Commentators up the wattage to cut through noise

What Tony Abbot in a state of deep chagrin called a “febrile” media culture has had another casualty, with commentators on the right seemingly dismayed by Anthony Albanese’s solid performance in the opinion polls, causing them to up the wattage on their pronouncements.

The above tweet appeared on or near 8 February and – unsurprisingly – garnered a lot of responses. The amount of online activity accompanying this little sally by Bolt was striking. It was almost as though this – the response – had been the aim all along. To counter that effect, the next day (or thereabouts) Alan Jones came out with his own attempt to provoke outrage among adherents of the Left.

You’ve got to applaud the quantity or quality of imaginative effort that such tweets entail in the formulation. Because putting them out there is – as everyone knows – a matter of moments. Coming up with an idea precisely aimed at sparking hatred however takes practice and a good deal of bravery. No-one can legitimately accuse Bolt and Jones of being a shrinking violet.

In fact being out there and building this kind of negative capacity is the whole plan. In order to remain current in that new media culture – a phenomenon engendered by the rise of social media, since about 2007 – commentators must up the wattage constantly just to remain visible. 

If they’re not visible they lose the only thing that they’ve got to sell: their popularity. And around this time it became urgent to cement their gains due to the appearance – in addition to Albanese’s good polling numbers – or Joe Biden as US president. There was also the festering scandal of New South Wales’ pork barrelling money for fire rejuvenation. The events that this show targeted had played out a year earlier, during the aftermath of the summer bushfires, but the long tail of shame had come to grips with the deputy leader of the Coalition in Sydney, John Barilaro, who sat up in front of a Parliamentary enquiry stumbling over his words in an effort to cope with the effects of cognitive dissonance. 

It was actually a superb performance, and if it had been an actor instead of a politician, he could’ve won an Oscar but it’s easy to make this sort of snide comment – I’m almost ashamed of myself – because that’s how so much of public discourse is carried out. As I noted a couple of years ago, the commentariat’s increased breadth has been accompanied by a narrowing of viewpoints available to sample. The negative comments people make when an unpopular politician pokes up his or her head school pundits in how to gain traction. 

We’re creating the new mode used by Bolt and Jones.