Randal Marlin

by Propaganda

  site publications helped to restore balance in a way not possible in the early 1980s.

  When protests took place in Quebec City in April 2001 against the meetings of the

  Free Trade Areas of the Americas, a wide variety of reports appeared on the Internet,

  supplementing the accounts in the established media.62 Documented police excesses

  at the time of the G20 meetings in Toronto in June 2010 have been reported, and here

  again the alternate media have had an important role in keeping up the pressure for

  accountability.63

  6. The human factor must not be forgotten. The ability to summon up a lot of in-

  depth material is not the equivalent of reading it carefully and digesting it. Staring at a

  screen is less pleasurable than holding a book or newspaper in one’s hand. A reaction

  against this mode of information access may be setting in, as people ask themselves

  why they are spending so much time indoors watching a screen, perhaps developing

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  health problems with eyes glued to the imagery and text for such extended periods.

  Another point to consider is that while contact is possible with people worldwide, it

  is also mediated contact. That does not matter so much when we contact people we

  already know, but those we meet only through the Internet seem less likely to inspire

  the same confidence and trust than those we meet in person. We do not have access to

  the facial cues and body language that accompany expression of ideas.

  Participation even in local political discussion groups dissipates as the computer

  with its Internet access ceases to be a toy and becomes an accepted tool of every-

  day life, demanding time and energy perhaps spent more productively elsewhere.

  Although the Internet makes useful information easily available to activists, they may

  feel pressured to disseminate and act upon the new information, leading some who

  engage in this type of work to regret the amount of time consumed. This phenomenon

  is not new, but it becomes more threatening when involvement is increased.

  In the first edition of this book, we noted that interesting information about

  the kind of people who get information from the Internet had been provided by the

  Annenberg Public Policy Center, as reported in a column by Jeffrey Simpson for the

  Globe and Mail. Surveying 48,000 people during the first six months of 2000, this study found that those using the Internet for political information tended to be men who

  earned a median income of $57,500. Only 20 per cent of those interviewed said they got

  their news online, 45 per cent having Internet access but not using it for news, the other

  35 per cent not having any access to the Internet at al .64 This profile, we then wrote, does not encourage the thought that the Internet is rapidly radicalizing the population.

  Much has changed since the 2000 figures were reported. A 2012 study by the Pew

  Internet Project examining the demographics of Internet social networking reported

  that 92 per cent of Internet users in the 18 to 29 age bracket were also users of social

  networking sites.65 The number decreased steadily with older population segments,

  and only 38 per cent of the 65+ age category (sometimes known as “silver surfers”)

  were social media users. The change since 2005 has been dramatic. The highest bracket

  of social networking site users at that time was only 9 per cent, followed by 7 per cent

  and 6 per cent in the 30 to 49 and 50 to 64 age brackets respectively, with apparently

  a negligible number of silver surfers. Current social networking usage by white, black,

  and Hispanics differs little, with numbers, respectively of 68, 68, and 72 per cent.

  The study also notes that 75 per cent of women were using social networking sites,

  compared with 63 per cent of men. Women also use social networking more than

  men, with 54 per cent of them likely to be using it on a given day compared to 42 per

  cent of male Internet users.66 These demographics help to explain Barack Obama’s win

  over Mitt Romney in the 2012 election, since the latter’s policies and pronouncements

  tended to be more unpopular with demographics (young people and women particu-

  larly) that were more prone to communicate through the social media. Old-style mass

  media could allow some gaffes to be forgotten, and they would fade in the public

  mind. But social media continue to keep such things resonating right up until the time

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  to cast a vote. Moreover, social media can be particularly useful for reminding people to vote, in addition to reminding them of why they should vote in a certain way.

  7. A final problem impeding the development of a democratic Internet is the threat of

  increasing government intrusion into private communications. Fear of terrorism has

  resulted in a public more accepting of government surveillance, not thinking about

  the impact this would have on our overall consciousness. Government legislation has

  been introduced in Canada under the Orwellian name “Lawful Access.” This sounds

  very good and acceptable until one realizes that what it means is that wire-tapping

  and other forms of hitherto illegal eavesdropping without a warrant will be made legal

  under the new legislation. Fortunately, civil liberties groups are well aware of what is

  involved and are communicating their concerns to the public. But this issue remains

  to be played out in the political and judicial arenas.

