Randal Marlin

by Propaganda

  stores. Interviewees cite convenience and price as favouring online purchases, includ-

  ing the ability to do comparison shopping more easily. On the other hand, people still

  like help from sales staff at physical stores, the ability to interact there with the prod-

  ucts, and the absence of shipping costs. They can also be influenced by eye-catching

  window and in-store displays. Events can also be staged in-store, with publicity before

  and after through social media. The future for many retailers would appear to include

  creative use of social media.22

  Although the Internet’s future is uncertain, our chief concern here is with its

  impact on all the questions that have been raised so far in this book. Will successful

  propaganda be made easier or more difficult (through the possibility of counter-pro-

  paganda or simply exposure of the source) by the Internet? Does the existence of the

  Internet mean that arguments against monopolization of the mass media no longer

  have the same force? Or does the fact that “convergence”—the joining together of

  dominant interests in the entertainment and news industry, such as the move by BCE

  to acquire Astral despite initial rejection by the CRTC—mean that any independent

  counterculture is doomed to continuous marginalization? Would the CRTC have

  decided differently if BCE’s application had not also been opposed by another giant,

  Quebecor? Quebecor is a major provider of news and entertainment with its Sun

  Media chain of newspapers, Sun News Network, and both cable and Internet services

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  through Vidéotron. Quebecor’s arguments to the CRTC against BCE’s proposed

  Astral takeover produced some wry smiles among those who saw this uncharacteris-

  tic (for the Sun Media chain) appeal to government anti-monopolistic regulation as

  purely self-interested rather than motivated by a spirit of democracy. Looking at the

  flip side of democracy and human rights, should Canada’s hate propaganda legislation

  be used to cut off access to racist websites? And should pornographic sites, so easily

  stumbled upon by children, be censored or otherwise restricted? There are good rea-

  sons to support such a move, but also reasons to worry about the possible misuse of

  any such powers of censorship for political purposes.

  Much careful thinking has already gone into such questions. Interestingly, such

  thinking is itself largely accessible on the Internet, discoverable by simply typing in the

  words “democracy,” “propaganda,” and “Internet” on a search engine. Not surprisingly,

  there is a wide variety of opinion on the matter, but even the most pessimistic hold

  out some positive hope for the use of the Internet in democracy-friendly ways. What

  needs sorting out are the different conceptions of democracy and their relation to the

  marketplaces. For some, the market epitomizes democracy, and the less government

  involvement of any kind, the better. Others take the view that an unregulated mar-

  ketplace begins to resemble corporate boardroom democracy, where one share equals

  one vote rather than one person. In other words, in the final analysis, marketplace

  democracy means dol ar democracy, which is nothing but plutocracy.

  There are various conceptions of the ideal marketplace, and some people who

  accept it as embodying democracy reject monopolistic practices as contrary to

  the ideal, which involves free buyers choosing products offered by free sellers. In a

  monopoly situation, one side or the other loses the ability to choose among compa-

  rable offerings by others. Hence, there is a large measure of agreement, not just among

  the political left, that at least some government interference with the marketplace is

  warranted, although special interests work fiercely to ensure that their own particular

  form of monopoly power is outside the range of government restraining powers. Aside

  from this minimalist conception of the role of government, there are stronger versions

  of democracy, according to which a commitment to democracy means a commitment

  to a form that will work, that is to say, one in which there is meaningful participation

  by the ordinary citizenry in the running of a country. This in turn requires meaningful

  education and access to information, not giving a free hand to the media to slant the

  news in favour of the business interests of the control ing group.

  These issues were discussed in connection with the ill-fated Kent Commission

  proposals in Chapter 7, but we need now to consider their ramifications in connec-

  tion with the Internet. Two different sets of questions arise. One deals with the need

  to recast the earlier issues of media monopoly, since the Internet theoretically provides

  individuals and groups with the ability to communicate with others on a large scale

  while not requiring large resources. (The cost of a computer that can enable one to

  reach millions of people is thousands of times less costly than a printing press, paper,

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  ink, and delivery service to do the same thing.) The second relates to free speech issues and the possible regulation of the Internet itself. The Internet is sometimes viewed as

  unregulable since so many pathways exist between communicator and communicatee

  that a practical way of intervening becomes difficult and, some believe, impossible.

