What Canadians can learn from X

Media, Marshall McLuhan, and the truth

Marshall McLuhan

I haven’t been publishing as much lately. This does not mean I’m getting lazy. It simply means my most recent research rabbit holes have been particularly deep. The work I have been doing on the Israel file over the last few months has led to some strange and fascinating places. I will be publishing soon a new long-form essay that focuses on the British Mandate period in Palestine. This will be the follow up essay to my piece The Case for Israel. One of the sources I’m using is a book published in 1938 by William B. Ziff called the Rape of Palestine. It is a detailed account of the disaster of Mandatory Palestine, and of the antisemitic corruption on the part of far too many British officers who essentially failed to mandate the mandate. Yesterday I went on the Richard Syrett Show on Sauga 960 AM to talk about it. Here is a clip - Jan 15 - James Pew.mp3 - Google Drive

What Canadians can learn from X

By

James Pew

When you really think about it, this is the best time in the history of Canada to be a journalist. I say this simply because almost all Canadian mainstream reporters hold their privileged  positions for reasons other than their investigative abilities. It was Marshall McLuhan who mused in the 1960s that reporters, news anchors, TV personalities and media types are selected for their roles based on the type of “every man” (or “every woman”) charisma they possess. They must be friendly and attractive. They must be “cool” likeable characters that act like a lot of other people do. According to McLuhan, this stands in stark contrast to the “hot” characters that work well in the cinema. Television and radio media personalities must be much more like “Everyone Loves Raymond,” and much less like the revenge seeking John Wick.

Raymond, of course, is the “cool,” friendly, social, likeable guy, with a non-threatening everyman charisma, while John Wick, is a “hot,” volatile, unfriendly, quick to violence lone wolf. McLuhan’s theory involved distinguishing between hot and cool media, and the characters that work within these disparate “temperatures.” Hot media is high definition and intense. It leaves little to the imagination. In a hot medium, like a cinematic film or novel, there is little for the audience to do to complete the already high information message/image, unlike cool media where the audience members are meant to play a role in completing the image/message being presented. Playing a role, meant playing along. It meant you were in on the joke. The laugh track during Everyone Loves Raymond is an audible cue that enforces the cool everyman likeability of Raymond, and the community of participation inspired by the lame, unchallenging comedic situations Raymond finds himself in.

When I listen to media types on the radio (AM radio) or watch clips of mainstream news anchors, I almost always think about this aspect of McLuhan’s theory. Why are these friendly, even-keeled, good looking people, who avoid at all costs anything that approaches rocking the boat, overwhelmingly selected to be the arbiters of communications concerning news and current events? Why does the world need to be constantly explained through the kid gloves and sickeningly shallow likeability of the Raymond types? Is it to give the impression that sitting on the fence of “no convictions,” is somehow more preferable, more acceptable and likeable, than picking a side, jumping down, rooting firmly, and arguing convincingly why this particular side is the better, more moral choice? 

Why all the equivocations? Why the relentless campaign to be accepted and loved via self-imposed limits on personality? Are these people really so boringly likeable and vanilla? Were they born with no edge, or have they smoothed and rounded over all the jagged bits of their dispositions in order to mold themselves into the acceptable image of everyman charisma that the Canadian public has come to expect from its media? 

I have for a long time believed that media manipulation is driven mostly through the selection process of media personalities. You don’t need to hire people who are willing to openly lie and mislead, instead, reporters and news anchors are selected on the basis of a quality that many friendly people possess where they constantly maneuver and avoid upsetting other people by framing issues and events, by either dissimulating about them, or in a way that softens their impact. They are less concerned with getting things right, or getting to the truth, and far more concerned with how the audience might feel, and how and what to tell them so they remain part of the complacent and adoring masses.

Social media, especially platforms like X, seem to be immune from what I have so far described. This means that truly informed Canadians are those who don’t buy what the friendly, good looking, charismatic, but plastic, media personalities are selling. I read a thought-provoking X post a couple months ago (I can’t remember from whom) where it was explained that X is like a crystal ball capable of seeing into the future. What is part of the X discourse today, will most likely not be part of the mainstream discourse, at least not for a few months (give or take).

Anti-woke types were posting critically of gender wang, anti-racism, and critical theory, long before any criticism appeared in the mainstream. The unmarked graves story is an even better example. Regarding this, I refer the reader to the new book, Grave Error (I wrote chapter 7!), which covers the facts and evidence and pokes enormous holes in the mainstream narrative.

For the most part, the mainstream still talks about unmarked graves of indigenous children and supports various Social Justice programs and theories which are being uploaded into the minds of children through the public education system. Parents, many of whom were informed and found each other through social media, have coalesced into a nationwide parents right movement that specifically rejects the nice words spoken by attractive friendly news anchors concerning the encroachment and acceptability of anti-science, illiberal Social Justice theory and ahistoricism.

Canadians who complain about X being chaotic, negative, or full of hate, and who for those reasons, avoid the platform, must realize that they are avoiding one of the only places where real people discuss real issues, without the obfuscation and/or misdirection of charismatic mainstream media influencers. While it may be true that X is full of cynical trolls, it is also full of independent journalists and truth-seekers who generate the type of opinion and analysis not found anywhere within mainstream circles.

You don’t need to participate on X. You don’t need to post anything. You don’t even need to follow that many people. You can follow a handful of independent journalists, and there is no need to ever interact with them or anyone else on the platform. I absolutely do not recommend becoming an X junkie. Social media can be an addictive waste of time that can distract you away from what is important. However, social media also contains discussion today around what will become bigger issues tomorrow. The mainstream is not capable or interested in doing what X does. When people are informed about current events, or learn about the world exclusively through mainstream sources, it is immediately apparent to anyone who stretches out beyond those sources. 

The new media environment is not like the one our parents grew up in. New levels of media literacy and sophistication concerning public sense-making are vital to navigate this modern situation. Social media, for better or for worse, has become an important component to understanding.

Please leave in the comments section the names and X profiles of the independent journalists you follow.  And, follow me on X.

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Thanks for reading. For more from this author, read Canada's police are not helping.

BREAKING NEWS: James Pew has contributed a chapter to the new book Grave Error: How The Media Misled us (And the Truth about Residential Schools). You can read about it here - The Rise of Independent Canadian Researchers

Also, for more evidence of the ideological indoctrination in Canadian education, read Yes, schools are indoctrinating kids! And also, Yes, The University is an Indoctrination Camp!

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