Digital Mosaic

In Digital Mosaic, David Taras achieves what no one else has even tried: he makes coherent sense of the massive and ongoing upheavals in journalism and Canada's media industries, the rise of social media, and how all these changes have fractured longstanding links to citizenship, culture, privacy, national identity, public policy, and democracy. Taras masterfully explains how it has all happened, raises concerns about the directions these changes are leading us in, and calls on Canadians and their governments to be active and creative in their responses. It's clich to say it should be required reading for all, but it should be. -- Christopher Waddell, Carleton University Rich in detail and written in an engaging style, Digital Mosaic is a timely and thoroughly researched look at what changes in the local, national, and global mediascape mean for Canadians. -- Patrick McCurdy, University of Ottawa David Taras provides his readers with a deeply researched account of how changes, evolutions, and revolutions in communication practices impact our daily lives and citizenship, for better or for worse. Drawing on the Canadian experience, and often comparing it with other national contexts, Digital Mosaic is a thought-provoking essay that anyone interested in political communication should read. -- Thierry Giasson, Universite Laval

In Digital Mosaic, David Taras both embraces and challenges new media by arguing that coinciding crises bring exciting opportunities as well as considerable dangers to democratic life and citizen engagement in Canada.

Digital Media has transformed the way Canadians socialize and interact, conduct business, experience culture, fight political battles, and acquire knowledge. Traditional media, including newspapers and conventional TV networks, remain the primary link to Canada's political sphere but are under concerted attack. YouTube, blogs, online broadcasting, Facebook, and Twitter have opened new and exciting avenues of expression but offer little of the same "nation-building glue" as traditional media. Consequently, Canada is experiencing a number of overlapping crises simultaneously: a crisis in news and journalism, threats to the survival of the media system as a whole, and a decline in citizen engagement.

In Digital Mosaic, David Taras both embraces and challenges new media by arguing that these coinciding crises bring exciting opportunities as well as considerable dangers to democratic life and citizen engagement in Canada.