The Media, Propaganda and Democracy.
Shane Elson, 18th November 2004
Thanks you for the warm welcome. I hope that I can repay the welcome with some provocative discussion starters in what I have to say. The usual way I try to open discussion is by asking that we try and think of this setting not as a ‘learned’ speaker delivering great pearls of wisdom to an open and receptive audience but rather I hope we can use my comments and observations as discussion starters because collectively we have great wisdom and insight into the way the world works. So please feel free to interrupt with questions or requests for clarification at any time.
By way of background, I was born in Tassie and grew up in the coastal town of Ulverstone. I did an apprenticeship in Fitting and Machining at the now demolished Tioxide Australia. In 1980 I married my sweetheart, the child bride, and we embarked on an entertainment industry odessey that took us to Brisbane and Sydney. Our three sons weer born there and I swapped from being a drummer in a band (quite aside – How does the band tell when the stage is level? The drumemr is drooling out of both sides of his mouth. A little musician insider joke there). In 1982 I moved from the dtage into the production arena where I spent the next 20 years working and touring all over Australia and internationally. For the best part of the 80’s I was involved in large-scale corporate communication events as a technician and producer. In the early 1990’s our family moved to this area to being working as community development workers. I kept my involvement in event management by helping to organise community events. I managed to get into Monash to study Sociology, Mass Communications and Psychology graduating in 2002 with first class honours. I’m part way through a Masters degree and for the last ten or so years have been producing community radio programs locally and nationally. I’m chairperson of the Latrobe, Uniting Care Foodbank, have been a past Chairperson of Gippsland Community Radio, am a director of the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia and Chair of that organisation’s Satellite advisory Committee. I’ve also been Chairperson of the Baringa School Council, Assistant Secretary of the Gippsland Carers Association.
A couple of years ago dairy manager I know was having problems with his automated dairy. He called the mechanic to have a look. The mechanic worked furiously to fix it with little success. As you can image there was pandemonium in the holding yard while the problem was examined. In the end they called in a consultant.
The consultant worked for a day, poking and prodding. Switching and swapping. In the end she found the problem, marked the broken piece of equipment with an ‘X’, told the mechanic to replace it and left. A couple of days later her invoice arrived. Total cost for the job, $20,000. My acquaintance was dumbfounded and sent of a letter demanding a detailed invoice. In due course the detailed invoice arrived. It had three lines. Line one said, "Marking broken gearbox with an ‘X’, $1.00." Line two said, "Knowing where to put the ‘X’, $19,999." Line three said, "Total payable within seven days".
So what does this have to do with the media, propaganda and democracy? Quite a bit and I hope over the next 25 minutes or so we can explore the ways we can save on consultant’s bills and, perhaps even more importantly, come to understand new ways of making the media work for us as communities of interest.
I’m going to start with some comments on the current media situation and look at the responsibilies of media owners and mangers. Following from that I want to look at this very tricky notion of propaganda. Finally, I want to examine the proposition put forward by Australian academic Alex Carey in his book, Taking the Risk out of Democracy: Propaganda in the US and Australia. Cary notes that "The 'common man'...has never been so confused, mystified and baffled; his most intimate conceptions of himself, of his needs, and indeed the very nature of human nature, have been subject to skilled manipulation and construction in the interests of corporate efficiency and profit". In conclusion I will offer some suggestions on how we can I improve and, dare I say it, take over the media for the benefit of our communities of interest.
You may recall an interview on the 7:30 Report on the evening the report on the inquiry in James Hardie was handed down. The Chairperson, Meredith Hellicar was interviewed by Kerry O’ Brian. During the interview she was asked to explain the actions of the company in the way it established the compensation scheme and what the Board was doing to prevent it from going belly up. Consistently and with a dead pan face Ms. Hellicar maintained the line that her highest priority was returning a dividend to the shareholders of the company.
Her comments accurately reflect the fiduciary responsibilities of company directors. Under law, the first priority of directors is to look after the financial interests of the investors and debtors of the company they oversee.
I want to start my examination of the media by stating my position on the mainstream or, as we better know it, commercial, media in Australia and indeed, the whole of the private media worldwide. The directors and owners of the commercial media have, as their first priority, ensuring that their investors receive a dividend on that investment. No matter what!
