State celebrity, institutional charisma and the public sphere: managing scandal at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Abstract

This article investigates the rise and scandalous fall of celebrity host Jian Ghomeshi within the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). We draw upon Althusser’s conception of the Ideological State Apparatus to analyse how the CBC made use of Jian Ghomeshi as a state celebrity to ‘hail’ the audience/citizen and contribute to the CBC’s ‘institutional charisma’. The discussion also demonstrates the dependence of the CBC on types of legitimate authority in its efforts to manage the scandal and invoke its cultural and moral authority in the Canadian national–cultural context. We demonstrate that the CBC made use of its status as a rational–legal employer and as a moral guardian of the public sphere to compartmentalize itself against scandal and retrench as a public institution.

Without a Paddle: Schitt’s Creek, CBC, and the Return to Community and Family in Uncertain Times

“…Peter Mansbridge's recent retirement left a gaping hole in CBC's primetime line-up. And the Ghomeshi scandal of 2014-2015, as well as the CBC's handling of the case, tainted the image of the supposedly benevolent public broadcaster (Cormack & Cosgrave, 2016). Finally, as discussed earlier, the loss of two popular "dragons" to the U.S. show Shark Tank exposed the limits of CBC's appeal to some of their most valuable stars.…”

“…In the years since then, several "regional" comedy hits have emerged that have proven, despite their specific geographic positionality in Canada, to have appeal abroad (Corner Gas on CTV, Trailer Park Boys on Showcase, and Little Mosque on the Prairie on CBC), thus challenging the de-Canadianization model that shaped much production policy in the 1990s. Furthermore, during the early 2000s, the CBC "Canadianized" its brand (Bociurkiw, 2011, p. 36), as signified by the introduction of the word "Canada" into its slogans (e.g., "Canada's Own," 2001-2007, and "Canada Lives Here," 2007 and its expanded use of what Cormack and Cosgrave (2014) call "state celebrity": that is, CBC personalities who appear across CBC programming as ideal citizens and representatives of both the "nation" and the public broadcaster itself (see also Cormack & Cosgrave, 2016). This kind of stardom, as will be discussed further, serves as a significant contrast against the stardom of both Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara, whose fame is neither sutured to the CBC, nor contained within the (imagined) borders of the Canadian nation-state.…”