Randal Marlin

by Propaganda

  als be made available. Although only a minority may read the articles, these will be

  an influential minority compared with the average reader. On the other hand, the

  “dumbing down” philosophy favours producing what great numbers of people, often

  in a hurry, wil actual y read. This is often gossip, entertainment, and sensationalized

  or quirky news of no real consequence. G.K. Chesterton, who made many trenchant

  comments about the press nearly 100 years ago, commented once that the “silly sea-

  son” of the summer months is actually a time when newspapers “begin to discuss the

  things which are really important to human society.” He had in mind the discussion

  of institutions taken for granted but having a huge impact on society, such as that of

  marriage.30 His point, as I see it, is that conventional journalism often passes over seri-

  ous issues, perhaps because they lack novelty, in favour of issues that have the power

  to attract attention but have no lasting importance. Good journalism will seek out the

  issues that need airing and discussing, even though the public may show little enthu-

  siasm for the matter at the start.

  The Internet, far from competing with public journalism, is in a position to con-

  tribute to it, for very different reasons. First, the Internet is able to provide information and gossip more easily and faster than newspapers. So many people are interconnected

  through their Facebook, Twitter, and other accounts that their interests in trivia (as

  well as serious matters) are likely to be satisfied through the congenial networks they

  CHAPTER 8: PRoPAgAnDA , DEMoCR ACy, AnD THE InTERnET 321

  BV-Propaganda-Interior-04.indd 321

  9/5/13 4:52 PM

  have set up rather than through newspapers. The habit of reading daily newspapers (apart from freebies picked up at bus stops) seems to have virtually disappeared from

  the current university age population. Radio and television are also fast in delivering

  news, but people have to be listening at the right time, and most people do not have

  time to do this for more than a few hours a day. The Internet is accessed when the

  user is ready and keeps the information until the user is ready for it. On this score, the

  existing mass media are not able to compete, which may be one reason why they have

  decided to join with the Internet rather than fight it. Most major newspapers have

  their own websites. In any case, the paral el supply of “dumb down” materials on the

  Internet should allow for some additional uncertainty about pursuing this form of

  journalism in the major media. Will people pay for it on paper when they can access it

  free online? Susanne Craig, a media columnist for the Globe and Mail, gave examples

  of cases where Internet sites scooped the established press: “For instance, reporters

  from the relatively unknown TheSmokingGun.com were first to reveal that the Who

  Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire? groom, Rick Rockwell, was once the subject of a

  restraining order. That discovery made world headlines.” So far, she observes, newspa-

  pers and at least one newsmagazine have rushed to get their scoops on their websites

  as quickly as possible. It is good for a newspaper to be known as the one with a great

  many scoops, but she wonders about the wisdom of posting “less sexy exclusives,” since

  people might decide not to buy the morning newspaper when so many of the impor-

  tant matters are freely accessible on the relevant website.31 As a result, newspapers

  might want to give a higher proportion of space to public journalism; people will

  have a good reason to subscribe when they know there is a high degree of likelihood

  of seeing some important and durable think-piece brought to their attention each day.

  Such items, unlike the gossip materials, which can be picked up and posted by others,

  are not so easily pirated.

  A second, and less tentative reason why the Internet is likely to contribute to pub-

  lic journalism is the comparatively low cost of disseminating ideas on this medium.

  There are people willing to do the research necessary to produce in-depth articles, and

  there are people strongly interested in finding and reading those results. As mentioned

  earlier, journalists and perhaps retired civil servants can contribute to the public jour-

  nalism project by taking a little extra time to post materials. Journalists who have their

  materials spiked by their mainstream media editors can now find an outlet in one

  of the alternative news websites. That may provide an additional incentive for their

  employers to publish more of such material so as not to lose readers to these alterna-

  tive sites. If a journalist fears the wrath of an employer, he or she can always contribute

  material under a pseudonym or anonymously.

  A third way in which the Internet can contribute, and already does contribute,

  to public journalism is through making it easier to get information relevant to at least

  some aspects of reporting and to share this information among other journalists them-

  selves. I.F. Stone made his living by analyzing government documents, picking them

  322 PROPAGANDA AND THE ETHICS OF PERSUASION

  BV-Propaganda-Interior-04.indd 322

  9/5/13 4:52 PM

  up from department offices when they were printed. Today one does not have to live in Washington, as did Stone, to access such documents in a timely way.

  All of these are positive features of the Internet, so far as the goals of public jour-

  nalism are concerned. Not all writers about the Internet are so sanguine about its

  prospects, and it is important to take note of the drawbacks of this form of commu-

  nication for democracy. The first, and obvious, point is that not everyone has access

  to it. Since we are talking about giving a voice to those who currently lack power in

  the system, that voice extension misses a section in society that may well need it most.

