adplus-dvertising
Connect with us

Politics

In politics, it’s all about the image – especially in 2021 – The Globe and Mail

Published

 on


Signs outside of an advance polling station in Burnaby, B.C., on Sept. 10.

JENNIFER GAUTHIER/Reuters

J.R. McConvey is a writer based in Toronto.

One thing is certain about elections: they bring out the signs. Lawns and roadsides across the country are cluttered with red, blue, orange and the occasional green. An already busy visual landscape is surrendered to the will of the politically solicitous.

One of politics’ more durable lies is that policy and governance take priority over image management. Contemporary politics is a visual medium. Conducted through signage, carefully orchestrated public appearances, television and social media, political narratives play out as screen content, designed to compete with – and borrow tactics from the creative and commercial content with which they jockey for clicks.

300x250x1

With the pandemic making it harder to court voters in person, screens must convey more of the candidates’ personalities. Hence, in campaign materials for the front-runners, we see a new taste for casual haberdashery. In August, the Conservative Party of Canada launched its platform with a GQ-style mock magazine cover featuring leader Erin O’Toole in a black T-shirt, arms crossed for maximum flex. It evoked a “thirst trap,” slang for a type of selfie intended to elicit praise or desire. Days later, a Liberal ad pictured Justin Trudeau in a similar black tee. In the age of remote work, it’s no longer enough to roll up your sleeves; to connect with the pyjama-clad masses, you must dress down.

The sartorial relaxation aligns with a general trend away from formality in political imagery. It’s telling that when the CPC had to pull an attack ad featuring Mr. Trudeau’s head superimposed on the body of Veruca Salt – the selfish, petulant child from the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory the terminal issue was copyright infringement, rather than the use of sloppy internet troll aesthetics to frame the Liberal Leader as a garish caricature.

Some images aren’t so easily expunged from record. The most recent politician haunted by a revenant from their virtual past is Lisa Robinson. The former CPC candidate in the Toronto riding of Beaches-East York suspended her campaign after Liberal incumbent Nate Erskine-Smith dug up screenshots of posts she allegedly made in 2017, telling Muslims to “go home.” Ms. Robinson claims the posts are fake. Either way, the image has spoken: Mr. O’Toole, striving to project positivity, cannot be associated with hateful tweets, no matter their veracity.

If the discourse is more about the candidates’ social content than their platforms, there’s good reason for that. This is Mr. Trudeau’s arena. With his staged photo-ops and rakish pandemic beard, he set the terms by which others must play. When sunny ways and feely optics are at odds with concrete policy, it doesn’t merely entrench cynicism; it pushes the political conversation deeper into the visual realm. A lesson we should learn from the Trudeau government is that it matters less how Canada’s cabinet looks than how its members represent the communities that voted for them. Keeping the Canadian flag at half-mast might remind us that the Trudeau government feels bad about residential schools, but symbolism without policy to support it is merely theatre.

At present, the tendency is to analyze political iconography in the context of colonialism, fascism and white supremacy. While these are animating factors, they’re all subservient to the only category that matters in today’s media landscape: attention. In his 2016 book, The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads, media theorist Tim Wu analyzes what he calls “the attention industry.” In exchange for our attention, Mr. Wu argues, “we have accepted a life experience that is in all of its dimensions – economic, political, social, any way you can think of – mediated as never before in human history.” He locates the maturation of the attention industry in 20th-century war propaganda, but claims – writing before the presidency of Donald Trump – that propaganda’s use by tyrants made it unappealing to modern Western governments.

Those days are gone. The visual grammar of Western democracy is now shaped by strategists such as Brad Parscale and Nick Kouvalis, whose work straddles politics and marketing. To call it propaganda feels outdated. But a phenomenon such as Ford Nation, with its slogans and bespoke PR channels, has echoes of the 20th century’s outsized personality cults. Doug Ford is an enthusiastic practitioner of visual politics, filtering every communication through a would-be working-class aesthetic based on sensible conservative blue, with nods to the bold, brash style prevalent in American cable news. Mr. Ford’s brand is so strong that he didn’t need a platform to get elected premier. Meanwhile, many of his greatest misses in office are design gaffes: recall the blue licence plate, the gas-pump sticker, the fundraising flyer designed as an invoice. Whether or not they work – whether the stickers stick or the licence plate is visible at night – they’re pieces in a larger narrative that places attention capture through visual media at the centre of the political project.