  Who will the courts judge responsible for a hate communication? The sender may

  operate through another’s account and not be identifiable. An Internet service pro-

  vider (ISP) who knowingly permits hate messages regularly might be convicted, but

  the capability of examining every message does not exist, so the defence of lack of

  knowledge looms large. If certain key words are monitored by computer, the exclu-

  sion of such messages will likely expunge much innocent expression.23 This takes us

  back to the question of the value of the Internet as a whole, in particular its value as

  an untrammelled form of communication between individuals and groups within the

  same neighbourhood, city, nation, or all over the globe.

  I believe that the potential for the transformation of society does exist with this

  medium. What is not clear is whether this transformation will necessarily be for the

  better. First, let us explore the good features of the Internet. Unlike ham radio, for

  which similar hopes were held, no special skills are needed to “surf the Net.” A good

  computer linkup gives one, within seconds, access to information of hitherto unimagi-

  nable breadth and depth. Instead of relying on one’s own government information

  sources, it is possible to be in direct contact with the government information of any

  country and, more importantly, with individuals in that country. Of course, some gov-

  ernments, such as the Chinese, have found ways of censoring such communications,

  including entirely shutting down the Internet within its borders. More recently, a law

  was proposed to hold ISPs responsible for ensuring that the real identity of service

  users is known for each communication.24 Still, an unparalleled array of information

  sources have been
opened up to the world. The important question remains: how reli-

  able are they? One individual will not have the ability to sift through all the informa-

  tion sources. Of course, like-minded individuals can form groups. Non-governmental

  organizations with similar aims can pool their information sources. Each organiza-

  tion can perform its own search and filtering service, passing the results on to others.

  Indeed, the operation is as simple as posting results on a website where anyone inter-

  ested can find it. That is already happening. Specific for-profit alternate media sources

  also exist on the Net. Some sites, including that of the not-for-profit Z Magazine, are offshoots of existing paper publications, which presumably hope to attract donations

  or subscriptions through the website operation. Other alternate media sites have been

  started with the aim of eventually becoming financially self-sustaining.

  What is needed is enough time to allow a general audience to find trustwor-

  thy “filters” of news and information so as to properly assess the mainstream media’s

  accounts of what is going on in the world. We can anticipate problems: it should

  not be difficult for the corporate culture, should it see its interests threatened, to put

  forward its own representatives in the guise either of disinterested seekers of truth

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  in the media or even of counterculture activists. It could become difficult to distinguish between the genuine article and a cleverly constructed fake. We have seen

  similar happenings with the formation of company-friendly environmental groups.

  The difficulties are not limited to biases from the right, and the genuine truth-

  seeker should guard against turning a blind eye to distortions and deceptions merely

  because they appear to advance his or her own agenda, whether from leftist or rightist

  perspectives.

  STRATEgIES FoR DEMoCRATIZIng THE nET

  Gathering information is costly, but much can be done to democratize informa-

  tion if people develop a strong sense of the public interest. Recall the dictum that

  the “public interest” is not necessarily what the public is interested in, hence the ease

  with which the public is distracted from the task of political involvement. Every so

  often things happen that cause the public to sit up and take notice—the e.coli trag-

  edy in Walkerton, Ontario, has already been mentioned—and this is where gains can

  be made in terms of people recognizing the need for attending to alternate sources

  of news and opinion. From my own experience in a local community organization,

  which was very active in the 1970s, I can testify that the real empowerment to the

  community association came from professional planners and architects who were

  frustrated by the way in which city planning was directed by the needs of developers

  rather than by overall concern for the community.25 By bringing their expertise and

  knowledge to the public, they were able to advise the association on how to be effec-

  tive at getting certain changes, in particular a comprehensive traffic plan, accepted. As

  we were advised on one occasion, it is possible to win over politicians by a combina-

  tion of public pressure and supportive bureaucrats and other politicians. But one can

  never win when politicians and bureaucrats are united against one. Therefore, the task

  had to be one of convincing one or other second member of the triad to accept what

  the community association members felt was necessary for the survival of their com-

  munity.26 The volunteer members of the community association were professionals

  giving their time freely for work they saw as contributing to community betterment.

