https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rip_Van_Winkle#/media/File:Depiction_of_Rip_Van_Winkle_by_John_Quidor_(1829).jpg
Reflections on accountable communication, by Rodney G. Miller author of publications on using words wisely
Tuesday, September 29, 2020
Rip Van Who?
Sunday, September 27, 2020
Foreign Fake-Fun Flops
by Lorie Shaull, DCPantsuitPower Flash Mod Dance, Every Dance Counts
is licensed under CCA-BY-SA-2.0 Generic.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DCPantsuitPower_Flash_Mob_Dance,_Every_Dance_Counts_(30698326112).jpg
When a foreign adversary focuses on spontaneity for a propaganda video, it's great when they don't get that they're on slippery ground.
Anyway, for the propaganda video I just received, it's even more encouraging that whoever was the chief of propaganda failed to see the humungous humor in the incongruity of having a few hundred young folks happen to gather at a mountain-top ski-field. Then, to have them so-called spontaneously break into a "flash mob" dance, for some unclear reason, dancing to vintage American music–with the foreign adversary's iconic buildings etc also just happening to be in the backdrop views.
Maybe it was a further "tell" that contradicted the supposed spontaneity that on-site were a helicopter and two gigantically high bucket-cranes used to video the wide-angle shots. Oh yes, this was a big-budget production, worthy of the attention of whoever was the chief of propaganda.
There were many other "tells" in this week's video too. It was brought to the inbox by those fun-loving folks who stimulated the Berlin Wall. What's that about history repeating, and the adoration of walls? But I'm not in the business of listing out all the "tells" that would be obvious to the rest of us.
In the interests of the health of those who were the creative "talent" for the video, I hope they get to transfer soon from the Propaganda Bureau to the Tourism Bureau, or anywhere else–before the failure of this propaganda flop is fully understood in the foreign propaganda bureaucracy.
The philosopher Jacques Ellul, whom I've mentioned once or twice before, warned foreign adversaries to beware of their cultural clumsiness, when it comes to launching propaganda in another country. Gotta admit this video seemed better than the foreign propaganda in Ellul's time, but that's still no compliment.
Maybe the fake in the video I just saw would slip by some folks–like the social media mob who won't pause to think, or busy folks eager for any joy amid the COVID Pandemic.
Still, the "tells" of sleaze-at-work were very many, which is good for "we, the propagandized."
Tuesday, September 15, 2020
"It's the PROPAGANDA, Stu***"
How about:
Sunday, September 13, 2020
Funny That...
by Travis Walton (reconstitution). This image is in the Public Domain.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Walton(reconstitution).png
Continuing the theme, of all people, Woody Allen not just humorously alerted us to the important quality of being first. He pointed out that the world should not be so preoccupied with any invaders from outer space having a technology that's many years ahead of ours. He claimed it was not advanced technologies supported by plans for world domination that will win. He worried about the invading force that was equipped to be anywhere even fifteen minutes ahead of us.
It's the same with propaganda. Being first wins, especially followed up with high repetition.
Which is why the bad actor, and just about any savvy politician, likes to give her or his version of bad news first, or at least be quickest to reframe the story after the breaking news. Of course, a bad actor who has lots of bad news sometimes has to take a little longer to weigh up which bad news has enough traction to need response. This delay gives quick-off-the mark counter-propaganda the opportunity for added advantage.
Which is also why breakfast brainstorming sessions to counter anticipated propaganda was so often the advantage that won airtime during my brushes with politics.
Because being first applies to counter-propaganda too. Enough with all the micro-analyses. Just get ahead of the game–fifteen minutes ahead, at least. Which is why those media people who have long-winded, polite interviews about or with crooks will never really succeed in keeping them accountable. Some media interviewers are very effective at walking bad actors into disclosing themselves. But, you don't need nuanced understanding of someone picking your pocket; you need to stop them.
If you feel this might not be democratic, I'd counter that you're reasserting simple dialogue–which is kryptonite to propaganda with its sole purpose of mindless obedience, as well as to the bad actor behind it.
No time now to be writing instruction books and action plans either. Just counter-propaganda ahead of the continuous stream of drivel is what matters now.
