A Reading Spectacle for the Nation: The CBC and 'Canada Reads'

CBC Radio One's "Canada Reads," which aims to select a work of Canadian literature "that all of Canada should read together," was first broadcast as a network special in 2002. This essay undertakes an ideological analysis of the cultural work that "Canada Reads" performs, focussing on the first three series and drawing upon original interviews with the show's producers, listeners, and cultural workers. The authors conceptualize the show as both a mass reading event and a media spectacle that reinforces the "blockbuster culture" of contemporary Canadian literary publishing. They also contend that the model of nation "imagined" by the content of "Canada Reads" is problematically, if predictably, conservative (bilingual and uncritically multicultural); however, the authors position this ideological limitation against the potential for creative resistance produced by the show's multiple modes of delivery. L'emission de CBC Radio One intitulee Canada Reads qui choisit une oeuvre litteraire canadienne « que tout le Canada devrait lire ensemble » a ete diffusee pour la premiere fois lors d'un special du Reseau en 2002. Le present article effectue une analyse ideologique des oeuvres culturelles choisies pour l'emission en mettant l'accent sur les trois premieres series et en se servant d'entrevues originales avec les realisateurs de l'emission, les auditeurs et les agents culturels. Les auteures conceptualisent l'emission comme un evenement de lecture de masse et un spectacle mediatique renforcant la « culture de superproduction » de la publication litteraire canadienne contemporaine. Les auteures avancent que le modele de nation qui est « imagine » par le contenu de l'emission est problematiquement, mais de facon previsible, conservateur (bilingue et aisement multiculturel). Toutefois, les auteures placent cette limite ideologique dans le contexte d'une resistance creatrice possible causee par les divers modes de delivrance de l'emission. "CBC Radio is a great literary patron and sometimes has (quasi-) original ideas." (Richler 2002, RA4) "Ungrateful listeners have criticized the CBC's Canada Reads campaign.... Isn't it somewhat totalitarian to urge everyone in the country to read the same book, even if the book is as good as Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion?" (Gordon 2002, A18) "The jury's choice of an essentially unreadable novel arose partly from the ambiguity of the job. They were not to pick the best book, but the book Canada should read-an opening that gave free rein to CanCult's ingrained nannyism." (Bethune 2003, 52) "Like many One Book pseudo-communities, the CBC also provided the requisite illusion of public participation in the form of a people's ballot... a patronizing top-down process leads us to supposedly morally edifying books that are already quite popular." (Niedzviecki 2002, 16) What cultural work does CBC Radio One's "Canada Reads" perform-and for whom? Does it uphold the symbolic power of the CBC and reinforce its explicit ideological imperatives as a public broadcaster to educate, inform, and represent Canadians? Or, does "Canada Reads" represent a reimagining of CBC Radio's national community and the corporation's role within the field of Canadian culture? The responses quoted above represent the complex, and often conflicting, attitudes articulated by media commentators and arts critics writing for national print publications. These writers alternately question or reinforce the CBC's cultural authority as an arbiter of literary quality, as a promoter of Canadian literature, and as a nation-building institution. Their comments underline the corporation's ideological and structural position within the ruling relations of power' and trouble the CBC's relationship to its audience, in particular to readers of literary fiction. "Canada Reads" is an annual program that first aired in April 2002, and that aims to get Canadians across the country to read the same book: it has been described as an attempt to create a huge trans-Canadian book club. …