Discussing PR, and how very few Canadians actually understand our current electoral system let alone others, got me to thinking about the daunting task of educating the masses on issues. Especially issues the general public doesn't really understand or even know a problem exists with. For example issues like electoral reform, tax reform, our failing health care system, environmental and nutritional problems associated with industrial agriculture and food processing, etc, etc..
In the past there was a lot less competition for people's time and attention. It was fairly easy to deliver a message to most of the people through a couple of channels.
Now 500 TV channels, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Blogs, celebrity gossip sites, etc all compete for our time and attention. Prior to the last federal election, far too many people I spoke to had received their information about the issues of the day from attack ads. Going forward PVRs and on demand programing should even make those less effective.
So at a time when masses are harder to reach, newspapers (which are all but dead) and tv news outlets are affiliated with political parties...How do we get a message out?