments, to predetermine the interpretation of what is revealed. Leaders of democracies no les than medicine men, shamans, kings, and dictators are jeaious of theu power over ideas, as eager to control information as they are to control annies.

Ben Bagdikian

Freedom of thought and expression is dangerous in Oceania, a cold, calculating fùturistic world in George Orwell's novel 1984. The constant monitoring of every action by Big Brother, the control of one's mind by the Ministry of Truth, the oppression and manipulation of the individual and the widespread destruction of our natufal environment are a grim and ever present reality in this novel. The Imer Party's desire to maintain its absolute control over the past and over the rninds of its population enables the Party to annihilate individuality. Freedom of thought and expression is dangerous. It is necessary that the citizens be made to think that deviation fiom orthodox thought and expression enslaves the man who dlows it. Newspeak and doublethink represent the falsity and hypocnsy of a Party with an dl- consuming hunger for dominion over al1 its citizens. Alfred Kazin, a highiy respected liteniry cntic writing for the New York Review of Books, States that Orwell is "puîting forth his protest that the world is being intellectualized by tyrants who are cultural despots. They are attempting to replace the world by ideas. They are in fact deconstructing it, emptying it of evetything that does not lend itself to authority which conceives itselfmonolithically, nothing but consciousness."' Orwell sounds a liberal and rational note of warning for those living perhaps too comfbrtably under the aegis of democracy. In his context, ignorance is not bliss. In this thesis, I have examined the complex evolvement of global media communications cartels characterized by an equally rapid and intense growth of the global marketplace under a neo-liberal paradigm. 1 have attempted to show the extraordinary importance the medialinformational sector possesses. Cornputer technologies and the digital universe have extended the significance of communications systems to a new dimension. Communications systems provide the environment 6om which we denve our ideas, values and expectations and as such should be cherished and their ftee and diverse nature protected. 1 have noted the exclusion of public debate on the implementation of governrnent legislative acts. 1 am convinced that unless we are very carefiil and reclaim our political voice, the decisions made by transnational corporations will determine the course of events in the national and international informational arena. The monopolistic power these corporations exert increasingly leads, as Friedrich Hayek argued in another age and context, '90 the most tyrannical and irresponsible power imaginable."' We face a new tyranny which is unfmered by politicai considerations but is shaped largely by market forces. These forces, in tum, are authotitarian in a manner most reminiscent of Orwell's Oceania. We should ensure that we have "room for the thinker, the disturber and the creator of new forms and ideas. Hdshe must be free to expenment-to fail as well as to succeed."' Our understanding of the cornmunications media will be narrowed if we do not recognize the limitations that power and control have on Our sources of information. Thus, 1cal1 into question the media as the source of information. Without a critical inquiry into the nature of our communications systems, we could easily be lulied into believing that we have a grasp and understanding of events which could scarcely be fiirther tiom the actual dynarnic. This false sense is engendered by those who control Our information sources. Winter capsulizes the significance of a cntical inquiry into the information media. He is persuaded that we must "counteract, the massive brainwashing of the mainstrearn corporate media, in which we are al1 steeped. More broadly, we are in dire need of senous political changes in this country, aimed at representative and dernocratic governrnent; changes which are condantiy asphyxiated by the corporate news media's stranglehold on Democracy's Oxygen: our information, ideas and public debate."' Throughout this thesis, 1 have demonstrated that the commercial mode1 of communications cartels erodes the diverse nature of our communications media and has created an infotainrnent culture that is incompatible with fundamental democratic ideals which centre on freedom to access available information. Commercial expedience seems to have become the most highly regarded political guide and has been successfully vdidated by an education cumculum increasingly under corporate control. One need only refer to the examples of textbook marketing, television in the classroom, the use of Outcornes-Based Education and the move to a Charter school system, to see the pervasive corporate control in our schools. Even where a course of action is ethically and morally right and obviously in the public interest, the business community expects govemment and society to accept compromises and accommodate the market-oriented ideologicd agendas of the transnational corporations who continue to perpetuate their myths and illusions of ewnomic globalization. 1 agree with Saul that this corporate ideology "denies and undermines the legitimacy of the individual as the citizen in a democracy. The particular imbalance of this ideology leads to a worship of self-interest and a de~dof the public good."' 1have attempted to show that the drive to privatize social institutions and commod@ knowledge has tipped the balance of democratic existence to a state unprecedented. The communications technologies are at the seMce of corporate power which has at its disposal the means by which it shapes our world view. They are sustained by cornpliant governments under the rubric of the free market and a neo-liberd global economic system. Corporate marketing or advertising boards provide the instrumentation for organizing and channelling expression. What has happened to the dissenting voice? Perhaps we should ask the myth- makers. "New Agespeak" has replaced "Newspeak and corporations organize Our society as genuine social alternatives are fiequently bypassed. This is cause for great concem. We are in danger when the virtues of the market become our mantra and permeate the national discourse. Genuine education exists for human ends and is in jeopardy when commercial interests begin to shape it. It should encompass the democratic values of "equal respect and decent treatment for each person; as thoroughgoing as possible an equality of opportunity; support for a rich cornmunity life; peaceful and respectfil international relations; a worthy inheritance for future generations, including a sustainable naturai environment."" McMurtry outlines the consequences for education when it is stripped of its resources and succumbs to the demands of the global marketplace: A new form of barbarism enters the gates, one quite as hostile to advanced thought and understanding as any barbarian invasion of the past. As the global market crusade rides through schools and universities cutting and axing, we see that the 'marketplace of ideas' that it is the vocation of education to nurture is being destroyed by the market system itself. The corporate market, whilst claiming the contesthg of ideas as its justification, is structureci to seek out any value or assertion that does not serve it.'

