The Campaign Against ‘Amerika’: Catalyst for Media Democratization

Authors

  • Robert A. Hackett Robert A. Hackett is professor of communication at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, and co-founder of the (Canadian) Campaign for Democratic Media(www.democraticmedia.ca).

Abstract

This essay recalls an ad hoc protest campaign against Amerika, a television mini-series broadcast by the ABC and CTV networks during the fading years of the Cold War (1987). Depicting a fictional Soviet takeover of the US, the program aroused a storm of controversy in both the US and Canada, where it raised additional issues such as cultural sovereignty. The partners, activities and accomplishments of the protest campaign are described; it changed the program’s discursive context and forced the broadcasters to respond. More enduringly, the campaign prefigured a later wave of democratic media activism by questioning media content, challenging the asymmetrical media-audience relationship, implying a new model of public communication, highlighting the contradictions between media imperatives and social movements, and providing a springboard for specifically media oriented activism.

 

Author Biography

Robert A. Hackett, Robert A. Hackett is professor of communication at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, and co-founder of the (Canadian) Campaign for Democratic Media(www.democraticmedia.ca).

Robert A. Hackett is professor of communication at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, and co-founder of the (Canadian) Campaign for Democratic Media (www.democraticmedia.ca). His most recent publications include Remaking Media: The Struggle to Democratize Public Communication, co-authored with William Carroll (Routledge, 2006); and Democratizing Global Media: One World, Many Struggles, co-edited with Yuezhi Zhao (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005).

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Published

2008-08-15

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Articles