The Challenge of Maintaining Quebecois Culture

1436 Words3 Pages

The Challenge of Maintaining Quebecois Culture

At first glance through Tremblay's article, "Is Quebec Culture Doomed to Become American?" he proposes that the vulnerable and threatened Quebec province is in danger of a cultural invasion by our Big Brother the United States. He fails to directly answer the question "Is Quebec Culture Doomed to Become American?" According to the statistics presented Quebec is hardly in such a bad state. The data outlined in the article assessed the degree of American influence over Canadian and Quebecois cultural industry and the demand of Quebecois programming by the Francophone people, thus allowing the readers to make their own assumptions about the apparent threat to Quebec's culture. Tremblay also discusses whether Quebecois and Canadian cultural industries - such as "broadcast programming and production and film and video" - should enter the Free Trade Agreement (Culture Network, 1997). Would the entrance open the way to a complete cultural invasion? Or would it enhance Canada's and Quebec's cultural industries by maximizing profits? The main reason for noncompliance with deregulation is the fear that Canadian and especially Quebecois culture would be overtaken by America. Unfortunately, in reality, the more powerful and thriving nation has the upper-hand and may enforce more control. Is the future of Quebec in jeopardy of being swallowed up by the big giant?

Quebec's and Canada's main interest is the promotion and maintenance of their "cultural identity" and their main fear is too much American influence, especially within the media (Tremblay, 1992). In accordance with this need of protection, the Canadian broadcasting policy within the Broadcasting Act of 1991 strictly adheres to th...

... middle of paper ...

...zation of the Global Village: An Examination of the Cultural Imperialism Theory." The Department of Theatre and Communication Arts of Gannon University. Online at: , consulted on February 9, 2004.

Paul ATTALLAH and Leslie Reagan SHADE, ed (2002). Mediascapes: New Patterns in Canadian Communication. Thomson/Nelson.

SCHNEIDER, Howard. (1997). "Canada's Culture War Questioned." The Washington Post Company. Online at: , consulted on February 9, 2004.

TREMBLAY, Gaëtan (1992). "Is Quebec Culture Doomed to Become American?", Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol.17 , nº 2 ["Sense and Nonsense: Perspectives on Cultural Issues"]. Online at , consulted on November 26, 2002.

Open Document