So what is, exactly that the media does?
Firstly I want to narrow my discussion a little by focusing on the broadcast media which is, of course, TV and radio. I’m not going to get into a discussion on the print media, movie industry or the effects of the Internet. All of these would require an examination in their own right so, other than some brief references, I’m not including these mass media phenomena for now.
A 2003 review of media use by the Australian Broadcasting Authority reported that 88% of Australians use free-to-air TV as a source of news. Seventy six percent use radio, the same number use newspapers. Pay TV and the Internet were used by 10% and 11% respectively. As can be seen the vast majority of us use the "traditional" means of gathering news and information. I use the quote marks to signify that I consider neither TV or radio to be traditional. After all, we have only had TV in this country since the mid 50's and widespread radio for less than 90 years. As we all know, the best way to get news about is to start a rumour and let it spread via the informal networks of the pub, the club, the creche or the supermarket aisle.
Nonetheless, what we can conclude from these figures is that the way we view the world around us, is, to some extent, shaped by the sources we use to find out about it. Our first experience of the world was to be found in the family home as small children. We were warmed about the dangers that lurked beyond the doors, then the fence and then, when we were old enough, the roads and the workplace. For most of us, we carry forever some ringing words from mum or dad, that remind us to, "Never accept a ride with strangers", to, "Always wear clean underwear" and to, "Always have enough change to call us to pick you up".
For most of us as we grow up and out of the family home, we find these reminders, drilled into us as children, no longer make sense to our personal experience. We find that not all strangers are dangerous and we find that having clean underwear can be a challenge when hiking through the Grampians. And, at some stage, we find that the home we could call if we needed to, is no longer the house our parents reside in.
In saying these things I want to focus our attention on what the mainstream and corporate media do well. They allow us a ‘window’ on the world. They focus our attention. What they focus our attention on is the issue here. We must remain vigilant and constantly ask four key questions.
"What is being presented here?"
"Who is presenting it?"
"Why is it being presented?" And
"Who stands to gain from this presentation?"
When Meredith Hellicar was responding to Kerry O’Brian’s questions her chief aim was to reassure the financial markets that, despite the strife the company found itself in, she, as Chairperson, was committed to ensuring the company remained viable, productive and, above all profitable. For her to vary from this line would have been tantamount to treason within the business world.
So if we apply the four questions outlined previously, we can answer that what was being presented was a reassurance to the business community. The second question, relating to who was presenting the information, can be answered by, a "consultant" or, if you like, an "expert". She is, obviously well versed in corporate law, fiduciary responsibility of company directors and the way the financial markets work. She is also well trained in public relations presentation, or as I call to call it, corporate propaganda. A topic to which we will return shortly. Returning to our questions, question three, Why was it being presented? Well, one reason I would suggest was that it was a response to the public pressure being exerted on the company and, finally, who stands to gain, quite patently, the investors, providing she follows the script and offers no sign of weakness.
Now, Ms. Hellicar was not the only one brought into the discussion that evening. Union officials and politicians were also part of the "debate" which has always done what? Focused our attention on the financial damage the Director’s decisions may or may not cause. While it’s fair to say that there has been discussion of the health, social and psychological effects of the company’s products and those who are suffering because of exposure to them in the media, it is also a fair observation to state that the main focus of the mainstream and corporate media has been on the bottom line issues. While the media has reported that some victims have received "out of court", confidential settlements for their claims, I am yet to see or hear a thorough and proper explanation of why these confidentiality clauses are imposed on victims and their families. Wy didn’t Kerry ask the Ms. Hellicar if the company would drop these clauses from settlement cases. I have my own ideas as to why this is so. One reason the media is silent on this important issue is that if they raised it and discussed it as often as they do the latest hairstyle failure of some second it would set a precedent that would, potentially, effect the ways companies operate and make their profits.
Should this surprise us? I argue that it should not surprise us as the directors of the media are just as focused on the bottom line as are their colleagues in other "industries" are. I want to argue that the media owners are just as concerned with protecting their corporate image and the profitablity of their business concerns as are the owners of other businesses. This should not surprise us. However, many people don’t think about the media as being owned and controlled by people, who just like us, want to see their investments return a profit. Still, I guess there aren’t to many of us in this room who will be retiring on the pension accruing to the Rupert Murdochs and Kerry Packers of the world.