The result of this rewiring plays out as we speak, in conflicts over the latest politicized fashion statement: wearing a mask. In a climate where everything is a symbol, a functional piece of equipment designed to protect people from disease has become a statement – of conformity, solidarity or repression, depending on who you ask.

Herein lies the danger of a predominantly visual politics: we are not fully conscious of the ways in which visual information works on our brain – or of how sophisticated the techniques being used to control those functions are. Much as we have done with the intentionally addictive mechanics of smartphones and social media, we proceed without alarm, as though seismic changes in technology and intent do not ripple through our political discourse, our very psychology.

If politics is to continue being waged on screens – and surely that is where most hearts and votes are now won – we must factor aesthetics and design into the discussion. Otherwise, we fail to see what’s right in front of us.

Keep your Opinions sharp and informed. Get the Opinion newsletter. Sign up today.

Adblock test (Why?)

728x90x4

Source link

Politics

Former PQ minister turns back on politics, records jazz album – CTV News Montreal

Published

 on


A former minister with the Parti Québécois (PQ) says his time in politics is over, and he’s ready to focus on his first love: the arts.

“People have to remember that I was dealing with the arts for 30 years before I went into politics,” Maka Kotto tells CTV News a day before boarding a flight to his native Cameroon for a music festival. “After 14 years in politics, I felt that I did what I had to do. And so, I decided to get back to my old practices.”

Kotto represented the PQ in the riding of Bourget from 2008 to 2018 and was also the culture minister in Pauline Marois’ short-lived government.

300x250x1

In addition to his time in provincial politics, Kotto represented the Bloc Québécois from 2004 to 2008 in the Canadian House of Commons — the party’s first Black member of Parliament.

“It drained my energy and I lost contact with my family, with my friends. When I was inside, I didn’t realize that,” he said. “My mother went to the other side in 2018 and I couldn’t say good-bye… I wrote a song about that.”

Kotto says his mother’s death was a moment that notably marked him.

“This was very awful. Until now, I still suffer for that,” he said. “You see, when you’re investing in politics, you have many, many sacrifices that you’re facing.”

Closing the political door and turning his attention back to music and acting was an effortless decision for the 62-year-old.

“This was much, much more, easier than politics,” he said.

Kotto says he remembers his father not liking the idea of him getting involved in the arts as a child — he wanted him to “be a good student.”

“The last time I sang, I was between 16 or 17 years old,” he recalls. “That was in college, at the boarding school church. It was a French Jesuit boarding school in Cameroon.”

When asked what’s scarier: putting out a jazz album or working in politics, Kotto doesn’t miss a beat.

“Oh, politics is scary because you don’t have fun in politics. You have problems every day, every night, every morning and you have to solve real problems,” he said. “When you’re singing, it’s a passion…The only goal you have to reach is to share what you feel.”

Kotto says he worked for about six months on his album, collaborating with the likes of Antoine Gratton, Taurey Butler and the Orchestre national de jazz de Montréal (ONJ).

“We have a lot of fun. That was the goal, and I hope that everybody listening to this album will have the same fun as the one we had in studio,” he said.

A few words he uses to describe his music: fun, love and friendship.

The release of Kotto’s first album is scheduled for the winter of 2024.

Adblock test (Why?)

728x90x4

Source link

Continue Reading

Politics

Trump campaign defends his ‘bloodbath’ warning. Hear what political strategists think

Published

 on

Trump campaign defends his ‘bloodbath’ warning. Hear what political strategists think

The Trump campaign is saying that presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump was referring only to the US auto industry when he warned of a “bloodbath” if he wasn’t elected. Republican strategist Alice Stewart and Democratic strategist Maria Cardona debate what he meant.

Adblock test (Why?)

728x90x4

Source link

300x250x1
Continue Reading

Politics

Trump campaign defends his ‘bloodbath’ warning. Hear what political strategists think

Published

 on

Trump campaign defends his ‘bloodbath’ warning. Hear what political strategists think

The Trump campaign is saying that presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump was referring only to the US auto industry when he warned of a “bloodbath” if he wasn’t elected. Republican strategist Alice Stewart and Democratic strategist Maria Cardona debate what he meant.


02:48

– Source:
CNN

Adblock test (Why?)

728x90x4

Source link

300x250x1
Continue Reading

Trending