This article examines the relationship between cultural identity and televisual representations of global and local community formations through a case study of television production in Vancouver, Canada. As part of a larger economic and political project to establish Vancouver as a global city, the provincial government sought to attract runaway Hollywood production and establish Vancouver as a global media center. This integration into the American production system has, according to some scholars, led to the development of a local television industry that erases the sociocultural specificity of the lived place of Vancouver in a manner contrary to the nation-building goals of Canadian broadcasting policies. Drawing on archival research and interviews with television producers, this case study illustrates the contradictions in global media practices and finds that often the most local, and overlooked, community media outlets are best able to reflect the sociocultural specificities of life in the globalizing metropolis.
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