1 have exanined the infiltration of business models, values and curricula into our schools. There are corporate-sounding mission statements, tak of clients and consumers, investment and outcornes. There are efforts to pair schools with corporations in which business leaders act as reviewers for cumc ulum-development cornmittees. As public ftnding continues to be slashed, education becomes more and more wlnerable to special-interest cumcula. Our system of universal education suffers fiom the fallout of ideological orthodoxy: it has become more important to be a consumer than a citizen; more valid to uphold the virtues of individual cornpetitiveness, fiee enterprise and corporate loyalty. To live in liberty with wisdom and compassion is no smail task, but it is the important work of educators and our schools to promote this goai. Robertson States this case clearly: Schools are not pre-employment centers for pre-adults. If this is their onfy purpose, then we might as well turn over Our schools to the private sector, which will be more willing to become the bootcarnps for training the soldiers of the wars of global competition. If we are to help the public resist this paradigm of the work of schools, we need to present a vision that is equally compelling, more thoughtfbl, driven by principles more human-and humane-than survivd of the fittest. We must help Canadians to see children as more than fùture producers and consumers, and to see education as more than a pragmatic 'investment,' or else the future for guiding children in the skills of liberty is very bleak. If public education is to continue to work, this is where we must begin.'

I believe that schools are about ideas. They are about books that should be read; they are about rising above market forces and instilling a larger sense of the world. Schools are about leaniing to live in liberty and have, as Robertson observes: . . .Little in comrnon with consumerism: schools do not preach competition, they do not cut their losses, exploit their advantages or create profitable market niches. Schools do not set out to respond to transitory consumer preferences. Established to meet collective goals and to provide the basis for inforrned adult lives, schools have little in cornmon with the mthlessiy individualistic premïses of consumerism. It is this characteristic that marks schools as wlnerable, for today ifyou are out of the marketplace, you are out of the 100p.~ Commercial ventures into education, such as Channel One and Youth News Network, will cause us to rethink the education process and analyse everything fiom the way children are taught to the ways schools are orgariized and financed. We should be cautious; we should not lose sight of the fact that universal education is an important wmponent of our democratic society. We need to rernind ourselves that education is a public gwd rather than a private enterprise for commercial gain. If society determines to cornmercidke education, schools will have to decide what education benefits for students will be forgone to ensure adequate profit margins and whether students will be denied admission or under-served because their needs are too expensive to meet. Throughout the research and writing of my thesis, 1 have not only heard "the's winged chariot" at my back but have almost become Alice in Wonderland: ". . . and stiU the Queen cned Faster! Faster! and dragged her dong. 'Are we nearly there?' iUice rnanaged to pant out at fast. 'Nearly there?' the Queen repeated. 'Why we passed it ten minutes ago!"'1° As 1 have written, events have overtaken me and, there is a sense in which my thesis is obsolete before the proverbial ink is dry. Nevertheless, 1 have tned, albeit bruithlessly at times, to capture the tenor of of the last two decades. 1 hope this exercise will be helpfùl to research praaitioners-teachers who still wewhere we have come fiom, how we have arrived at the present crisis in education and, as Nice would Say, "which way we ought to go from here" which in turn, depends "a good deal on where we want to get to."" Benefits, such as the value of an institution that embodies sheer respect for human leaming, are not easiiy measured. We have a moral obligation to readdress, reevaluate, reaffirm and strengthen out goals in education. Until we do, there is little guarantee that the next brilliant idea for reforming Our schools fiom within wiil not merely be more wasted effort. However, the "patient" on the casualty list at the moment is the notion of public education itself. Win, lose or draw, the efforts of men like Christopher Whittle are sure to shake the education establishment to its foundations. Its effects will be salutary, however, only if we cm ensure a healthy and vibrant democracy in which genuine options are debated and subjected to public scrutiny. Only then can we protect the policies and seMces which benefit Our students and the larger wrnmunity . Thus, in my wncluding statements, 1challenge you to realize that there is the possibiiity to change the hold that communications cartels presently have on information and even knowledge itself. The informational-cuhuralcondition is too important, too vital, to be Iefl in hands of so few at the expense of so many. McMurtry argues: "Today in the market doctrine ali that exists is conceived of as a servant of corporations cornpeting against one another in the global market to maicimue capital returns. Life has become the instrument of private capital expansion, rather than investors' capital being a means to enable human life. The world of value has been himed upside down."121 believe it is tirne to put it right. Endnotes to Chaptcr Fivc 1. Alfied KaPn, "Not One of Us," The New York Review of Books 14 June 1984, 13-1 8

