Speakers’ Corner @ Buffer Festival 2016
Does Canada have a distinct cultural identity? For most Canadians over a certain age, this is a loaded question guaranteed to stir up feelings of confusion, frustration and perhaps even some panic! The Canadian identity crisis is a well-documented phenomenon. One quick search on Google Scholar brings a flood of academic articles (1.9 million in fact) examining the source of the deep-seated cultural ennui apparently experienced by so many of us.
For those of us in the Canadian media industry, this issue is even more acute. A distinct cultural identity means (at least in theory) a distinct audience eager to hear its own stories reflected back at it. A distinct cultural identity could also provide a unique selling proposition for the global media stage. The facts are this: Canadian viewership of home-grown media is low, and our international presence, barring certain genres of content, leaves a lot to be desired. Canadians primarily watch American content.
Not a single Canadian show was among the top ten most watched last week. But the way we watch content is changing. And the kind of content that we watch is too. New cultural forms like vlogs, Instagram and Snapchat stories now form a significant part of many of our media diets, but they aren’t being captured by the usual industry measurement tools. Neither is viewing on, ahem…those ‘grey area’ streaming sites.
As an older(ish) millennial who grew up as the Internet came of age, my primary point of reference was television. That’s a large part about how I learned (or didn’t) about Canada in the collective. What about the younger millennials who never existed without a more established web? What do they think about the Canadian identity and Canadian values? With my own doctoral research focussed on digital content creation and setting priorities for the development of this sector — I jumped at the chance of being part of a joint FCAD/ Ontario Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport research project and event that aims to bring millennials together to ponder the future of the Canadian media system through design-thinking.
Enter Buffer Festival, an event celebrating YouTubers. Our team was serendipitously presented with the opportunity to take some of our questions of interest out for a spin. We decided on a ‘Speakers’ Corner’ approach which would provide Buffer attendees a chance to stop by, and have an on-camera chat with us.
We asked four main questions:
- Does Canada have a distinct cultural identity, and if so, what is it?
- What values do you think are important to Canadians?
- Do you watch Canadian content, and if you do, what are you watching, and how do you watch it?
- Is there a Canadian media brand? If there is, do you think it’s representative of the cultural values you believe are important to Canadians?
The responses were fascinating. Our youngest ‘speaker’ was around eight, but most of the 23 we interviewed were young millennials in their late teens, or early twenties. Several were YouTube creators, or those hoping to become creators in the short-term. The common denominator amongst the people we had the pleasure of speaking with was that most of their watching happened online, and more specifically, on YouTube.
To our surprise, a large portion of our speakers believe that Canada does indeed have a distinct cultural identity! They believe it lies in our inclusivity, in our acceptance of difference, of multiculturalism, of sexuality, race, gender and creed. They told us that this is the unique Canadian perspective. And although they believe we do have an identity and important stories to tell, they told us we aren’t doing a good enough job of putting our identity out to where they can see it. So for them, there’s a disconnect between our strong identity and the content we create. It’s not that we don’t have an identity distinct enough to showcase that’s making our media bland, it’s that we hide it in an effort to be more ‘universal’. And as many of our young speakers noted, that often means — more American.
Some told us that although they don’t actively seek out Canadian content on YouTube, they are ecstatic when they find out that a favourite creator hails from above the 49th parallel, and that they’d love to see more. Some told us that they do actively seek out Canadian stories on YouTube but that finding them was a nearly impossible task. The situation is even more frustrating for Canadian YouTube creators seeking out local collaborators, and that’s a significant problem because collaborations are a key way for creators to grow their audiences on the platform. There’s no standard meta tag that Canadian creators use to identify themselves, and YouTube doesn’t seem to make it possible to search for Canadian-only content. And while there was still a small number who carried over the ‘we have no identity’ perspective, it was a much smaller portion than we anticipated.
Many important people in the Canadian media believe that Canada is having a cultural moment. Our politics set us apart from what’s happening in both the US and the UK; our sports teams are winning; artists like Drake and the Weeknd have brought Canadian voices to the global stage.
So how do translate this momentum to the screen world? Good brands are rooted in strong values, so it seems like, at least according to the young people we spoke with, we have the first part of the equation right. Now, how do we use those values to build a strong, cultural media brand?
For one, we need to think outside of the traditional ‘TV’ space. We need to empower our young, digital-first creators by building an infrastructure that allows them to connect and share so that they can create the kind of content that will stand out in the global milieu. We need to make sure that our content is discoverable by all audiences, everywhere, but we also can’t forget the importance of making our content accessible to our citizens who might be looking for their own stories on the web.
The question is — how do we do this when the owners of the platforms we use lie outside of our borders? Is regulation required? Do we enter into partnerships? Make suggestions? Build our own platforms? These are important questions we need to grapple with. There’s a whole federal review devoted to these questions. Whatever we do, we need to make sure that the voices of our digital-native creators and audiences are considered in any ‘solutions’ we put forward.