  Since part of the problem with democratizing the Internet comes from the ways

  in which PR techniques can be adapted to this new medium, part of the solution

  will consist in the general population becoming familiar with different techniques

  of propaganda and persuasion. For this reason, it is appropriate to turn our attention

  to procedures for recognizing and analyzing such techniques, which are, of course,

  applicable to the whole range of media and not just the Internet. Some have existed

  for centuries or millennia, but the arrival of the Internet has introduced a wider scope

  of application. Some techniques, such as digital enhancement, are new, but the related

  ethical concerns and principles involved share common ground with, for instance, a

  Renaissance portrait artist’s falsification of a subject’s attributes.

  Wikileaks

  One development with a high potential for democratizing society is the arrival of

  WikiLeaks. This is the name given to the mechanism devised by Julian Assange and

  others whereby those with access to secret government or corporate documents (legiti-

  mately or through hacking) are provided with the means for exposing them anony-

  mously on the Internet. Whereas whistleblowers in the past might have contemplated

  exposing government or corporate wrongdoing, they knew their own careers usually

  would suffer, sometimes terminating abruptly. With anonymity, this strong deterrent

  to whistleblowing is removed. The benefits from enabling timely exposure of official

  deceptions can be enormous, such as avoidance of a costly and ill-fated war. Daniel

  Ellsberg, who leaked official documents that contradicted the optimistic claims from

  US military leaders about progress in the V
ietnam War, wishes he had done so earlier

  to greater effect. Not surprisingly, he has expressed support for the WikiLeaks expo-

  sures alleged to have been provided by Private Bradley Manning.67

  There are ethical problems connected with WikiLeaks, or Anonymous, or any

  similar hacker successor group. Ellsberg was a name with a face, standing accountable

  for his actions. By contrast, the Wikileaker is anonymous and not accountable. The

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  potential for irresponsible mischief is there, checked only by those in the group who act as gatekeepers preventing such abuse. Assange’s dissemination of hundreds of thousands of military dispatches, “The War Logs,” from Afghanistan and Iraq, and their

  selective publication in the New York Times, the Guardian, and Der Spiegel in late July 2010 led to expressions of outrage in some official quarters.68

  Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich said publication of the

  WikiLeaks documents on Afghanistan should be considered an “unconscionable”

  act of treason.69 Tom Flanagan, a former senior adviser to Canadian Prime Minister

  Stephen Harper, reacted to leaks of diplomatic correspondence a few months later by

  saying he thought it would be fitting to have Assange assassinated. Later he retracted

  his “glib” remark, but the full set of words, though stated jocularly, suggests a serious

  edge at the time he made them.70 US Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called

  Assange “a high-tech terrorist” who “has done enormous damage to our country.”71

  These are very serious charges, and the potential for major harm certainly exists.

  But the charges and related ethical questions need to be seen in a broader context. We

  live in a highly propagandized environment. PR and advertising, combined with corpo-

  rate ownership of the mass media, have greatly influenced how we think and what we

  think. Lobbyists for major corporations abound in the corridors of power. Their aim is

  to get the most favourable treatment for their company and its profits, without neces-

  sarily being concerned about maximizing the public interest. PR advisors alert clients

  to the dangers of bad publicity and suggest ways of discrediting sources of negative

  publicity.72 Just as information is power, one can see power trying to control informa-

  tion. George Orwell prophetically described the coming of a surveillance society, where

  different layers of intimidation discourage departure from groupthink.73 With increas-

  ing brazenness, it seems, facts are distorted and images manipulated to accomplish

  government or corporate objectives. The most conspicuous example, as we have seen at

  the end of the last chapter, was the US buildup to the Iraq war. Members of the Bush

  administration were quite prepared to do their own leaking to the press, not only on

  policy matters but also apparently as a kind of punishment, as exemplified by the outing

  of Valerie Plame as a covert CIA operative. Her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former US

  diplomat, had written a New York Times opinion piece debunking the government’s

  claim that Saddam Hussein had sought uranium for weapons use from Niger.74

  The point is not that WikiLeaks can be justified in meeting wrongdoing with

  wrongdoing, which would be false. The point is that public servants who see wrongdo-

  ing—and that includes misleading the public in order to gain support for war—can

  be justified in using WikiLeaks as a way of exposing this wrongdoing when no other

  recourse is open to them. They have an obligation to obey their superiors, but they

  also are sworn to uphold their country’s constitution and the rule of law, including

  international law. They cannot allow themselves to be party to illegal and immoral

  behaviour on the part of their superiors. An analogous truth holds for people who

  work in corporations that engage in unlawful behaviour, whether dishonest financial

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  dealings, safety or health violations, or the like. The possibility of a person engaging in legitimate whistleblowing without ending his or her career has a huge potential for

  regaining a measure of democracy in a society where lack of accountability is rampant.

