CS 304-Canadian Communication Thought

Fall 2022

Final Blog Post


During the past six weeks, the Public Order Emergency Commission has held hearings into the causes, consequences, ad aftermath of the so-called “Freedom Convoy” occupation of downtown Ottawa during January and February of 2002 and the Trudeau government’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act to end the occupation and clear the protestors from the streets of Ottawa.



One of the facets of the convoy and the occupation that was discussed at the hearings was the centrality of social media to the organization of the convoy before the occupation, as well as the occupation itself when the convoy reached Ottawa.  Using McLuhan’s medium theory and analysis of media forms practices in Understanding Media as a conceptual lens, speculate as to whether McLuhan would view the convoy and its use of social media as an example of hot media or cool media. More specifically, would McLuhan see the convoy more like the cool media of television or the hot media of radio.

 

There is no right answer here, just channel your inner McLuhan and HAVE FUN.

 

These two articles can be used as points of reference:

 

1)     Emergencies Act inquiry studies fundamental rights and freedoms at stake in protests | CBC News

2)     Close to home: The Canadian far right, COVID-19 and social media (theconversation.com)

3)     Social media tools were key to 'Freedom Convoy' protest, expert tells inquiry | CBC News

 

The blog post is due December 12th with comments on other blog posts due December 16th.

 

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blog Post #4: Applying McLuhan's Hot and Cool Theory to Podcasting

Image
  Hi everyone!  For this blog post, I am interested in outlining Marshall Mcluhan’s Hot and Cool media theory. In particular, this post will use his theory to dissect the similarities and differences between how radio and podcasting are typically consumed in contemporary culture. Ultimately, the goal of this post is to illustrate how modern-day podcasting’s technological affordances allow for a more cool communicative method in comparison to traditional radio broadcasting.   McLuhan's Hot and Cool media theory categorizes different media forms based on how the receiver experiences its content. Specifically, for McLuhan, different media forms demand varying degrees of audience participation which impacts how one extracts meaning. Hot media is largely defined by its “high definition” as it focuses on one singular sense (ex: auditory, visual, etc). This intensification of a single sense facilitates the demand of a viewer’s attention as it does not leave much context to ...
Read more

The Freedom Convoy as Hot or Cool Media / Zach Tyrrell

A prominent idea in Marshall McLuhan’s 1964 book Understanding Media is looking at media as either hot or cold. Hot media demands a viewer's attention whereas cold media requires conscious participation by the medium’s consumer. Examples of hot media include; photographs, print, and radio. On the contrary cold media includes the; telephone, seminars and television. To reiterate, the differentiating factor between the two is audience involvement.  The freedom convoy took the nation by storm in early 2022. As most of you probably know, the freedom convoy was a nationwide protest against the vaccine mandate instituted by Trudeau’s government. The convoy made its way to Ottawa as hundreds protested outside of the Parliament building for a number of weeks. So, is the freedom convoy hot or cold media? I personally feel that it is difficult to categorize the convoy as one or the other which therefore makes it a combination of both. As we know hot media demand’s a viewer's attention a...
Read more

Blog Post #5

Image
Hi everyone!  Before I answer this week’s blog prompt, I want to establish a few key points of McLuhan’s medium theory in order to predict how he would interpret social media as a communicative medium. As we have discussed in our class, McLuhan’s approach to interpreting different media forms focuses on how they construct a social environment that can vary the meaning and sense of the information that is being communicated. Particularly, McLuhan explains that a medium can be seen as an extension of our human senses. This causes different media to favour certain senses which influences how we interpret meaning within the barriers of that sense. For example, since radio privileges the sense of hearing, this then causes receivers of its message to perceive its message within the limitations of hearing. Thus, this idea of media as an extension of human senses has certain implications regarding how different media can shape our social environments and cultural communicative practices....
Read more