The development of Canadian broadcast policy and law respecting "content balance'' (and corollary notions of public "access and reply'' entitlements, "abusive speech,'' and "controversial issues of public importance'') exhibits significant definitional vagueness and discontinuity. The authors summarize the history of policy making in the area, and provide two case studies: one of religious television broadcasting, one of community radio broadcasting. These materials lead them to reject the notion of content balance as an element of regulatory terminology. Résumé: L'évolution des politiques canadiennes en matière de radiodiffusion et celle des règlements concernant les "représentations équilibrées'' (de même que des notions corollaires comme les droits d'accès et de réplique du public, le langage abusif et les sujets controversés d'intérêt public) témoigne d'un manque flagrant de précision et de continuité. Les auteurs résument l'histoire des politiques sur ces sujets et abordent également deux études de cas: l'un portant sur les émissions religieuses, l'autre sur les radios communautaires. Ces cas les amènent à conclure que la notion de représentation équilibrée ne constitue pas une composante de la terminologie de réglementation.

No abstract

This item has no abstract.

Ten years after the emergence of the World Wide Web, the implications of new digital technologies for the news and public information function of the media are still a topic of vigorous debate. This paper, which is merely a preliminary report on an unfinished review of the literature pre-dating that event, revisits some of the critical analyses that had been articulated about the new digital media when the Web emerged. The intent of this larger, not-yet-completed project is to evaluate some major tendencies, already mapped a decade ago by research in the political economy of telecommunication, against the actual outcomes of the intervening decade of development and use of the new digital technologies of information and communication. Where the early predictions are confirmed, this re-evaluation may provide a simple means to distinguish persistent structural distortions in the public information environment from transitory or local effects, superficial influences, and alarmist predictions. Where the early results are refuted or less clearly confirmed, it may provide insight into the limits of political-economic methods of analysis.