Blog Post 5: "Freedom" Convoy and McLuhan Keenan

 

Hi everyone,

The so-called "freedom convoy" may have outwardly projected ideology around freedom of bodily autonomy and vaccine mandates. However, the internal drumming up of far-right fringe politics on social media by political groups clouded the message and actions of participants; it also invited actors who are more interested in chaos than organized civil disobedience. It is this devolution into chaos, honking horns in Ottawa continuously through the night, vandalism, and messages of hate to be "heard" by the Canadian government that influences my argument towards labelling the use of social media, in this case, as "cool media."

As we have discussed in class, the concept of hot and cool media comes from Canadian scholar Marshall McLuhan. While the concept is still difficult to fully understand in absolute terms for me, it is clear that McLuhan is interested in providing conceptual tools for others to understand their environment through the mediums that extend and shape perceptions. Social media's modality, speed and popularity make it the most influential medium of contemporary culture. Particularly its ability to organize a constant flow of information directly to people, encapsulating visual and auditory space. In essence, the immediacy of social media enables people to participate in news events as they happen despite not occupying the same physical space. Unfortunately, this increased level of participation allows far-right movements to align and stoke the fires of discontent among individuals who are already predisposed to distrust their government and its policies (From The Conversation Article). A "cool medium" relies on a high degree of participation, engenders holistic thinking, engages multiple senses and presents little information. Based on my experience with the freedom convoy "event" (I refuse to call it a movement because of its disorganization and childish tactics), I believe it fits closer to being an example of a cool medium.

Moreover, I am not saying social media is necessarily a cool medium, but in the specific example of the freedom convo. My experience as a witness to its social media activity was characterized by little information, instead relying on the emotional responses of like-minded to come together as a hole in resistance to the government. Social media, particularly Twitter, can heat up, as McLuhan says and take characteristics of a hot medium. Twitter and Reddit both rely on a great deal of fragmentation, a characteristic of hot media. My point is that hot and cool media was never intended to be a duality but operate on a sliding scale, depending on the circumstance.

Returning to my argument on the freedom of convoy's social media as a cool medium, it contained a high degree of participation, a holistic mentality and little information. There is power in mob mentality and holistic thinking that makes one individual feel like they are part of something bigger; one issue of many with the convoy was the political agenda of some of its leaders, as discussed in more of the articles provided for this post. The government was never going to concede to this group. Still, instead of engaging in communication, this group attempted to make the lives of people in Ottawa terrible, like a metaphorical toddler who does not get their way and throws a temper tantrum instead of conceding to a compromise. As soon as their tactics changed to disruption, any resemblance of cohesion or organization that started on social media was lost. Hence the necessary but difficult decision to invoke the emergency act by Prime Minister Trudeau.

Discussion: 

My discussion question is, does anyone agree that hot and cold media are not exclusive categories? Are there media that have characteristics of both? Could they operate on a sliding scale?