  Even those who log on do not necessarily have equal access. Some will have the right

  kind of software to access videos, complicated documents, and suchlike. The fortunate

  will be able to download, edit, and forward texts much faster and more efficiently than

  others. Many, perhaps most, people require technical support when it comes to setting

  up a website, something that those with institutional connections can often get for

  free. Not everyone can afford the many software applications (“apps,” a term especially

  applied to those used in hand-held devices) that facilitate information acquisition and

  transmission. The question is not necessarily what views will be posted, but which will

  prevail in the context of economic and technological inequality.

  What others Have Said

  The Internet Enhances Democracy

  There are many ways in which the Internet can contribute to democracy. One, as

  already seen, is by providing opportunities for discussion and dissemination of infor-

  mation outside the range accepted in the mainstream media. Another is by facilitating

  contact between voters, their representatives, and the media.

  This sounds as though it will, indeed, enhance democracy, but it is not difficult to

  imagine how money and the existing power structure can still have a dominant effect.

  Those with money can use all the traditional means of persuasion at their disposal to

  persuade ordinary citizens to send a c
ertain message to their elected representatives.

  The problem with the Internet is information overload, which means that no single

  individual will have time to sort through all the conflicting information. Most people

  have to rely on others to do some of the sifting for them, and that is where existing

  money and power can continue to have influence.

  Sceptical Attitudes to the Internet

  Some of those who have done a lot of thinking about the Internet often show, at best,

  a qualified optimism for the future of this medium as regards democracy. One such

  person is Robert W. McChesney, professor in the School of Journalism and Mass

  Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.32 In 1996, McChesney

  correctly forecast the trend of convergence in media, at a time when the mergers of

  Disney with Capital Cities/ABC and Time Warner with Turner Broadcasting were

  CHAPTER 8: PRoPAgAnDA , DEMoCR ACy, AnD THE InTERnET 323

  BV-Propaganda-Interior-04.indd 323

  9/5/13 4:52 PM

  just under way and that between AOL and Time Warner was still to come. In Canada, the sale of the bulk of Conrad Black’s newspapers to Izzy Asper’s CanWest Global

  Communications in 2000 continued the trend of linking content providers with

  electronic media,33 but the promised benefits failed to materialize. The subsequent

  downturn in the economy, the death of Izzy Asper in 2003, and competition from the

  Internet, allowing viewers to access a lot of news and opinion for free, led to a pre-

  cipitous decline in CanWest’s fortunes. A new group, Postmedia Network,34 emerged

  from CanWest, headed by Paul Godfrey, CEO of the National Post.35 CanWest’s broad-

  casting interests were sold separately to Shaw Communications in 2010.

  McChesney noted two opposite tendencies with such developments, so far as

  the future of democracy is concerned. On the one hand, there are arguments that

  domination of the media by increasingly concentrated commercial interests is bad for

  democracy. On the other hand, as McChesney puts it, “newly developed computer

  and digital communication technologies can undermine the ability to control commu-

  nication in a traditionally hierarchical manner,” and the Internet in particular “permits

  inexpensive, global, interactive, and mass computer communication, as well as access

  to a previously unimaginable range of information.” Whether this new technology

  will eclipse the development of the printing press, as one of his sources claims, is a mat-

  ter that remains to be seen. But the impressiveness of the Internet leaves no doubt that

  the point is at least debatable. McChesney’s pessimism comes from his assessment of

  the 1995 Communications Act in the United States: “perhaps one of the most corrupt

  pieces of legislation in U.S. history ... effectively written by and for business.” What

  should have been a profound, soul-searching debate about the implications of this act

  did not take place. The news media simply covered the issue as a business story, not

  a public policy story, he writes, with the result that an “informed and mobilized citi-

  zenry ready to do battle for alternative policies” never had a chance to form.

  McChesney believes that control of the new information super-highway should

  be determined by the kind of debate that in the 1920s led the Aird Commission in

  Canada to establish public control over the airwaves and a nonprofit public broad-

  caster. With the 1996 US Telecommunications Act, which permitted dominant firms

  to get larger through mergers and acquisitions,36 private corporations have been deter-

  mining the future of the Internet. Reformers would like to generate a “viable nonprofit

  and noncommercial sector in the information highway,” but to get taken seriously they

  need to concede that they are fighting a battle for the margins and not of regaining

  public control over information exchanges. As Gutstein put it in the Canadian con-

  text, we have seen the enclosing of the information commons.37

  In the current situation, pitched battles are fought over specific issues, such as fee

  structures charged by major telecom companies to small ISPs, who are in constant

  fear of having their independence jeopardized by structures that work to their disad-

