• Theresa Fritz.  Metroland Media’s Managing Editor until January 2018.
• Glen Gower, a communications and marketing professional,  owner/editor of StittsvilleCentral.ca, an independent news and information source for the Stittsville area.
• Anita Murray, a career journalist with more than 25 years as an editor and writer at the Ottawa Citizen.
• Patrick Langston.  a freelance writer at the Ottawa Citizen for 17 years.

• Czeslaw Piasta, editor, online newspaper Komunikaty Ottawskie
• Myka Burk, host/producer award-winning/Peabody nominated German show on CHIN radio, and feature writer, Ottawa Life magazine
• Jagjeet Sharma, co-host of Asian Sounds, CKCU radio; and
• Waclaw Kujbida, producer of the Rogers television program, Polish Review.

Taking a broad and long-term view of the communications and media landscape, ever more internet- and mobile wireless-centric, the research highlights which media sectors are growing, which stagnating, those that are in decline, and some - the music industry, in particular - that are recovering after being dealt punishing blows over the past two decades. Winseck will highlight which parts of the media have seen concentration levels rise and where they have fallen. His talk will also hone in on the stature of the digital goliaths such as Google and Facebook, which were estimated to account for nearly three-quarters of the $5.6 billion in internet advertising revenue in 2016.

At the same time, however, he will ague that the scale and scope of their dominance has been exaggerated, and do so by highlighting the unique features that set Canada apart from its international peers: Sky-high levels of vertical integration in which all the main commercial TV services are owned by mobile phone operators and internet access service providers (ISPs). Moreover, unlike in the United States, Europe and elsewhere, where stand-alone mobile operators like T-Mobile, Sprint, 3, Vodafone, and so on battle their “wired” rivals, in Canada the biggest companies’ - ie Bell, Rogers, Telus, Quebecor and Shaw - control the ‘wired internet’, mobile wireless networks, and cable television distribution. This is called diagonal integration.

These realities, Winseck argues, subordinate television, journalism and the other media forms to telephone companies that know little about the media and cultural industries. They also bring about the high cost of internet and mobile wireless services, and low data caps, all of which constrain who gets to communicate what to whom under what terms. They also skew the policy and regulatory arena around the dynamics of ‘noblesse oblige’ politics whereby the main media and journalistic associations and unions sidle up to the biggest players in the hope that, by playing nice, the telecom giants will treat them well - which has thus far proven to be a grave mistake, with lay-offs galore and media workers’ loss of control over their work and working conditions.

This “closed system” mentally also puts media unions and professional associations on the wrong side of citizens’ interests when it comes to values like net neutrality - where Canada distinguishes itself with something of the ”gold standard” in the world - as they join forces with the companies to advocate for policy tools that would gut net neutrality, keep data caps low, and usher in website blocking schemes that pose threats to the rule-of-law, free expression and privacy values, and the principles upon which democracy in Canada has been built. Crucially, such advocacy also distracts our attention away from what could be done to improve the state of journalism and media.

Journalists, policy-wonks, lawyers, academics, students, and citizens in general who find such issues fascinating will find this event of interest, with lots to ponder and debate.