Monday, August 31, 2020
Change or Be Changed
Without delving here into the layers of Jonathan Swift's satire, this episode of fiction certainly raises concerns that matter right now. For sure, re-reading Swift is recommended.
As we chart the future, we probably need little reminding that today's juggernaut of the inappropriate framing of much public communication does not serve us well. With the endless news cycle, added to social media and other community gossip, the communication landscape continues to grow more challenging–especially with the continuous fog of the not-really latest "breaking news."
Yet, with the ever-widening gap between the theory and reality of any Hatch Act enforcement to keep public officials accountable, this is no time to be faint-hearted, inattentive or distracted.
It's truly unfortunate to recall that in my first blog, little more than three months ago, I suggested that "after some trial fits and starts... much education at all levels might be mainly online–for a long time." With children and teens in many places returning to school over recent weeks, we now start to learn that new COVID-19 infections are greatest in children and teens in some areas.
Although much is being done by many in efforts to protect and treat people, much more change and inventiveness will be needed going forward. It looks like everyone who cares will have to keep alert to how to remedy the effects of Yahoo behaviors.
Sunday, August 23, 2020
Silly Season
The eminent British linguist David Crystal, in his 2016 Orwell Lecture to the Emirates Festival of Literature, named Orwell's essay as "one of the most important articles on the language to come out of the 20th century." Yet, together with the many further warnings of the French philosopher, Jacques Ellul and others delineating propaganda processes for us, these combined efforts are clearly not enough to counteract the emergence of added generations of the ideological offspring of Joseph Goebbels or Leni Riefenstahl.
Some robust educational preparations for life are sustained in the United States and other countries. Evidence of this is the remarkably sustained public communication efforts of students from Florida's Parkland High School, following the shootings there in February 2018. Unfortunately, there is also ample indication that too few people are prepared for the silly season now upon the United States.
An indication of this is a not-so-recent video that's resurfaced, showing the ABC network conducting street-interviews of youths, who are asked to name countries on a map of the world, with no success. What hope then to navigate obscure or deceptive election rhetoric?
Anything can happen as a nation enters the final months of an election.
What's predictable is that "talking points" that direct how to send "messages" to us will increase. With each passing day these will sound more alike. For sure, there will be some public figures and pundits still frozen in talking about the "right message" and message sending. They should find a time-machine and take themselves back to the meetings of telephone engineers in the 1940s, when this concept of communication was popularized (and later challenged). C'mon, that was almost 80 years ago, folks.
In our personal lives, we accept that the ingredients that make life worthwhile are trust, common understanding, and commitment to do what truly benefits people, so why should politicians' public talk be judged at any lesser standard?
Do we really have to go back 2,400 years or more to the ancient Chinese philosopher, Lao-Tzu to find the wisdom that "a leader is best when people barely know [s/]he exists"? Wouldn't that be refreshing? More recently, other thoughtful folks like Warren Bennis and Lee Thayer have added that a true leader:
* helps focus a desired state of affairs;
* asks the right questions that help people come to grip with problems; and
* helps translate solutions into practice.
It is significant that the leader's duty to help is in every line. It's time to expect leaders to take only actions that help people. This is the test of authenticity that's needed now.
Meanwhile, in preparation for the drivel about to be spewed forth, I'd urge you to get a copy of the second edition of Randal Marlin's Propaganda and the Ethics of Persuasion, Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2013. If you'd like a detailed review, before parting with about $33 on Amazon or elsewhere, google the excellent review by Gary James Jason at California State University.
Despite Jason's final recommendation that the book should be accessible to any serious scholar of propaganda and persuasion, it's actually a straightforward preparation for any of us.
Randal Marlin puts succinctly that:
"PROPAGANDA = The organized attempt through communication to affect belief or action or inculcate attitudes in a large audience in ways that circumvent or suppress an individual's adequately informed, rational, reflective judgment."
Not hard to understand. With this very useful definition, quibbles about whether or not all propaganda is harmful get swept away. All propaganda is bad. This is not just my view, but was earlier implied by Jacques Ellul, who pointed out that "to be effective, propaganda must constantly short-circuit all thought and decision." The light at the end of the tunnel we're in is that Ellul also noted that propaganda ceased where simple dialogue begins.
