With Andrew MacDougall, former Director of Communications to Prime Minister Stephen Harper
This week, we’re joined by Andrew MacDougall, a fellow Harper PMO alum and one of the sharpest communications minds in the business. His latest paper for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute makes a bold case: that the attention economy, powered by Big Tech platforms, is actively undermining Western democracy—and that we’re letting it happen.
In this episode:
📱 What is the attention economy—and why it’s designed to addict, distract, and divide
🧠 Why today’s tech platforms are built to exploit your brain’s dopamine pathways
💥 Free speech vs. free reach: why more speech doesn’t mean better speech
🗞 How the collapse of traditional media business models is breaking political accountability
🗳 Why politicians like Trump and Farage thrive—and leaders like Harper and Starmer struggle—in today’s media environment
Also in this episode:
🧃 “The vegetable is the news, the dessert is content—and nobody’s eating their vegetables”
🧨 Why platforms like YouTube and TikTok aren’t neutral—they actively reward the worst takes
🤳 Why even good communicators struggle to compete with rage bait and algorithmic triggers
📊 What happens when every push notification must compete with Kim Kardashian, a war in Ukraine, and your local school board
And don’t miss:
🧾 Andrew’s proposal for an engagement-based tax to discourage addictive platform design
📉 How banning smartphones for kids—and showing users their “attention cost”—could help
🔌 What would happen if we unplugged the internet for just a month (hint: less Trump, more sanity)
Plus:
😬 Percy tries to warn us about AI-generated ‘80s nostalgia reels
📵 Joseph tries not to check his phone for a full 45 minutes (he fails)
💡 A very serious policy discussion… followed by a confession that we’re all still putting the clips on TikTok