To summarise this first section, I’ve offered an example of the way the media focuses our attention on a specific issue out of the many that surround what is, I’m sure you would agree, a very emotive, often painful, debate around corporate responsibility. I want now, to turn to the matter of propaganda.
Alex Carey argues with force and passion that, "The twentieth century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy''.
So what is this propaganda that Carey and others refer to? Firstly we have examine the origins of the word and how it came to be used, what it meant, what it came to mean and ask ourselves, is propaganda still something being used?
Propaganda has been, since the time of the Greek and Roman empires, seen as part of the practice of rhetoric. Rhetoric is, in part, nothing less than, to quote the Macquarie Dictionary, "the art of influencing the thought of one’s hearers". Using this definition was find that all of us, are at some time or other, involved in the use of propaganda. We use various techniques to ‘dress our selves up’. How many of us have, when going for a job interview, only include in our CV the ‘good things" about us? How many of us ‘dress up’ to the occasion, washing, preening, shaving, anointing and putting on our best clothes in an attempt to put forward a good ‘good impression? How often have we all engaged in putting forward ‘our best side’ in an attempt to attract someone of the opposite sex? I suggest that when it comes to romance, there is no forum more attuned to the uses of rhetoric and propaganda than that used to find a partner. I wonder how many in this room discovered that suave, sophisticated young man or woman was hiding a few secrets, half-truths or obsfucations that took a little while become obvious? I guess that love does really hide a multitude of sins. Therefore, it is difficult to argue that the art of propaganda is s ‘dark art’. After all, if done well, it has helped us all fall in love and blinded us to our partners foibles on more than one occasion.
Propaganda, therefore, was once a well-respected word. When it came to the public practice of winning the hearts and minds of people, those public practitioners, were lauded as heroes within the corporate world. Ivy Lee, an American business academic is often referred to as one of the founding fathers of modern propaganda. He took the rather tattered image of John D. Rockefeller Junior and transformed it, perhaps not entirely within his generation, from one of an authoritarian, avaricious and ruthless tycoon into one of a patriotic, altruistic philanthropic businessman.
Not long after Lee came the man whose name is most associated with propaganda and what we now know as "public relations", Edward Bernays. Bernays was the nephew of Sigmund Freud and has studied psychology, sociology. He is credited with founding the notion of "engineering consent" and, to quote a 1937 edition of Business Week, "Mr Bernays has attained a corresponding stature in his own sphere of psychology - to wit, the motivation and control of the ‘mass mind’ .
Bernays was a master at organising mass public events and with outlining the foundations of what has become public relations practice. The US, British and Australian governments all had propaganda departments during the First and Second World War. This was seen as nothing to be ashamed about as it was felt that the public needed to know only what was useful in bolstering support for the war effort. This included such things as portraying Germans as demonic characters and here, our government portraying Asians as monkeys. Less obnoxious propaganda campaigns included calls to ease up on consumption of ‘essential’ products like petrol and some food stuffs. Other campaigns were designed to encourage women to get back to work in the factories and for children to support their parents in the ‘war effort.
However, with the success of the Nazi propaganda machine in mobilising the German people, the term ‘propaganda’ soon fell out of favour. Indeed, it could be argued that the propaganda practitioners found themselves in need of some positive propaganda. In response to distance themselves they renamed their practices ‘public relations’ or, as it applies to business, corporate communications.
Now, I’ve had stand up arguments with academics, corporate communications practitioners and others that what we call public relations today, differs only in name from the propaganda practiced in the past. Here are some comments on and definitions of what I call want to call propaganda:
In short, propaganda is what we engage in when we want to convince someone of something we want them to do, believe or act on. In order to get some response we modify what we say, how we say it and to whom we say it, depending on the context and on who our audience is. Propaganda in and of itself is not a problem. The problem begins when we find the balance of power shifts to one side of the debate or the other.