  Not every professional takes complete satisfaction in his or her work. Sometimes the

  need to make one’s living conflicts with one’s best judgment. Working outside these

  traditional constraints clearly gave some volunteers great satisfaction. The same hope

  may also exist regarding journalists or public servants, that they will find some way,

  consistent with their primary professional obligations, of assisting what could well

  become a whole new generation of information disseminators on the Internet.

  Increasing democratization of the Internet can happen in various different ways.

  First, the government could give more support to existing freenets. But government

  tax policy so far has not favoured treating donations to the freenets as tax deductible.

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  There seems no good reason that institutions such as the Fraser Institute, which clearly favours a right-wing political philosophy, should have their donations tax-deductible,

  while the freenets, which exist to facilitate communication of all kinds (barring libel,

  etc.), do not have this benefit. I expect that this situation will change. Another prob-

  lem is that access to e-mail facilities is now sometimes provided free—“free,” but with

  conditions that may include allowing the providers to learn more about your activities

  and interests for marketing purposes—by private companies, thus removing one of the

  incentives for joining a freenet.

  A second way in which the Internet could become increasingly democratic is

  through the active initiatives of non-governmental organizations or the kind of for-

  profit operation that Straight Goods—an Ottawa-based, left-of-centre, online news

  magazine—embodies. If the latter is to succeed, there must be people willing and

  able to do first-class investigative reporting for relatively small financial reward. Some

  promising sites have appeared, but the many appeals for support from readers and

  viewers suggest that their financial health is continually in jeopardy, despite the rela-

  tively low distribution costs compared with printed materials or distribution of videos

  by means other than the Internet.

  In the early days of political activism in the 1960s, and in many volunteer orga-

  nizations today, one often heard—and still hears—the remark that the same small

  knot of people show up for all the different causes and try to do all the organizing and

  other work involved because not enough other people are interested. A similar chal-

  lenge faces any task of making the Internet more democratic. It is necessary to attract

  numbers. Some may find that, as a result of a worthwhile bit of information from

  some non-governmental organization on an issue that affects them most directly, they

  come to value reports passed on or recommended by that organization in future. That

  means the possibility of a steady growth of audiences for alternative news and opinion

  suppliers on the Internet.

  One very promising initiative for bringing more democratic government to

  the people is the website , co-founded in late 2011 by Marguerite

  Marlin and Chris Bush. It lists bills currently before Parliament and explains their

  significance. Users can vote on these bills and the vote is tallied by electoral region,

  thus enabling an MP to say that people in his or her riding support or are opposed to

  a given bill. Already in February 2012, MP Mathieu Ravignat (NDP, Pontiac) used

  informatio
n from the site, telling the House that “The results of a poll on the democ-

  ratize.ca site, show that, in the last two months, 80 per cent support my bill.”27

  Public Journalism

  The project of democratizing news media is not new and has been promoted by

  Arthur Charity, among others, in Doing Public Journalism.28 This reform movement

  was started by journalists disillusioned with the gap between the news and opinion

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  they saw as properly needed for serving the public interest in towns, states, and the nation and what was allowed to surface in their own newspapers or other media outlets. The objective of such public journalism is to make it easier for ordinary citizens

  to make intelligent decisions about public affairs and to get these decisions carried

  out. Among the tasks faced by public journalists—and here Charity credits Daniel

  Yankelovich for pioneering thought in this area—are raising the consciousness of

  the public concerning important issues, then allowing for public debate in which

  the consequences of different possible choices are clearly spelled out, with the ethical

  implications of each choice highlighted. The aim is to bridge the expert-public gap,

  promoting two-way communication; special efforts would be made to keep discussion

  on the level of civility. Finally, journalists can be helpful in prodding the political level to adopt measures approved by citizens.

  Charity also draws upon Jay Rosen’s work. Rosen, director of the Project on

  Public Life and the Press, argues that journalists are not simply detached observers,

  but have a role to play in making public life work by taking citizens’ concerns more

  seriously.29 This does not mean “dumbing down” a newspaper—the practice of elimi-

  nating or reducing in-depth research by which a journalist is able to understand and

  explain some complex issues. Such complex articles are difficult to read because the

  matters they deal with are difficult. The art of a good investigative reporter lies in

  signaling in the introduction why it is important to come to grips with the serious

  matter that follows. The reader can then decide whether he or she has the patience to

  tackle the matter. It is extremely important, for a good democracy, that such materi-