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On Monday night, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the country’s Emergencies Act, which gives the government greater authority to impose measures aimed at ending the trucker protests that have paralyzed commerce and upended daily life in Ottawa.
Penn State’s Matthew Jordan and Sydney Forde connect the impulse to muzzle the truckers’ blaring horns to a history of governments seeking to preserve the peace. But they also see more insidious forces at play. Amplification, both of the horn variety and through media coverage, has made the truckers and their supporters seem like members of a mass movement, distorting the truth about how most Canadians feel about vaccines and public health measures.
Also today:
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What happens when the voices of a few drown out the views of the many?
Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images
Matthew Jordan, Penn State; Sydney Forde, Penn State
When an attention-based media system always allows the noise-makers to dominate the conversation, it becomes impossible to hear the full range of voices and views.
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Environment + Energy
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Jianjun Yin, University of Arizona
A sea level scientist explains the two main ways climate change is threatening the coasts.
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Economy + Business
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Timothy D. Lytton, Georgia State University
While it’s a victory for the families of the victims, the settlement leaves a key legal question about the gun industry’s liability shield unanswered.
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Science + Technology
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Scott Creel, Montana State University
African wild dogs are used to evading hyenas and lions. Genetic research suggests they are using the same strengths to get around human development as well.
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Eric Smalley, The Conversation
Whether the cryptocurrency hype makes you crypto curious or crypto skeptical, there are many ways your life could be affected by crypto’s underlying technology, blockchain.
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Education
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Hannah L. Schacter, Wayne State University
Bullied teens reported heightened anxiety when they were attending in-person school, but not when they were attending online school.
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Politics + Society
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Bill Kovarik, Radford University
Under the Sullivan standard, a public official has to prove that there was ‘actual malice’ in defamation cases. That could be challenged in the Supreme Court.
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Health + Medicine
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Dario Ghersi, University of Nebraska Omaha
COVID-19 has taken away so much. An immunology researcher describes the good it may leave behind.
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James Dillard, Penn State
Whether about a comet hitting the Earth or a virus infecting the world, fear-based messages often do not succeed at changing people’s behaviors.
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Ethics + Religion
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Joel Christensen, Brandeis University
A scholar of ancient Greek literature goes back to the account of Greek historian Thucydides on the spread of plague and finds parallels in the American response to the health crisis today.
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