Trump, Trudeau, Tweets, Truth: A Conversation

by Bill Fox

Media has long been considered a primary site for political discourse in Western liberal democracies, but now, with the advent of social media, giant multinational digital platforms such as Google, and online journalism, the way we do politics, talk politics, and cover politics has completely transformed. Trump, Trudeau, Tweets, Truth considers the ways that technology has led to an irreversible transition in power distribution, political journalism, and public discourse. Discussing how the military-industrial complex of the 1950s gave way to today's celebrity-distribution complex, Bill Fox examines the amount of power accorded to people well-known for being well-known, from Donald Trump to Justin Trudeau. Taking on a Canadian perspective, Fox addresses the disturbing cries of "fake" news in the post-truth age and demonstrates how journalism, no longer the domain of a select few political reporters and editors, has become decentralized and disaggregated. In a world that now plays out on mobile devices, Trump, Trudeau, Tweets, Truth seeks a path through the debris left behind by recent seismic shifts in political media and technology.

616 pages, Hardcover

Published March 23, 2022

Reviews

[Tom Axworthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bill Fox is the preeminent media/ politics/ public policy scholar in Canada.He was a distinguished journalist, including a stint as White House Correspondent, a political advisor in the Mulroney PMO, a corporate executive with some of the largest corporations in Canada and then studied at the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University devoting this latter part of his career to academic study and scholarship.This rich background has resulted in a first class book on the current revolution that social media has wrought in the traditional role of the media vs a vis politics.As he emphasizes we have moved from the one to the many( where editors decided what was news) to the many to the many where there are no editors at all.His book is comprehensive in referring to the best of media theory while full of his personal communication experiences in politics and the corporate world.It is a wise and relevant book.

[Chad Richards · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible read! A very thoughtful presentation of the challenges facing North American journalists and journalism in a social media age. Full of clever anecdotes and personal reflections this book brought me back to the classroom at Carleton University's Masters of Political Management Program. A great piece by an even better person. Well done, Bill!

[George Hodgson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid account of communications in 22st. century Canada and the US. Drags a bit occasionally, but otherwise a good read. It really illustrates how modern society needs to learn how to deal with social media in the post literate age.