Exposing the Digital Gaze: The NFBC and Vernacular Media in Contemporary Canadian Storytelling

John W. Bessai

Abstract


This paper examines the National Film Board of Canada (NFBC) as an institutional enabler of vernacular media in post-millennial Canadian storytelling. Through interactive projects such as Bear 71 and Do Not Track, the NFBC supports grassroots responses to surveillance, ecological precarity, and datafication. These works engage power structures through participatory frameworks grounded in lived experience. The digital gaze anchors this analysis, highlighting how visibility, vulnerability, and civic presence emerge in digital space. Bear 71 stages ecological surveillance as entanglement; Do Not Track exposes algorithmic structures of commodification. Situated within the Canadian aporetic condition—a structural dynamic of cultural multiplicity, institutional contradiction, and plural representation—the NFBC model sustains participatory media ecologies. By aligning storytelling with civic infrastructure, these works advance cultural democracy and foster enduring public engagement. This study informs Canadian Studies, media scholarship, and cultural policy.


Keywords


National Film Board of Canada; vernacular media; digital gaze; participatory storytelling; Canadian aporetic condition; civic media; surveillance culture

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References


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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17951/lsmll.2026.50.1.31-41
Date of publication: 2026-03-04 09:17:40
Date of submission: 2025-06-23 04:16:22


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