The political context surrounding Canadian broadcasting dramatically changed following the election of a conservative government in 1984, and Canada's current broadcasting debate is marked by national and special interest concerns. While an important social aspect of the system is its profoundly undemocratic nature, the constituent elements of a democratic public medium exist. In dealing with the democratization of communications, it is first necessary to clarify the place of communications in democratic public life, then recognize the public character of the media. The Canadian broadcasting experience has contributed its share to obscuring the emancipatory potential of broadcasting, but it also contains the seeds of its own antithesis, and the struggles around it provide many instructive elements of an alternative approach to broadcasting based on a reconstituted public dimension. This public dimension can be fully realized only if a number of critical areas are transformed. From a critical analysis of the Canadian experience and the alternative practices and proposals that have marked it, there emerge some elements of a more coherent, responsive, direct system of public broadcasting. (71 end notes) (CGD)