[gaulois]

I gather nobody attended. Note that the lecture will be posted in early December at previously supplied link location. <br /> <br />I was wondering what were the thoughts at Vive on Public Broadcasting as encountered in Canada in relation to our Canadian Sovereingty and perhaps increased DD. <br /> <br />The apathy encountered amongst the Alberta voters yesterday might be lessened if we had a better public broadcaster. Maybe the Americans Democracy would be in much better shape if Americans were more supportive of their public broadcaster and their officials stopped decimating it. Could the same happen to Canada and what does this say about our Canadian sovereignty?

[4Canada]

gaulois, <br /> <br /> <br /> Since I can remember, there's always been a section of society that has run down our public broadcasters, considering them inferior in some way that I cannot fathom. (Other than the "hollywood glitz" is better attitude maybe?) And since the broadcasters have started to accept this they have tried to Hollywoodize our pbs. CBC has really started to disappoint me and I have always been a huge advocate for them and belong to Friends of Canadian Broadcasting. <br /> <br /> The two major issues I have with CBC is that, No.1, it receives commercial funding which I absolutely do not agree with. I infact resent giving them tax subsidies while they include commercial funds. <br /> No.2 I would like the people of Canada to vote in the CEO and the board. I don't like that the government appoints the CEO. <br /> <br /> I do believe PBS is necessary for keeping the people of a country informed. Right now CPAC seems more reliable than CBC for that purpose. As far as getting people to actually watch the informative programming I have no idea how to do that. If they showed more townhalls or something that actually came to peoples communities and forced them to take part that may bring awareness? <br /> <br /> Using the internet or the telephone has never sat well with my trust-o-meter for DD voting. I just do not trust the people making most of this stuff to be transferring classified or private info across it. I know we could argue that it's out there now and I have no control over it anyway, but that is something I think we need to take back and get it out of the hands of untrustworthy "I want to know so I can control" corporate world. <br /> <br /> I think the largest hurtle we have to get over is the one of apathy. If more people knew what the issues were and how thier lives were being affected by them they hopefully would be making better choices and getting involved. Even the Greatest Canadian series has at least gotten kids involved. Some schools are using the series and the children seem to be interested in participating. Or one other thought that just came to me is maybe people that are too busy to keep informed on the political issues could give someone like me that has no children, yet is very involved, proxy for thier voting rights. If you find someone you trust with your vote let them do it for you? (Has this been tried before and has some horrible name attatched to it?) I don't know the answers?

[gaulois]

The Spry Murdoch's lecture has finally been posted at previously announced location: <br /> <br />http://www.com.umontreal.ca/spry/spry-gm-lec.htm <br /> <br />I will draw your attention to what Murdoch claimed were the Citizen rights in a functional democracy and the related role of the public broadcaster <br /> <br />- Information Rights <br />- Knowledge Rights <br />- Deliberative Rights <br />- Representation Rights <br />- Participation Rights <br /> <br />The public broadcaster would hold the key to these rights with audience participation over the Internet. <br /> <br />My question to Vive members is: do you think it would be useful to improve our Democracy if we could tie public broadcasting commentary&analysis programming to forums such as Vive??? My experience right now is that our public broadcasters (CBC&SRC) have not given us sufficient say on our own public infrastructure. I note that commercial broadcasters&print media are starting to do this but their interests would not be the public. This could also tie into Direct Democracy. <br /> <br />This matter is currently handled by separating the Internet forum from the actual public broadcaster as demonstrated on the serie "CANADA AND THE NEW AMERICAN EMPIRE" and the article review. Is there value in tying these two things together more closely?