TECHNOLOGY AND ISSUES RELATED TO THE LOCI OF CONTROL OVER MASS COMMUNICATION IN CANADA
This research considers the role of technology in issues related to the loci of control over mass communication in Canada. The loci of control over mass communication are the state, the ownership of communication media, and content producers.
The key issue "surrounding the role of technology is the nature of control that should be exercised over technology." The primary social goal for technology is to assure that the use of technology is "for the benefit of the many rather than the few." Society, thus, must "ensure that sufficient funding is found to monitor technological development thoroughly and create the means, in some cases enact laws, to take into account all members of a society. Without such means we are confronted with significant inequities. We are . . . talking about access to information, a foundation of democracy."
The key issues associated with state control over mass communications are "the nature and degree of state involvement," "the guiding philosophy of state involvement," and "the degree to which mass communication should be used for education." With respect to the nature and degree of state involvement, government is "inclined to participate directly . . . in inverse proportion to their confidence in the capacity of market forces alone to generate benefits for society as a whole."
In both Canada and the United States, communications technology is frequently developed primarily in governmental laboratories or under governmental contract. In each country, this situation arises in part because private industry is often reluctant to pursue research unless a significant payback is projected in the relatively near term, as opposed to Japanese industry which frequently pursues technological research for which a payback is not even expected to begin until some 10 years down the road....