Abstract

In this thesis we aim to develop an account of the salient events and circumstances within which the medium of television in the form of the Radio-Canada television network in Quebec developed as a significant social institution and cultural form during the first decade of its existence. Concomitantly, we want to develop an account of television as an embodiment and carrier of capitalist modernity in Quebec, a modernity in which the cultural, political, public and domestic spheres were restructured to meet the demands and needs of the post-war era. Within this larger framework we shall examine the relationship between media and modernity in the first instance, and television's contribution to the democratization of public life and the reformulation of national culture and identity in the second. At the same time, we shall examine institutional developments within Radio-Canada television as well as the conditions that permitted the public broadcaster to create a distinctive and popular television culture.