2. Friedrich Hayek, cited in Gary Teeple, Globalization and the Decline of Social Reform (Toronto, On. : Garamond Press, 1995) 15 1.

3. Knowlton Nash. The Micro~honeWars: A Histow of Trium~hand Betrayal at the CBC (Toronto, On.: McCleUand & Stewart Inc., 1994) 3 18.

4. James Winter, Democraw's Oxyszen: How Cornorations Control the News (Montreal, PQ. : Black Rose Books, 1997) 137.

5. John Rdston Saul, The Unwnscious Civilization (Concord, On.:House of Anansi Press Limited, 1995) 187.

6. Michael Goldhaber, Reinventina TechnoIom. Policies for Democratic Values (New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986) 5.

7. John McMurtry, Uneuual Freedoms: The Global Market as an Ethical Svstem (Toronto, On.: Garamond Press, 1998) 192.

8. Heather-jane Robertson, No More Teachers. No More Books: The Comrnercialization of Canada's Schools (Toronto, On.: McCielland & Stewart Inc., 1998) 33.

9. Robertson 32.

10. Martin Gardner, The Annotated Aice: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Lookina- Glass bv Lewis Carroll (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1995) 89.

1 1. Gardner 36.

12. McMurtry 321. Apptndu A

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The Parent Group Parenting Baby Talk Baby on the Way

This Old House

Sunset

Sunset Garden Guide

The Health Publishing Group Healt h Hip pocrates Coastal Living Weight Watchers

Asiaweek (Asian news -weekly) President (Japanese business monthly)

Dancyu (Japanese cooking)

Wallpaper (U.K.)

American Express Publishing Corporation (partial ownership/rnanagemmt) TraveI & Leisure Food & Wine Your Company Departures SkyGuide

Magazines listed under Wamer Brothers label DC Comics Vert igo Paradox Milestone Mad Magazine

Time Warner - Music Warner Music Group - Recording Labels The Atlantic Group Atlantic Classics Atlantic Jazz Atlantic Nashville Atlantic Theater Big Beat Blackground B reaking Curb Igloo Lava Mesa/Bluemoon Modem 1 43 Rhino Records Elektra Entertainment Group Elektra EastWest Asy lum ElektralSire Warner Brothers Records Warner Brothers Warner Nashville Warner Alliance Warner Resound Warner Sunset Reprise Reprise Nashville Ameri can Recordings Gant Maverick Revolution Qwest Warner Music International WEA Telegram East West ZTT Coalition CGD East West China Continentid DR0 East West Erato Fazer Finlandia Magneoton MCM Nonesuch Teldec Other Recording Interests WamedChappell Music (publishing company) WEA Inc. (sales, distribution and manufacturing) Ivy Hill Corporation (printing and packaging) Warner Special Products

Joint Ventures Columbia House (w/Sony - direct marketing) Music Sound Exchange (w/Sony - direct marketing) Music Choice and Music Choice Europe (w/Sony, EMI, Generd Instrument) Viva (w/Sony, Polygram, EMi - German music video channel) Channel V (w/Sony, EMI, Benelsmann, News Corp.) Heartland Music (50% - direct order of country and gospel music)

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