By the 1950’s propaganda was a word associated almost exclusively with Nazism, fascism and all that was opposed to the ‘values’ of the allied war effort. The practitioners who used bill themselves as a "Registered practitioner in Public persuasion, propaganda and publicity" now found they had to adopt the US terminology, public relations counsel. With this shift came a new ‘respectability’ and with the rising wealth and the growing demands of a consumer nation, public relations, or PR became a central tool in the selling of the corporation and its products to the consuming public.
By the 1970’s governments had found a new role for PR in attempting to get their messages across. These included things like the "slip, slop slap" campaign, the "belt up" campaign and various other public good programs. Political parties also found a use for PR and the Labor party’s "Its Time" campaign became a bench mark in political advertising. TV was by this time an integral part of the vast majority of Australian homes and the Labor ad saw the use of celebrity performers singing along and, by their appearance seeming to endorse the party’s position.
By the 1990’s a new tool had been introduced into the PR grab bag. The VNR – the Video News Release. These little devices were a boon to the TV networks. Along with their radio equivalent, Audio News Releases, they provided corporations with the opportunity to present themselves ‘unedited’ to the media. As you may recall the late 1980’s saw a raft of media mergers, corporate take-overs and shake-ups. The shareholders and owners called out for higher profits, lower costs and more content. The VNR paved the way, as did the press release, for the carving back of staff and seasoned, sceptical journalists for the introduction of editors and producers who only had to ‘cut and paste’ what are clled the ‘cut aways’ or ‘noddies’ of the reporter asking the questions. Except the reporter didn’t even do the interview. These VNRs came with a bunch of scripted questions which, if edited in correctly, gave the impression that a real time conversation was occuring, when in fact, there was no such interaction. However, to the viewing audience, this was never made plain then and to this day is never disclosed to the viewer.
In short, the need to keep costs down, profits up have allowed the corporate and mainstream media to become an intregral part of the PR, or as I would say, propaganda machine of the corporations. Now I wont go on and discuss the ways our government departments do exactly the same things but suffice to say, a large part of all departmental budgets is spent on propaganda and / or PR.
What I’ve attempted in this section is demonstrate the ways in which we all engage in propaganda. Whether that be selling ourselves to others or the corporation selling itself to us. I’ve pointed out that its not always what it appears to be when we watch the news or listen to the radio. I want no to turn to the question of how does the media and propaganda work in a democracy?
Someone once explained to me the golden rule. They told me the golden rule was that ‘those that got the gold, make the rules’. Now while that may have been the case in the early industrial age, it is a little overstated these days. I mentioned before that in part, that the James Hardie Board caved in to public pressure and had to send out their Chairperson to address the issues coming out of the inquiry. It could be well argued that the inquiry was the brought about by the pressure placed on the New South Wales government by victims groups, the unions and general public sentiment.
The demos, the public, is supposed to rule itself. That’s what democracy is supposed to be about. We choose to call our collective form of government a democracy – quite erroneously I believe, but that’s another story – an arrangement in which our collective will is expressed by our representatives who, on our behalf, enact laws, that allow us to go about our business in peace and safety and with the protection of the state to ensure our well being.
Without going into a debate on the effectiveness of the current arrangement, I think it fair to say that in our media saturated world, we have never had at our disposal so many sources of information, dis-information, discussion, views and debate as we do today.
My question is, if we are the ‘smart, society, if we know so much, how come we keep voting for the politicians? Perhaps we can discuss that later.
The demos, the people, we, used to meet in public places. The pub, the club, the creche, the supermarket and the town square were places in which we could meet and discuss the issues that affected us. The ‘soap box’ orations of yester year allowed the more vocal the opportunity to debate their views with the crowd. The town hall meeting was an important event to which people would flock. There would be rowdy discussion, debate and the odd punch up. Few were arrested and most went away with at least some insight into the issues being discussed.
Today, our town meetings are highly organised affairs. There is no public interjections without threat of removal. Our higher politician may claim to do "town hall" rallies but these are hugely stage managed affairs in which, if not invited, a seat will be impossible to attain. Like him or not, however, you’ve got to admire Mark Latham’s attempt at the old style rally, especially when he allowed a dissenter to have his say when he stormed the stage and threw down the gauntlet. However, Latham soon returned to the script and the incident will fade in to memory.