The current public "exchanges" about the US Postal Service have special value in the United States. Curtailing this beloved US institution is a loser for such advocates. The limitations on propaganda that Ellul outlined are a warning to propagandists and a clue for ways to counter propagandists.
1. Don't mess with people's pre-existing attitudes–propaganda cannot move except within the framework of these attitudes, which it can modify only very slowly (certainly not in the time frame of the final stages of an election).
2. Although propaganda might sometimes overcome general trends of society, the sociological/cultural factors in which people act have an absolute limit. So, in a nation committed to democracy, proselytizing for a monarchy is a loser–instead, tyrants try to claim they are democratic, which counter-attacks need to focus vigorously on unmasking.
3. The propagandist is limited by people's need for consonance with facts; so, the counter-attack is to reassert and convince people of the solidity of a fact that is right! Propaganda of ideas does not exist. Even "Goebbels changed his propaganda after Stalingrad, because it was impossible to transform that debacle into victory," said Ellul.
Among many other good qualities of Marlin's book are his explanatory list of the common fallacies of reason, in one of the best summaries I've seen, AND similar provided by Eleanor MacLean of the known and less well known examples of how language can be used to manipulate an audience.
It's time to get ready, get personal with email and mutually supportive action, and be prepared to listen up. Slogans matter less in elections than we might think, but this might be time to remember that the 1957 election slogan in Britain "Never had it so good" was turned back, by the opponents' response "Never been had so good."
That's the spirit needed now. Going forward, especially in coming weeks, we'll see whether candor of actions matches public talk.
Thursday, August 6, 2020
What's So Funny?
My reward for buying second-hand, however, was apparently at the cost of some next generations of students at Villanova University in Philadelphia no longer having access to the humor and its principles in this slim book on their library shelf–as the stamp "NO LONGER PROPERTY OF..." that a librarian there in search of more shelf-space was obliged to announce inside the front cover.
Why this book is interesting is that for all the wonderful humor that keeps the world healthy and for all the descriptions of the effects of humor, we are less well served with explanation of the causes of humor.
For some of the more intelligent speculations about why we laugh, we have to reach back to the French philosopher, Henri Bergson, writing in 1900. He described his purpose in exploring humor as better understanding what it is to be human. He talked about many aspects, including the social role of laughter, the part played by exaggeration of human features, gesture and movements, and the relationship of the comic to human imagination.
Walter Nash's book is packed with a mix of examples of humor of course. One of the more famous being the restaurant diner asking, "Waiter, what's this fly doing in my soup?" for the Waiter's reply, "Looks like the breast-stroke, sir."–as an example of the pragmatic factor. Or an example of the bizarre pun, "What do you do with a wombat?–Play wom." In the interests of space, these are among the shorter samples.
The value of the book is not so much the examples, as much as the attempt at outlining some principles. Although published in 1985, for today's readers there might be too many historical (and not even hysterical) examples that relied on sexism or other appeals now considered inappropriate. Maybe this was the reason for my copy's removal from the university library's shelf?
Another limitation of the book is that it could do with more examples not so literary or Anglo-centric. Still, with so little of worth looking at humor, which is an elixir for so many of us sharing emailed jollies at this bizarre time, Nash's book is worth a look–if, like Bergson, you're interested in an important aspect of what makes us human.
One commentator on political humor, whom I read recently, suggested that a universal theory of humor is yet to be developed that takes into consideration three major theories, namely superiority, relief, and incongruity.
What's clear is that the human emotions behind humor remain a mystery and complex. Perhaps that's why at this time that the talk of public figures is so rife with blatant banality, as well as insult and injury of we the people; with some so lacking in empathy or other emotions we value, that we hear little or no humor from them.
Among politicians, who do you remember last able to make us laugh at all, much less for the right reasons?
Sunday, July 26, 2020
Time to Chill
by Борис У is licensed under CCA-SA3.0 Unported.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BigBrother.jpg
It's time... Being hooked is bad. The media are hooked on themselves, so why not us too?
Look around you - it won't take long to see someone chained to catching the latest meaningless but dangerous inanity.
Media analysts for years have noted the media's preoccupation with the big 5 = Disaster, Celebrity, Crime, Sex, and Violence.
