Recasting history : how CBC Television has shaped Canada's past

Author / Creator

MacDonald, Monica, 1965- author

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Online

Physical

Summary

"This book explores Canadian history documentary and docudrama programming on CBC television since its beginnings in 1952. During this fifty-year period, television was a uniquely powerful medium -...

"This book explores Canadian history documentary and docudrama programming on CBC television since its beginnings in 1952. During this fifty-year period, television was a uniquely powerful medium --at once intimate and widely shared, reaching millions of people. CBC was the only Canadian broadcaster to consistently show history programming and has played a unique role in shaping Canadians' perceptions of their history. Analyzing the major works of Canadian history on CBC television over fifty years -- Explorations (1956-63), Images of Canada (1972-76), The National Dream (1974), The Valour and the Horror (1992), and Canada: A People's History (2000-02) -- reveals patterns and developments in content and presentation. As the author argues, these developments were not arbitrary but were impelled by a wide range of external factors: developments in broadcasting policy and regulation in Canada; television industry developments, including competition from a growing American market and for new Canadian broadcasters (such as CTV and Global) for viewers and for advertising revenue; the evolution of television itself, including the standards and financing of production and attention to ratings, technological change, and job creation; and the evolution of journalism and the role of journalists as supposed authorities. This book is both a critique of public history and a political economy of television production. The author has three major findings."--

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