Our media focuses on these political events and highlights them. What we see on the evening news or hear on the radio news grab is the edited version of a highly organised, well scripted performance designed to portray the political process in a certain way. It is, remembering the descriptions of propaganda outlined previously? I argue that the same techniques are deployed to provide us, not with a demonstration of the will of the people, but of the will of the political apparatus.
While we will never come to the point at which we can agree on every detail of the political process, the point of democracy is that we all have the opportunity to be heard.
It is at this point I want to begin to wind up by bringing the strands of what I’ve outlined together.
I argued that the corporate and mainstream media is concerned with the bottom line and that the PR practitioners have devised a range of methods of reducing the costs of producing news by the distribution of pre-packaged video or audio pieces. I’ve also argued that our democratic ideal has been replaced by a representative system that works to what is called the "news cycle"
One aspect of that cycle is that if you want to be on the evening news, you have to have your press conference, announcement, or event, no later than 2:00pm in the capital cities. That way it can be edits, packaged and made ready to go to air. The longer news cycle is the weekly agenda setting device of making sure you get on one of the Sunday programs in which you will announce something, attempt to hose down an issue, promote some new scheme or all three. Governments and corporations employed skilled people who attempt to make sure what you see, hear or read, conforms to the ‘core’ message they want to get out. Remember the Meredith Hellicar example?
Furthermore, if a reporter wants to be "in the game" he or she must dance to a very strict tune. Having been a shocking dancer, I find myself not being on the ‘inner’ of most circle. As someone whose job it once was to prove the ‘perfect’ environment in which reporters would be wined, dined and otherwise schmoozed so that they would report the really good bits about some of Australia’s largest corporations, I’ve seen how it works. Company "A" puts on a "do". It provides a nice venue, good food and wine. A good band for the after party and a speaker who will extol the virtues of the latest corporate of government initiative. If the reporter decides to do some further investigation and finds something not aligned with the view being promulgated, they will not be invited next time. Or, has been documented, will be taken off that ‘round’, moved to another area or, in the odd case, sacked.
The question remaining is, who is our media serving? I suggest that the public service aspect of corporate and mainstream news is, largely, lost in the miasma of ‘event’ reporting, sensationalism and is drowned in a flood of propaganda dressed up as ‘press releases’ and media ‘event’. I argue that the corporate and mainstream media is now concerned, as it should be, with ensuring that it provides a vehicle for the best possible access to profits at the expense of good reporting and penetrating critique of our political processes. The ‘Fourth Estate, as it was once known, is now little more that a hollow shell into which is poured a mix of spin, propaganda and, thankfully, the cartoon section.
Can this situation be rectified? I believe it can. However, if we, as communities of interest, want to influence the media and change it, we need to learn some of the techniques it uses. If, as has been said, an informed democracy is a healthy democracy, we need to find way to inform not only ourselves but those whose common space we share. How to do this?
I’m a firm believer that community media, that is independent media not your local weekly, is a key to turning things around. There are now four community radio stations operating between here, the coast and Sale. Three of those are ‘general’ stations whose charter or constitution compels them to allow ‘community access’. In my ten years of community radio experience I’ve seen many people, young, old and in between, who have
References:
Quoted in Jackson, K., (2001/2003), Media Ownershhip Regulation in Australia, Social policy Group, Australian Federal Parliament, Canberra.
Carey, A., (1995), Taking the Risk out of Democracy: Propaganda in the US and Australia, University of NSW Press, Sydney
The Macquarie Concise Dictionary (3rd Edition), Macquarie University, Sydney
Tymson, C., Sherman, B. and Raynish, J., (1996), The New Australian and New Zealand Public Relations Manual, (Revised Edition), Tymson Communications, Milsons Point
Quoted in Carey, A., (1987), "Conspiracy Or Groundswell?", in K. Coghill and M. Gribble, (Eds), The New Right's Australian Fantasy, Penguin Books, London
Quoted in Tymson, C., Sherman, B. and Raynish, J., (1996), The New Australian and New Zealand Public Relations Manual, (Revised Edition), Tymson Communications, Milsons Point
Mclachlan, D., (2003), "Spin, PR and Truth in Reporting, Cultures of Journalism, Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Broadcast October 3oth on Radio National