I'll just take your word on Canadaland's selective editing of the interview. I listened to the original and Jesse's voice irritates me almost as much as it must irritate you. Still, full props for doing the "interview" in the first place and going in guns blazing right from the start.
Jun 7, 2022·edited Jun 7, 2022Liked by Terry Glavin
Just a comment on the Lib government as a troll farm using media to "rile up an increasingly hard-left base" (Jerema) and to goad Conservative responses.
While I recognize as a government, rather than just a political party, there is a responsibility to govern, I wonder if it would not be more accurate to say that politics has become a landscape of troll farmers. So while Trudeau Libs seek to stir the pot on their own behalf, how, for example, have they contributed to the Cons apparent 400,000 membership drive at the same time? And is Poilievre not trying to become the troll farmer-in-chief? Would a Poilievre government cancel his Twitter account? Or play the game just as hard, if not harder?
So while I share the lament over troll farming as political discourse, is it simply an effect of instantaneous communication and the ascendancy of media management in the process of policy development and managing the relationship between government and public?
In other words, in our contemporary democracy, does trolling work? Especially, for low-info voters? Ford's PC's get a big majority with very low voter turn out and seemingly very low public attention. Is trolling simply a reflection of the misinfo/disinfo strategies which contemporary media makes so easy? What's the alternative to trolling low-info voters in the McLuhanesque global village?
Very wise observations. "Would a Poilievre government cancel his Twitter account?" Highly doubt it. "Or play the game just as hard, if not harder?" I think he already does. He's just not as good at it as Trudeau. Not even close. "Is trolling simply a reflection of the misinfo/disinfo strategies which contemporary media makes so easy?" Pretty much, yes. "What's the alternative to trolling low-info voters in the McLuhanesque global village?" Hard to say, but this is very good. Of course I would say that. I was on the jury that gave him the Shaughnessy Cohen prize. https://quillandquire.com/review/enlightenment-2-0-restoring-sanity-to-our-politics-our-economy-and-our-lives/
Of course, long reads like yours are an antidote. And Substack may be an antidote to thinning news rooms. But to have wider influence I suspect rather than just using the media tools as offered, we may need to be more creative and collectively purposeful with them. Something I think about, but offer no quick fixes. Clearly Substack attracts higher-info readers, the paywall offers a modest barrier to trolls, but could it offer better organizing tools, for example? Just a thought.
I suppose it could offer "better organizing tools," but I'm only now just figuring out how to use the ones that are there. I don't use the paywall to deter trolls, although it does work that way. I offer paying subs because, as Samuel Johnson said, 'No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money,' which isn't exactly true, and certainly isn't in my case, but without paying subscribers I would not be doing this. I haven't left "the MSM" to strike out on my own with a Substack. I write a weekly column for the Ottawa Citizen and the National Post, and routinely take on projects for them or file twice a week on some breaking issue. These days I'm not writing for Macleans because the magazine is (how to put this delicately) undergoing an, er, interregnum, which has involved the loss of several fine staff writers and editors. The point of Substack is in its masthead: All the news I couldn't fit into print. I launched it only three months ago - no business plan, threw the thing together with the first post in a day - and it's trundling along well. Not especially profitable, but I'm not in the poorhouse either.
I'll just take your word on Canadaland's selective editing of the interview. I listened to the original and Jesse's voice irritates me almost as much as it must irritate you. Still, full props for doing the "interview" in the first place and going in guns blazing right from the start.
Just a comment on the Lib government as a troll farm using media to "rile up an increasingly hard-left base" (Jerema) and to goad Conservative responses.
While I recognize as a government, rather than just a political party, there is a responsibility to govern, I wonder if it would not be more accurate to say that politics has become a landscape of troll farmers. So while Trudeau Libs seek to stir the pot on their own behalf, how, for example, have they contributed to the Cons apparent 400,000 membership drive at the same time? And is Poilievre not trying to become the troll farmer-in-chief? Would a Poilievre government cancel his Twitter account? Or play the game just as hard, if not harder?
So while I share the lament over troll farming as political discourse, is it simply an effect of instantaneous communication and the ascendancy of media management in the process of policy development and managing the relationship between government and public?
In other words, in our contemporary democracy, does trolling work? Especially, for low-info voters? Ford's PC's get a big majority with very low voter turn out and seemingly very low public attention. Is trolling simply a reflection of the misinfo/disinfo strategies which contemporary media makes so easy? What's the alternative to trolling low-info voters in the McLuhanesque global village?
Very wise observations. "Would a Poilievre government cancel his Twitter account?" Highly doubt it. "Or play the game just as hard, if not harder?" I think he already does. He's just not as good at it as Trudeau. Not even close. "Is trolling simply a reflection of the misinfo/disinfo strategies which contemporary media makes so easy?" Pretty much, yes. "What's the alternative to trolling low-info voters in the McLuhanesque global village?" Hard to say, but this is very good. Of course I would say that. I was on the jury that gave him the Shaughnessy Cohen prize. https://quillandquire.com/review/enlightenment-2-0-restoring-sanity-to-our-politics-our-economy-and-our-lives/
Of course, long reads like yours are an antidote. And Substack may be an antidote to thinning news rooms. But to have wider influence I suspect rather than just using the media tools as offered, we may need to be more creative and collectively purposeful with them. Something I think about, but offer no quick fixes. Clearly Substack attracts higher-info readers, the paywall offers a modest barrier to trolls, but could it offer better organizing tools, for example? Just a thought.
I suppose it could offer "better organizing tools," but I'm only now just figuring out how to use the ones that are there. I don't use the paywall to deter trolls, although it does work that way. I offer paying subs because, as Samuel Johnson said, 'No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money,' which isn't exactly true, and certainly isn't in my case, but without paying subscribers I would not be doing this. I haven't left "the MSM" to strike out on my own with a Substack. I write a weekly column for the Ottawa Citizen and the National Post, and routinely take on projects for them or file twice a week on some breaking issue. These days I'm not writing for Macleans because the magazine is (how to put this delicately) undergoing an, er, interregnum, which has involved the loss of several fine staff writers and editors. The point of Substack is in its masthead: All the news I couldn't fit into print. I launched it only three months ago - no business plan, threw the thing together with the first post in a day - and it's trundling along well. Not especially profitable, but I'm not in the poorhouse either.