C. Media technology development.
IV. Relevant Cultural and Political Factors.
D. Promotion of Social justice.
This research compares the approach to the regulation of the mass media in Australia and Canada. Areas of interest addressed in this comparison are media ownership, the role of the government, and relevant cultural and political factors.
The loci of control over mass communication are the state, the ownership of communication media, and content producers (Farnsworth, 1994, p. D8). The key issue surrounding the role of media technology is the nature of control that should be exercised over such technology. The primary social goal for media technology is to assure that the use of such technology is for the benefit of the many rather than the few.
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 Australia, 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. In both countries, governmental research in communications technology is typically intended to assure that the country will keep abreast with the rest of the world. Regardless of the motivation for governmental participation in communications technology development, however, the issue of transferring the technology from the public to the private sector mus...