The Toronto Star seems to think that Canadian blogs aren’t really making a difference in the Canadian election campaign. Maybe some of my Canadian readers might think differently?
Certainly this comment is interesting:
“True, there was the storm about the Liberal attack ads that was heightened by bloggers who parodied the spots. But the mainstream media (MSM) were all over that disaster right from the beginning.”
and maybe if we take the premise that blogs haven’t had a huge impact in the Canadian elections as being true, this statement is the reason why: unlike the US MSM, the Canadian MSM may be more objective perhaps?
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Slightly more objective. But they also care less about blogs overall. Basically, they’re at where the US MSM was at right before the last elections. Aware, sometimes reporting on, but not really taking seriously.
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I’d also add that there isn’t a “Canadian political blogosphere” per se. Americans love to argue about politics, so there are scads of blogs about them (if not tens of thousands). There are maybe a dozen in Canada.
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I’d like to say that this election, to me, is a smear campaign with the smearing being done by almost everyone. I actually saw Stephen Harper (whom I was interested in voting for) a while back in an Oshawa Ontario hotel conference room. He spent about 40% of his time talking smack about the other parties in the running.
I simply don’t agree with someone trying to look good by making others look bad. If they can’t stand on their own strengths and platforms they certainly shouldn’t be standing on someone elses weaknesses.
I got a personally autographed 2006 wall calendar from Harper though, which is cool. If the Conservatives win the election (and it’s looking that way now) at least I can say I have the Prime Minister’s autograph.
But yeah, what Jeremy says is spot on; the political blogosphere in Canada is nowhere near as prolific or influential as in the US.
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Of course, the Canadian press is hardly an objective observer after seeing what blogs have done to the American MSM.
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“seeing what blogs have done to the American MSM”
i.e. plunging newspaper subcriptions, plunging credibility (Rathergate, Korangate), etc.
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I agree Hans, if you look at the TO Star it’s about as far right as a publication gets, and then the Sun (and their counterparts) are so ‘left’ they’re tabloid like. So you won’t get much accuracy from them either.
But for the most part Canadians make up their own minds and are more ‘conservative’ (not politically but personally) in their voicing of things that affect them on this level. They speak at the polls with their ‘X.’
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Bloggers aren’t making a big difference, but they are making a difference. The writer for that piece also blogs at the TO Star blog.
Mr. and Mrs. Mississauga do get most of their news off TV. We’ve had good steady pundit bloggers for years, I don’t think there will be any rising stars or celebrities or major shifts like you’d see in the US market.
Bloggers over estimate their importance the same way anyone else does, journalists, politicans etc.
Don’t expect Canada to follow the States, our political system and cultural make up is more like Australia or NZ or the UK. We do have good political blogs, not a lot of them, and not a lot of room for more.
If you are interested in Canadian blog pundits and their influence you might want to read Ian Welsh’s post over at E-Group Canada.
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Liberals don’t seem to like the idea of advertising to us Westerners. I’ve only seen one or two of their advertisements in comparison to the Conservatives and NDP; Conservatives having the best ads of the lot.
*cough*Vote Conservative*cough*
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“There are maybe a dozen in Canada.”
… uh, a fair number more than a dozen, lad. There’s a blog world that exists well beyond the marketing schlock that you are immerssed in.
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I think Paul Short got his lefts and rights mixed up.
The Toronto Star is a Liberal supporting newspaper – politically ‘Left’, and the Toronto Sun is a Conservative supporting newspaper – politically ‘Right’.
Although my blog is not really political, I did post a number of times regarding Paul Martin avoiding Canadian taxes, and the family relationships among the Canadian ‘financial elite’. Only this was a couple of years ago and no one seemed to be interested at that time.
But today we vote and we may finally get some relief from the arrogant Liberals!