Our Media is Capitivating

Day 878, 13:23 • Published in Canada Canada • by Saya Innsbruck

Who could resist debates about tax? Or how awesome (or not) VAT is? Crunching numbers is pretty spectacular, especially if it means you'll earn .50 CAD more than if you don't. While we are at it, we should all obtain a few top hats.


Fedoras are reserved for Jacobi

Let's see how our top 5 articles are doing:

http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/economy-canada-first--1303281/1/20 - Alias Vision talks about purchasing power of Canadians in relation to the world. Economics for dummies at its finest (meaning it explains things well).
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-cp-the-evolution-of-partisanship-and-economic-theory-in-canada-1301907/1/20 - Jacobi attacks protectionism and the old sucky economic policies. Also draws parallels with erep citizens with greedy real life corporate owners. Part economics, part politics.
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/the-words-of-truth-are-always-paradoxical--1302330/1/20 - Jbdivinus' attempt to get CPP members to vote for him. Didn't win, but got a respectable amount of votes. Bascially politics.
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/office-of-strategic-services-report-day-876-1302133/1/20 - TFD's daily rants. This time it is about how crappy the eBrits are and stuff about the Canadian militia that does fall in his government juridiction. Mostly a military/government article, of course with lots of bolding, capitalization, and pictures.
[url] http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/president-evil-ghosts-of-the-past-1303866/1/20[/url] - Another one of Jb's article to gather votes. Politics again.

So, your hapless new player will see these "top 5", along with a seemingly tons of gameplay options (but really not that much) and get completely swamped. Frankly, I am sure these article will attract the few economists that stumbled onto the game, we kind of drove away the hordes that are more interested in "beating the other side".

Let's compare it with the US counterpart:

#1: Indonesian troll article. Helps both US and Indonesia, seeing as it makes patriotic players sort of mad/riled up.
#2: Josh Frost, a popular player, sorta talks about another well-loved player, Eugene Harlot. I think it places somewhere in "positive propaganda".
#3: Lieutenant Scheisskopf's world military analysis. Informative military article.
#4: Scheisskopf's somewhat older analysis. Same as above.
#5: Aeros forms a new organization of intelligence gathering that is above all anti-Phoenix. Mostly a military article.

All 5 are military related, mostly. I think the US actually needs more economics and political articles.

I'll also compare the dreaded UK media, seeing it's important to know what the other side is saying:

#1: Phoenix wants more gold to attack EDEN and friends. Some comments about how successful they are against Spain and Poland recently. Fund raising drive. Bascially military.
#2: jamesw, a rather prominent eUK player, forms a mentorship program for his party. Part "government" and politics article.
#3: Positive propaganda (for the Phoenix readers) to rile them up against EDEN/brolliance/what-remains-of-Sol, as usual.
#4: Newbie help article. Something like the posts that our Ministry of Education used to posts (what happened to that anyways?). Government article.
#5: Party politics article.

Not a bad balance, actually. The UK has problems, but I don't think their media's that bad of a read. The _____ball comics they used to do were incredibly effective.

I think eCanadians are too out-of-the-loop in the Great Game, and our media articles aren't helping at all. I am all for intelligent (or pretend to be) articles, which we have spades of, but we don't have enough hormone-bursting-patriotic posts that are turned against Phoenix as oppose to Citizen B/Tim Young/Jacobi/Petz/Octavian/whoever-in-th e-spotlight-at-the-moment. Take a page from TFD's posts. As mindless as some of his articles are, it actually works (although cut down on the wall of text, most newbies don't like to read so much). Although most eNations has problems of ignoring the economic/politics side of the game, we actually have a problem of ignoring the military side of the spectrum. I believe it contributes to the apathy of the two-clickers in clicking "vote", to be honest.

Disclamer: I also see the irony in some of my posts, so don't bash me on that. Durr

EDIT: I WILL REFUND YOUR TICKET COST IF YOU MOVED TO SOUTH AFRICA AND FIGHT AGAINST BRAZIL THERE. Of course, if you are richer than me (about 20 gold), go buy your own stuff.