Propaganda or reflecting the public mood

"My constituents do not believe it is fair that they should face a constitutional discrimination as well as meeting additional costs which identical people in Scotland, and to a lesser extent in Wales, do not face. This is the English Question." This is an extract from a speech delivered today by Labour backbencher Frank Field at the University of Hertfordshire and probably picked out of a press release by a large majority of the media. Whether the current system of devolved governments is, as Field argues, "one of the festering sores in English politics" is a big question. I have seen no opinion poll data to back this up and have not seen it high on the news or public agenda, in fact it is only mentioned when comparing health care, prescription charges and student fees but not seldom is it placed in a wider context. So this may be a personal campaign of Frank Field's that he wishes to promote, and this is a very good way of constructing the argument. While Labour are already in decline in Scotland and Wales, Brown may be counting on the heartland of Britain to retain loyal. Field argues that it is these voters who may "defect to the Tories or British National Party" unless the English are given a parliament. Of course Field does not back this up, basing it on inferences to his constituency, nor can he state to the voters that an English parliament would redress the imbalances in disparities, but it is a very persuasive argument that hits Brown where it currently hurts the post: how to recapture the heartlands of Britain.

Ending the relationship

It saves £3 million a year, and that money will go into planting 10,000 trees in residential areas by 2012 (fitting nicely with the Conservative's new green ethos), but will the axing of the Mayor's personal Newspaper 'The Londoner' have a negative impact? Direct mail and direct communication is argued to be able to build a relationship of trust between sender and receiver. Receivers feel informed, and that someone cares about informing them, and also get a sense of transparency in what is happening. Livingstone's version of The Londoner was often criticised as being is propaganda tool (Pravda), but if this was true it did not have to have that function. While Boris Johnson's team pursue cost cutting, could the death of The Londoner be a saving he regrets later when the Evening Standard begins to criticise him and he is unable to directly communicate to the majority of Londoners? It is a question, and it is being debated on an Urban75 forum; interesting comments on both sides, and interesting example of the online public sphere in action.

Creating a personal bandwagon effect

I'm writing to you this morning from Las Vegas. After the New Hampshire primary last week, we set a goal of 100,000 online donors in 2008 -- a goal we hoped to reach before the Nevada caucuses on Saturday. Last night we got there five days early. Think about that: 100,000 donors in 15 days. That response has boosted our entire organization and proven that this movement for change is just getting started. In town halls and rallies across Nevada, I can feel that momentum. And it's clear that more than 100,000 people are feeling it all across the country. But we need to build an operation that can compete in all fifty states, so we are setting our sights even higher. Our new goal: 125,000 donors by the Nevada caucuses this Saturday, January 19th. Now is the time to step up and own a piece of this campaign. Your support is so crucial to reaching our goal that one of the supporters who already gave this year is waiting to match your gift today.

Whether any of this is true matters little, the purpose is to gather the maximum support on the principle that the tide is already flowing in Obama's favour. Barack Obama is setting up supporting him as a norm for American voters in order that it is seen as the thing to do; whether it has the desired effect will be determined in Nevada on Saturday, it is a well used tactic in advertising and commercial promotion and fairly common in political communication as well.

The happiness of the pedant

I enjoy being pedantic now and again. Not necessarily with student assignments, they are learning, but when professional communicators produce communication that is vague, can be misinterpreted or makes no sense it is a pleasure to pick the holes or read a pedantic stripping away of the sense of an official document. John Redwood provided just that in his comments on Ed Ball's 'Children's Plan'.

I was emailed by 'Ed', well it was a Labour circular asking me to comment on the document, I clicked on the link provided, it was wrong. After scouring the web for the Department of Children, Schools and Families I located a copy, I was now wondering if they really wanted to consult me on this, or anybody for that matter. I think the normal rule is make it easy if you really want feedback, if you don't make it look like you do but make it hard: now what do you think was the case?

One of Redwood's points in particular interested me however, a reference to co-location: "that new primary schools should be co-located with the “police, social care, advice and welfare services…”. When I asked him if he really thought a police station on the same site as a primary school would make the school more attractive to parents he looked puzzled as he did not seem to realise co-locating police with children at school could mean siting the police station at the school". I thought surely this was not being suggested!

