RSS Feed MenuIf you want to see the Twitter revolution in action, sign up for the Twitter feeds of Ezra Levant and Margaret Atwood and read back through the past 48 hours.
Atwood is of course a world-famous novelist, a recipient of almost every honor that her homeland of Canada can bestow: twice winner of the Governor General’s award for literature; a companion of the Order of Canada; her books assigned in schools and analyzed at universities; she herself the subject of always flattering documentaries and biographies.
Ezra Levant – well, I love him dearly – but I think he himself would be the first to admit that he is the very opposite of a Canadian icon. Kind of a right-wing pugilist actually.
Both subscribe to Twitter. As of 48 hours ago, Ezra had about 2500 followers, Atwood over 82,000.
Then – Ezra started to goad Atwood via Twitter. The topic was a proposed new right-of-center TV cable television channel in Canada. I’ll spare you the details, except that Atwood had signed a petition against it. Ezra took up the issue. By using the @margaretatwood key, he was able to send every negative comment straight to her … and after a few bangs, the famous novelist began to argue back … first angry, then plaintive, and finally this morning, defeated:
OK, T-Pals: should I stay out of mud wrestling on Twitter from now on? Is it Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas
This is an exchange that it’s almost impossible to imagine happening in pre social media days. No way would an Atwood have engaged in such an unequal fight all the way back in, say, 2003, let alone 1983. (Maybe it would have been wiser to avoid it even in 2010.) But it can happen now – and it’s transformative.
tjfriese // Sep 7, 2010 at 11:55 am
This is not revolutionary. Ezra is using the same tactic he always uses. Shout the same untruths repeatedly until the other side shuts up and starts ignoring him. This is seen as a victory by him.
DFL // Sep 7, 2010 at 12:24 pm
Twittering is one of the most vile inventions of the past twenty years. It takes the place of concrete thinking. If any modern invention deserved the Luddites’ hammer it would be all the little gadgets used by mental-midgets and gossipers to send messages, most of them ungrammatical, to each other. It is too bad Walker Percy isn’t around to ridicule all the tweetering text-messaging little twits.
ktward // Sep 7, 2010 at 12:36 pm
Ezra Levant – well, I love him dearly – but I think he himself would be the first to admit that he is the very opposite of a Canadian icon.
Holy understatement.
By and large, Canadians have graciously earned their ever-so-polite stereotype.
Levant is a notable, altogether unpleasant exception. (Are you sure he’s Canadian, David? I mean, did you check his birth certificate? Or maybe he was adopted from across the border and he simply can’t overcome his rude USA DNA.)
As to Twitter– I suppose I can understand why public figures of any sort might find it useful. Then again, I wonder if Ms. Atwood found her @volley with Levant anything but a real bother.
The topic [of the Levant/Atwood tweets] was a proposed new right-of-center TV cable television channel in Canada.
Dubbed as, ‘Fox News North’. (‘Right-of-center’? How cute.)
It doesn’t take a media genius to figure out why the, er, ‘journalistic stylings’ of Fox News might not be in high demand in Canada.
In fact, it’s not:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/television/john-doyle/i-guess-sun-tv-news-only-works-if-shoved-down-our-throats/article1697495/
Bill Roberts, president and CEO of Vision TV, pointed out last week, the Sun TV application to the CRTC seems to have been fast-tracked.
The really interesting thing all this shows about the proposed Fox New [sic] North is that, obviously, it is only viable if it is shoved down our throats. And that’s what the channel’s owner, Quebecor, has been aiming for from the start – a channel that is mandatory on cable or satellite so you couldn’t avoid the darn thing even if you wanted to. The first application, for “must-carry” status, was rejected by the CRTC, the proposed channel failing to qualify under current CRTC guidelines.
Now its owners are applying for a “Category 2 specialty licence” and simultaneously asking for “mandatory access,” which essentially means it has to be presented as a choice in a minimum of one type of channel package. No such category of channel currently exists, so the Sun TV News people are, you know, chancing their arm here.
Put all the confusing regulatory language aside, ignore Atwood’s obfuscation, and you reach one conclusion – this thing can’t survive if it isn’t given preferential treatment. The fact is – and this should be blindingly clear to a right-wing news outfit – if there were a big demand from consumers, it would be a success without the special cable status it is manoeuvring to achieve.
There have not been torch-lit processions in Canada’s cities and towns demanding a local version of Fox News. Parliament Hill has not seen mass rallies. No silent vigils have been held outside CRTC offices. Mind you, there is a Facebook page for the proposed Sun TV News channel and 1,456 people “like” it. Just for comparison’s sake, I looked at one of three Facebook pages for Margaret Atwood and 25,431 people “like” it. This country being what it is, I can see a movement to demand an Atwood channel – all those movies based on Atwood novels and two seasons of The Atwood Stories airing around the clock. Plus, the author’s Tweets running in a ticker on the screen, 24-7. Listen, people, Ms. Atwood has 81,854 followers on Twitter. In the specialty-channel area of the Canadian TV racket, anything getting 81,854 viewers is arriving in Hitsville.
jjv // Sep 7, 2010 at 2:11 pm
The Handmaiden’s 144 Character Tale?
rectonoverso // Sep 7, 2010 at 4:14 pm
It’s more an example of twitter regression rather than revolution.
As is the case of TV, the best thing about twitter is that you need not subscribe and even less pay attention.
LauraNo // Sep 7, 2010 at 11:44 pm
Famous people can interact with ‘regular’ people on twitter if they so choose. Why would anyone think they have standing to an opinion, nevermind a negative one that they need to write about, or tweet about? Talk about silly…