Ethnic Media under a Multicultural Policy: The Case of the Korean Media in British Columbia

Vancouver is not only the second most diverse city in Canada, but it is also the site of major ethnic specialty services. It is home to one of the four multilingual television stations in Canada and more than one hundred ethnic media outlets. Together they serve approximately twenty-three language groups. Among British Columbia’s top three “mother tongue and home language” groups —Chinese, Punjabi, and Korean — the Korean community offers the largest number of media services. There are nearly thirty outlets for approximately thirty thousand people of Korean origin. That proportion becomes even more impressive when one considers that more than three hundred thousand people of Chinese origin rely on a similar number of outlets. What is the driving force behind this growth? With the increasing demographic changes within the Korean community, mainly as a result of the Business Immigration Programme enacted in 1986, the Korean media have become new business ventures to serve demographically diverse consumers. The intensified competition, however, limits what may be called “social responsibility” on the part of the media. The lack of financial and human capital in the media market further leads to reliance on homebound news and limits a balanced information feed. A hollow in national and provincial civic space and the subsequent development of a skewed sense of belonging to “home,” rather than “here,” has an impact on the formation of a functioning cultural citizenship. Vancouver n’est pas seulement la deuxième ville la plus diverse au Canada, mais c’est aussi le centre des principaux services ethniquement spécialisés. Elle abrite une des quatre stations de télévision multilingues du pays et plus d’une centaine de fournisseurs de médias ethniques. À eux tous, ils desservent environ trente-trois groupes linguistiques. Parmi les trois plus importants «de langue maternelle et d’usage familial» en Colombie britannique — chinois, punjabi et coréen — la communauté coréenne offre le plus grand nombre de services médiatiques. Ils sont près de trois cents à desservir une trentaine de milliers de personnes d’origine coréenne. Cette proportion est d’autant plus impressive si on considère qu’il y en a à peu près le même nombre pour trois cent mille chinois de souche. Que pourrait être le moteur de cette augmentation? Les changements démographiques à la hausse de la communauté coréenne, dus principalement au Programme d’immigration de gens d’affaires en vigueur depuis 1986,