With summer on its way, Media@McGill celebrates the end of its first academic year. It has been a year of surprises, excitement and often frenetic activity. When we announced the launch of this innovative new programme in this space last October, we said we would scrutinize the media, how they operate, what influences them, and why. We remain convinced that this is an essential undertaking.
In the past year, the world of big media players has further shrunk with news of takeovers and further concentration in both global and domestic media industries. Fascinating new spaces for communication continue to appear in unexpected corners of the Internet, but international copyright regimes are evolving towards greater corporate control, often unbeknownst to the users and creators who should be the first beneficiaries of copyright. Some governments persist in foolhardy but harmful efforts to control the flow of information, while others – more benign but no less harmfully – continue to pull the rug out from under the support systems they once created for public interest media. We are all increasingly counted, monitored and surveilled.
