Victim of U.S. Media Imperialism or Secondary Imperial Media Power? Canadian Media Conglomerates Go Global

Over the past two decades, Canada's economic and geopolitical power position in the world system has been transformed. While Canada has long been viewed as a dependent and subordinate periphery of the U.S. Empire, recent research suggests that Canada is an active, expansionist and “secondary” imperial power. This re-conceptualization of Canada's economic and geopolitical power in world affairs prompts a rethinking of Canada's cultural power, especially as it relates to the political-economy of Canadian communications media. At present, Canadian media conglomerates exert oligopoly power over Canada's media market; they are also fast expanding their operations in foreign media markets. In light of Canada's transformation into a secondary-imperial power and the globalization of Canadian media corporations, this paper revisits and evaluates the claims of a staple in Canadian and global communication studies, the media imperialism (MI) paradigm. While Canada's state media policy apparatus and media industry have long promulgated the notion that Canada is a victim of media imperialism, this paper seeks to re-conceptualize Canada as a secondary imperial media power that is engaged in “asymmetrically interdependent” power relations of capitalist competition and collaboration with the U.S. and other countries. To this end, the paper's first section reviews the rise, fall and renewal of the MI paradigm in political economy of communication research. The second section evaluates the claims of the MI paradigm with reference to the 21st century U.S. and Canadian TV industries and trade relationships between them. The third section examines the global growth of Canadian media firms and the Canadian state's facilitation and legitimization of Canadian media capital in the U.S. and in countries in the European Union, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. I argue that the U.S. remains the world system's central imperial media power, especially in relation to Canada, but Canada may now be acting as a sub-imperial media power in many other countries. The national and global media policy implications of this paper's findings are taken up in the conclusion