John Ibbitson’s Globe and Mail article “The Internet Is Turner’s Perfect Medium” is a fine example of the anxiety newspapermen feel towards the internet.
The basic premise is that the internet is for the young. Blogs are for loners and losers. Turner and the internet are a perfect match because neither is of real importance to the political world.
Get over yourself John.
Do you think you’re legitimate because you’re in print? How are those declining newspaper sales going? Isn’t legitimacy your ability to engage with your readers?
Ibbitson’s article is about MP Garth Turner who was tossed out of the Conservative caucus for breaches of confidence on his blog. But it’s not really about that, the article is about undermining Turner and suggesting that the support he trumpets due to his blog is irrelevant.
Turner has chosen to sit as an independent so that he can speak out on the issues he and (presumably) his constituents deem important, rather than conforming to Harper’s political desires.
Ibbitson suggests that Turner wants to derive his legitimacy from the internet rather than from political party affiliation. He fluffs the article with a short history of technological advancements and politics, noting that “the old hierarchy reasserts itself” regardless of grassroots’ successful attempts to oust “party bosses in favour of new structures that truly capture of the will of the membership.” A sad state of affairs, for sure, but not one Ibbitson wants to reflect on. Instead Ibbitson seeks to denounce social networking as “an electronic populist movement that seeks to weaken party discipline and encourage free thinking in the House of Commons.” Heaven forbid that that should be the case. But Ibbitson is confident that nothing will change.
Quote: “First, in any populist movement, there are cranks, kooks and lonely souls. Their unhappiness has less to do with political than with personal frustration. Read the online comments to any blog, including Mr. Turner’s. More than a few of the correspondents need to get out more. To that extent, Mr. Turner is simply conducting a high-tech dialogue with loners and losers.”
Nice way to write-off all commentors on Turner’s blog. The few cranks suddenly represent all bloggers and commentors?
Ibbitson seeks to further undermine Turner’s blog by saying Turner “claims” that many thousands of voters read and comment on his blog. He doesn’t need to claim it, you can go to the website and see all the comments. And the majority do not appear to be the loners or losers that Ibbitson presents in his article. Oh, wait he doesn’t actually present any examples.
But Ibbitson doesn’t want to write-off Turner entirely. He says, “whatever else the internet is, it is emphatically generational.” What? Ibbitson believes (based on what, his sample size of one) that “the young” navigate the internet with ease, but “the older you get, the harder it gets to keep up.” His conclusion is that successful political parties need to exploit the web because that’s where the young voters are, then in the same breath he suggests that it’s irrelevant where the young voters are because they don’t actually vote.
Quote: “Successful politicians and successful parties must learn how to exploit the web, because young voters–who, in fact, are less likely to vote, and to read newspapers, and to participate in any of the institutions of political life–are found there, and if they are to be reached, that is the medium for reaching them.”
Unlike John Ibbitson’s Globe and Mail article, Garth Turner’s blog is open to the public.