Anytime media can capture all 5 categories in one story, especially in politics, wow, what a story! And, there you have all wrapped into one what people living in New York City saw long ago. But Ground-hog Day is no longer just a movie.
This is the bigger story of why it's time to ignore the nonsense. Time to tackle what matters now.
Better to take actions I've suggested in earlier blogs. Do get right your words to push back (save energy to push back on the big lies), turn off the media for most of the day, talk to your friends, build personal networks, and... chill.
The serious observers of propaganda knew this long ago. Of course, right now the technology is already in many TV's for the 2-way scary big brother screen that George Orwell warned about (not a conspiracy theory, just fact). But unlike Orwell's "Utopia=Nowhere Land," we can turn the screen off, for now.
Not new. As your quick google search will confirm: "Julius Caesar's influence provided Augustus with manipulative techniques he would need, such as literature, statues, monuments, and coins in order to gain preeminence in Rome."
In other words, what Jacques Ellul has warned about as a most dangerous propaganda: social-propaganda. That is, what our preoccupations build into the social fabric, of media, conversation, education, arts, statuary, etc of society. Sound familiar?
It's time. The future is in our hands.
Sunday, July 12, 2020
We or Me?
Wednesday, July 1, 2020
Accountability
The Constitution of the United States of America
by Bluszczokrzew, Constitution_Pg104_AC.jpg: Constitution Convention (retouched).
This image is in the Public Domain {{PD-USGov}}
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Constitution_We_the_People.jpg
After I delivered this "gem" to the PR practitioners, amid the unexpected cheers and applause that they responded with, I quickly modified how to talk with them about communication.
Thursday, June 25, 2020
It's Time for Plain Talk
by Matt Brown, MattFromLondon is licensed under CCA 2.0 Generic.
Friday, June 19, 2020
Violent Rhetoric
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Peter_Lalor.jpg
Unless national self-correction is backed, as appropriate, with punishment, intervention/therapy or disregard of bad actors, then representative democracy faces a rocky road ahead.
Sunday, June 14, 2020
Imagine
by United Artists, retouched by Brandt Luke Zorn.
This image is in the Public Domain {{PD-US-not renewed}}
"...the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free."
Although Hamilton was commenting on the effect of chaos from war upon a nation, this is also the clue to why a propagandist stimulates continual chaos.
The foremost writer on this subject, the French philosopher, Jacques Ellul warned long ago that the propagandist needed:
"...continuous agitation... [that was] ...produced artificially even when nothing in the events of the day justifies or aroused excitement. Therefore, continuing propaganda must slowly create a climate first, and then prevent the individual from noticing a particular propaganda operation in contrast to ordinary daily events."
Almost 40 years ago in an address to a Royal Society gathering focused on public information, I drew on Ellul to urge awareness about how we are all propagandized. As the most educated, intelligent people in the community, my audience was the most propagandized, because they:
(1) absorbed the largest amount of second-hand information;
(2) felt some compulsion to have an opinion; and
(3) considered themselves capable of "judging."
When our world view is so dominated with one leader's name, with the media conducting endless analysis and regurgitation of that leader's statements or views, we are being abused.
It's time to imagine a better way.
One lesson from the Covid-19 experience is that social distancing works–by analogy, we should separate ourselves from a propagandist's messages and the "busy work" of reacting to them. You can keep the virus known as propaganda at a distance too.
The actor Peter Finch, in the film Network [here], satirically modeled a first step along these lines when he declared:
"I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore..."
Otherwise, as Ellul also warned, each of us can become:
"...suited to a totalitarian society, ...not at ease except when integrated in the mass, ...reject[ing] critical judgment, choices and differentiations because... [we] ...cling to clear certainties... assimilated into uniform groups and want it that way."
Internationally, peaceful protests have shown one way to divert such a dismal future. It's time to imagine, among the many choices, how you will deploy your talents in 2020.
Is there nothing you can do? What will you do?
Wednesday, June 3, 2020
Speaking Out
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. giving his "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
As from the earliest times, improved understanding of what makes public talk effective will empower future rhetors to speak out, as the best assurance that democracy will thrive.
The teaching of writing and public talk must develop the responsible principles learned from a rich legacy of thoughtful speakers and commentators.