  Here the established media may not always co-operate, but we have seen how with the

  communications networks of the Internet, they may be bypassed, so that they become

  pressured into co-operating in a way they would not have done in pre-Internet days.75

  PRoPAgAnDA AnALySIS

  Various suggestions for systematic propaganda analysis have been made elsewhere, and

  these can be usefully applied to the analysis of materials on the Internet. The following

  are pertinent questions to ask.

  What Is the Source?

  This is the most important question. Who is the real author of a given message?

  Unless we know who the source is, we cannot make an adequate appraisal of the like-

  lihood of authority against possible bias. Getting to the original source of an idea can

  be difficult but also telling. Someone expresses a startling idea or notable fact, which

  we discover had been printed in the morning’s newspaper. How did the article come

  to appear in the paper? Was it from a press release? Who provided the press release?

  Was it from government or industry? Was it from an industry “think tank”? How

  open is the newspaper to covering “think tank” materials from institutions of a dif-

  ferent political persuasion? Even events may have been subject to control for their PR

  impact. What influences may have been behind the timing of a given event? If there

  is a story about a group protest, we want to know whether this is a genuine expression

  of concern by informed citizens, or whether this is a group artificially created by com-

  mercial interests to fight grassroots opposition. Sometimes a group protesting clear

  cutting of a forest does not consist of environmental activists but is a “fair environmen-

  tal practices” group, covertly sponsored by the industry, which seeks nice-sounding,

  but ineffective, constraints to clear cutting.

  What Is the Message?

  When we look for propaganda, we have the obvious job of asking what messages are

  being propagated. Not all messages are straightforward and may contain subtexts not

  stated but insinuated in the main message. Remember the point made in Chapter 3

  that a barrage of facts, truthful in themselves, may nevertheless create a false impres-

  sion. By noting the source, the less obvious message can be seen. The fact that a doc-

  tor has left Canada to work in the United States can be presented to suggest either

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  that Canada’s health system is no good and should be privatized or that Canada’s health system should be better supported with public money. Or it could have no

  significance at al : the doctor has decided that he or she has put up with one blizzard

  too many. So in asking the question “What is the message?,” we need to differentiate

  between direct message and the sub-text—what is presupposed in, and reinforced by,

  the message and its implication (conclusions
the message recipient reaches on the basis

  of earlier conditioning).

  Who Stands to gain?

  The old Latin watchword “Cui bono” (“to whom the good”) should always be part

  of any propaganda analysis. It can be the clue to identifying the source when that is

  unknown. If the source is known, it may help to uncover hidden alliances between

  source and beneficiary of a message. The Internet has made it much easier to verify the

  ownership structure of the various media and the related business interests that might

  benefit from slanting of the news. It allows for speedy determination of the names of

  those involved in a conglomerate, along with their other connections.

  Techniques Used to Impart the Message

  Propaganda analysis seeks to spell out the methods used to impart a message. The wide

  array of tools involved include the rhetorical analysis we have encountered from the

  Institute for Propaganda Analysis (see Chapter 3) and many similar proposals. There is

  the phenomenon of orchestration, whereby a planned assault on many different media

  at the same time conveys to the receiver the idea of unquestionable truth. Is repetition

  part of what helps to get the message accepted? Is the recipient bombarded with more

  information than he or she can deal with in a critical state of mind? Is the message

  presented in a way that “piggybacks” on some favoured cause or personality popular

  at the moment? Is the piggybacking legitimate, or is it artificial in the sense of twisting

  facts to give a false appearance of connected interests? If the message is communicated

  through a news story, ask whether the news is genuinely important or whether its

  value is doubtful. If the latter, it is legitimate to look for possible extraneous reasons

  for appearance of the message. Was it free copy for the editor, supplied by industry or

  government? Is there significant advertising in the media outlet to suggest favouring

  the message supplier? Are there connections between the media ownership and the

  interests supported by the message? It is not stretching the word “technique” to see it

  applied to the practice of providing lavish tourist accommodation to a freelance writer

  in order to encourage a favourable write-up of some travel destination. It is up to the