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.

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

DAVID TARAS holds the Ralph Klein Chair in Media Studies at Mount Royal University. A leading expert in the area of Canadian media policy, he is also the author of several books, including The Newsmakers: The Media’s Influence on Canadian Politics (1990) and Power and Betrayal in the Canadian Media (2001), and co-author of Last Word: Media Coverage of the Supreme Court of Canada (2005).