n the Clash of Ideologies, Language Wins the War
Image courtesy of the australian.com.au
This is certainly the case in Australia.
In this guest post Loz Lawrey looks at how the media – the Murdoch media in particular – shape out attitudes and opinions.
In 1988, Professor Noam Chomsky reminded us that the media “serve,
and propagandise on behalf of, the powerful societal interests that
control and finance them” (1). Never has this fact been more blatantly
obvious than it is today.
The glaring anti-Labor/Greens bias on display by the Murdoch-owned
news media during the term of the Gillard Government exaggerated Labor’s
dysfunction and gave credibility to a Liberal/National opposition
devoid of policies or ideas, other than a plan to hand decision-making
over to commercial vested interests.
Today much of the mainstream media’s energy is spent fulfilling the
roles of apologist and spin doctor for a right-wing conservative
government which serves the wishes of a global oligarchy.
Selective coverage of current affairs events, skewed “opinion” pieces
disguised as news reportage, simplified “black or white” presentation
which avoids all nuance – the mainstream media has an endless supply of
tools for the manipulation of public perception.
There is, however, more to the message than what is essentially the
delivery system, or the means of presentation. The TV or radio program,
the article in the print media or even the political billboard are
simply what the megaphone is to the voice – the means of imparting the
message. It’s in the language that real power and control resides.
Political forces use language as the weapon of choice on the field of
public debate – what some refer to as the battlefield of ideas. In this
arena, the army with the sharpest, most evocative language will
prevail. There is little need for true logic or reason to underpin one’s
arguments, only that a perception of reasoned lucidity is created by
the language used.
While all sides of politics strive for control of any public debate
through their use of language, conservative forces in our society have
become masters of what is known as weasel language, or weasel words. The
terms come from the reputation of weasels for sucking eggs and leaving
an empty shell – at first glance weasel words create an impression of
real meaning supported by research-based evidence or expert advice,
which upon closer inspection is found to be hollow and devoid of
substance.
This mastery of language, together with the recent structural
disarray in evidence on the left of the political spectrum, goes a long
way to explain the survival of conservatism around the globe, despite
its continuing assault on the public interest, both nationally and
globally.
The work of bodies such as the right wing Institute of Public Affairs
is as much about formulating the language used to justify its
ideologically-based policies as it is in formulating the policies
themselves.
Words such as “free” and “freedom” are tacked onto the labelling
language used to define and create a perception of a proposal or idea.
Hence we get “free market”, “free speech” and “freedom of choice”. Once
you insert a word such as “free”, a benign impression is created of
harmless intent.
So it is that when a spokesperson for the IPA argues that people
should be “given the right” to work for less that $16 per hour, they are
claiming that working for less than the established and agreed minimum
is a freedom. In this way, shifting employment conditions closer to the
slavery end of the spectrum is made to sound like a positive, liberating
move. It will hardly be a liberating experience for those workers who
endure it, however, when they find themselves working longer and harder
for less or very little, unable to meet their own living needs.
The term “free market” creates an image of happy global business,
unfettered by tariffs and protectionist regulations, with goods moving
freely about, resulting in best outcomes for both business, workers and
consumers. The fact that tariffs were developed as a means to counteract
trade imbalance and injustice is swept aside, because who wouldn’t want
“freedom” in the marketplace?
Now business regulation designed to level the playing field and
increase real fairness in trade is labelled by conservative governments
as “red tape”, an evil to be done away with. Environmental regulation
intended to protect our natural heritage landscapes and control resource
extraction is now dismissed as “green tape”.
These terms belie the fact that such regulation has been developed
over many years in response to the perceived need to maintain balance
and sustainability in all things into the future.
Even the term “sustainability” itself has been highjacked by the
weasel-worders. When the term is used in the context of economic debate,
any cuts to spending or public funding are easily justified. Old-age
pensions? Unsustainable. A living-wage pay rise for child-care workers?
Again, unsustainable.
The rhetoric of conservative ideology is cleverly employed over time
to erode the positive public perception of ideas and institutions which
are seen as contrary to the the right-wing world-view.
A gradual sanding-down of the public’s acknowledgment and
appreciation of the workplace rights and entitlements won over years of
union organising and picketing has been achieved by the repeated
portrayal of unions as hotbeds of thuggery and corruption.
Dismissive rhetoric about “the left” ignores the fact that leftist
political values are based upon social justice, inclusion and concepts
of decency and fairness. The ongoing message is that an empathetic
worldview is “loony” and that to embrace a cynical philosophy of
“winners and losers” is to dwell in the “real world”.
In this way a political message has been delivered into the public
sub-consciousness: that leftist views are “crazy” and “loony” in their
consideration of the public good, and that right-wing extremist views
which can only benefit a minority elite are “sensible”, “rational” and
“economically sound”.
Somewhere, somehow, logic and reason lie bleeding and forgotten by
the masses, while weasel words and tabloid headlines are regurgitated as
valid arguments in the arena of public discussion.
(1) Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988)
by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman
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