There are only three references to co-location in the full report: the one closest to a definition is "staff in co-located services are more likely to talk to each other and provide joined-up support. For example, co-location of health visitors and midwives helps smooth transition between antenatal and postnatal periods"; so we are talking a one-stop shop idea where several things can be provided in a 'joined-up' way under a single roof (so lots of management speak). Chapter 7 of the report sets out Labour's ambition in more detail (ahah!!)

Well err maybe. There is the phrase "locating services under one roof in the places people visit frequently"; so schools in supermarkets perhaps? The opening part suggests joining up health care and education, so this is teaching that the wrong food, alcohol, cigarettes are bad? That's new! There is box 7.2 which is a list of vague aims and managerial buzz-words (see below) if it makes any sense or informs of the practical detail please let me know, maybe it is me being slow. The chapter then tails off talking about so many different issues that it is hard to tell what is happening and where. Now to be fair to Mr Balls it does not suggest housing schools in police stations or vice versa, but then again it is so vague it could mean just that. Once again government provides a document that is virtually meaningless in the specifics that anything could be seen as meeting the appropriate target, offers consultation but makes it difficult, and sets aspirations few can disagree with. But what does it mean?

The first law of producing communication that stimulates intelligent thought and debate is to make it comprehensible and encourage the audience to actually read/listen etc. This is none of that, given the prevalence of professional communicators in government is this the design I wonder. Is the detail wrung out of it to ensure that it offers an appearance of activity? Whatever it reads to me as meeting standards of bad communication only: any views?

Thoughts on Propaganda

Humayun and PragueTory have inspired me (is this thus a meme now?). The big question with propaganda is whether it is propaganda in itself. We can call something a good argument, if we agree and support the communicator and believe their motives are honourable; or say 'pah, that's just propaganda' if we disagree and dislike communicator and their motives; what does that tell us? Nothing?

The problem is that we live in a society of spin. If I am late I blame traffic, buses etc; seldom would I say I couldn't be bothered to get my sorry XXXX into gear and get somewhere on time when that is really the truth. This means that 'spin' tends to be a universal code of language which we all accept and choose to ignore or highlight. We decide what is acceptable 'SMART' spin, a white lie maybe, in what context, maybe to make someone feel better about themselves; and what is bad, unacceptable and misleading.

The problem for politics is that it doesn't matter if the motives are really honourable, or that a political actor/activist, is trying to present a persuasive case; often it is simply consigned to the dustbin as propaganda - 'Well they would say that wouldn't they' or 'They just want our money / votes'. Looking outside of the UK to the US, Obama is building a populist campaign around big tent politics. His purpose maybe to reunite America, the bottom line is he wants to raise money to support his campaign for he Democratic nomination. So do we shout propaganda, is it misleading and manipulative, or do we shout 'good campaigning' as it is persuasive and appealing. It is probably a question of perspectives!

Can we really spot propaganda?

There is a strong cultural significance surrounding the term propaganda. It is manipulative, it appeals to base desires, and is most associated with the ideological authoritarian regimes of Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein, etc. So propaganda is a term we use to denigrate communication, to question the validity of the substance as opposed to the objectives of the communicator. Thus, from the US, mayor Jan Mill's communication is described thus by an opponent: "I felt like it was just simply political propaganda simply because it was filled with mis-statements about the truth." Apart from the wonderfully hedged phrase "mis-statements about the truth", does this miss a fundamental point?

According to one online dictionary propaganda is "the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person (or) ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause; also : a public action having such an effect." The key points here are the idea of propaganda being communication that deliberately helps or injures a cause. So it could be lies, exaggerations etc, or it could be facts.

Taking a current example, by focusing on the age of Menzies Campbell, both media editorials and members of his own and opposition parties deliberately undermined his position. The fact that he was unable to rebut those comments made the campaign successful. The fundamental idea here is that propaganda is basically communication with a purpose, that purpose being to affect the attitudes, opinions, beliefs and behaviour of receivers. So we could argue that every newspaper that offers a biased argument, every slanted piece of news that offers facts from a single perspective, every person who tries to make themselves appear better than they really are (which we all do), and every party that spins is doing propaganda? Can't we?