  vantage, including the slowing down of their traffic compared with that of major tele-

  coms who themselves provide ISP service. The word “throttling” is sometimes used

  324 PROPAGANDA AND THE ETHICS OF PERSUASION

  BV-Propaganda-Interior-04.indd 324

  9/5/13 4:52 PM

  to describe this. The goal of “net neutrality” is advanced by those who want smaller, independent ISPs not to be disadvantaged by the giant telecoms who lease them the

  lines and other means of Internet connectivity but also compete with them as ISPs

  themselves. Obviously, if the big telecoms (Rogers and Bell) manage traffic flow in a

  way that slows down competitors while giving their own customers speedier access,

  this can give them an enormous advantage. A complaint to the CRTC was made by

  the Canadian Gamers Association in 2011 that throttling was taking place, and accord-

  ing to Openmedia.ca “consumer rights were not adequately being protected by the

  CRTC.”38

  The CRTC made a policy statement in 2009 regarding Internet traffic manage-

  ment practices (ITMPs), addressing the question of throttling at both retail and

  wholesale levels. It stated that ITMPs have a bearing on customer choices and that

  the ISPs—not only the giant telecoms but also the smaller independents—should be

  transparent about their practices.39

  Openmedia.ca expressed the concern that although Bell and Rogers made prom-

  ises in 2011 to stop throttling in 2012, there is no mechanism for potential complain-

  ants to know whether they have or have not done so. It would be costly for potential

  complainants to carry out the necessary verification, and it would be easy for “Big

  Telecom” to argue that the results of any study are inconclusive. Openmedia therefore

  recommends that the CRTC carry out testing at random intervals.40

  The issue is of vital importance to democracy, because people value their time and

  become irritated by delays. It would be easy for Big Telecom to crush any competition

  by slowing down traffic coming to and from competing ISPs. How would anyone

  know who is responsible for any given slowdown? How could anyone prove that any

  slowdown is deliberate?

  Ralph Nader has used the direction taken by the corporate media as an issue in

  his campaign for the presidency, stating:

  It’s the corporate media ... it’s exactly another reason why the power is so concen-

  trated and the voice of the people is not expressed. You have one company own-

  ing 800 radio stations, and before 1996 it was illegal to own more than 12, after the

  Telecommunications Act. Six major media conglomerates now control most of the

  circulation of magazines, newspapers, and the audience of radio and TV.... The elec-

  tronic media now is into trivialization, sensationalism. You know, they are looking

  for the nonfiction soap operas like O.J. Simpson and Elián and Lewinsky. And that

  crowds out enormous journalism because of the time it takes, the space it takes.41

  On the opposite, more optimistic side of the ledger is the fact that the Internet
>
  is distinct from the situation with previous communications technologies in that by

  its nature it is not amenable to centralized control. McChesney has no doubt that

  a citizen-based, nonprofit sector of cyberspace will survive and even thrive, but for

  CHAPTER 8: PRoPAgAnDA , DEMoCR ACy, AnD THE InTERnET 325

  BV-Propaganda-Interior-04.indd 325

  9/5/13 4:52 PM

  him the issue is whether the Internet will be able to radically transform our societies for the better. Will we achieve the ideal speech situation described by Habermas

  (discussed in Chapter 4)? McChesney looks at the history of capitalism and how it

  developed public relations in answer to democratic threats to its interests. Analogous

  developments might emerge to hobble the use of the Internet for radical democracy.

  Alex Carey has studied and nicely documented this PR response in his book Taking

  the Risk Out of Democracy.42 However, the Internet, as well as facilitating global commerce, has also made it easier for capitalism to run around any gains that workers may

  have achieved in their own country. The future prospects are bright for the very rich

  but not for those opposed to environmental recklessness, instability, or a deteriorating

  public sector.43

  What McChesney wrote about the United States in 1996 could easily be applied

  to the Ontario government of Premier Mike Harris at the turn of the century and

  the 2012 Canadian government of Stephen Harper, notable for its stifling of debate

  at the committee level, muzzling of government officials, and using its power to pro-

  rogue Parliament: “There is nothing short of a wholesale assault on the very notion of

  democracy, as the concept of people gathering, debating, and devising policy has been

  supremely truncated.” Backbenchers such as Richard Patten (Liberal) in Ontario have

  been outspoken against the diminished role of the ordinary Member of the Provincial

  Parliament (MPP), and similar feelings have been expressed in the federal arena. On

  the evening of December 16, 1997, Mike Harris’s Progressive Conservatives “proceeded

  with a motion that grouped together five separate Bills from different ministries”;

  by doing this, Patten says, “they shut down debate on five separate, important pieces