In the Clash of Ideologies, Language Wins the War
Jim Morrison famously and prophetically said, “Whoever controls the media, controls the minds”.
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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Return to home pageGreat post clearly enunciating how the electorate is being indoctrinated by the stock-in-trade weasel words of the wealthy to accept policies by right wing governments which are shaped to favour the wealthy at the expense of the poor, disadvantaged, disabled and unemployed.
I was particularly taken with the idea proposed by the IPA, that working for slave wages, and by inference, conditions, is a “right” that low paid workers should embrace in the name of “freedom”.
I have a suggestion for the IPA and their ilk. I think they should be “given the right” to pay 50%+ of their income in tax and they be allowed the “freedom” of having any donations to political parties reported publicly in the media with a sizeable chunk handed over to government coffers in the form of a tax.
They will surely feel “liberated” from the burden of worrying about all that filthy lucre as it is distributed downwards from their undeserving coffers to the deserving nowhere-near-as-wealthy.
After all, they are the ones who are truly the greatest contributers to the nation’s wealth and as such the most worthy of the “freedom” to receive such largesse.
Well we did have Abbott say he was liberating GMH workers. Never asked to explain if my recollections are true.
Same goes for the demolition of penalty and shift allowances. It seems by doing away with such nuisances frees the workers to work hours an times to suit them.
Truly one of the best articles on the state of affairs in this country that I’ve seen for a long time. The erosion of democracy by the mainstream media using the techniques examined above is leading Australia towards a U.S. style ultra right-wing corporatocracy, modelled on a failed neoliberal socio-economic model of the kind that brought us the GFC. Make no mistake- this government is extremely dangerous and is part of a campaign by global elites to assume control of every aspect of our lives… government, commerce, education etc, all under the guise of freedom and liberty. The far right are simply evil… now there’s some language for you.
I was intrigued by the response of a News Ltd representative when discussing the fact that News dominates some 70% of the print media in Australia :
” that just means that 70% of Australians choose to receive their news from News Ltd”
So, that’s alright, it’s all about freedom of choice.
Hadn’t heard the term “weasel words”. But, of course, I know exactly what you mean; “family” is a warning sign, too. A very well-written piece. Thank you. I just hope even one person who blindly follows the “news” reads it and has a lightbulb moment realisation that they’ve been lied to their entire life.
Reblogged this on contriteshadow.
Maybe Tim Wilson will abolish his position as Human Rights Commissioner and divert the ‘savings’ to purchase water canons. Who needs the right 2 b heard anyway…
“70% of Aussies choose to receive their news from News Ltd”…. what a joke. We don’t choose anything… it’s what little choice we have! Thank god for independent media… at least we have small but important alternative to the endless stream of right-wing rubbish that constitutes our mainstream media. The fact that a majority of Australians are brain-washed by their drivel makes me very sad for this country.
This is a great piece of writing. I agree with Lowrey’s really clear analysis of our political plight as far as it goes but it suggests other weighty questions. To me the biggest perhaps is: What is there about Australia that makes us particularly vulnerable to naked corporate greed? The Australian experience is not universally shared by the other nations with which we might compare ourselves. With very similar standards of living and better levels of service provision (health, education and welfare) the Scandinavian countries (for example) seem far more able to balance the self interest of the powerful with the rights and needs of everyone else. Why is that?
Does it have something to do with our mineral wealth compared with the almost total lack of stuff to dig up and export in Scandinavia? Does this give us a higher ranking on the global corporate list of nations to pay special attention to? This seems likely to me.
Does it have something to do with a particular mindset created by our status as an ex colony? This also seems likely to me. For example, are we simply too used to (and accepting of) the idea that it is OK that the ultimate power to decide resides somewhere else? Has our traditional contempt for politicians and distaste for politics, established in the earliest days of European settlement, created the ideal conditions for our democratic rights to be stolen by stealth? Others have argued this and it also seem likely to me.
Are there flaws in the political system set up for us at Federation that make us particularly vulnerable? For example, the first past the post voting system in the Federal House of representatives which gives marginal seats such disproportionate importance in setting the national agenda and the mandatory distribution of preferences which has for too long entrenched our two ‘old’ (practically geriatric) Parties as alternative governments. Do these characteristics of our political situation make the task of the rent seekers easier by concentrating real power in the hands of two nominally opposed political parties who in reality are singing increasingly from the same songbook? Others have argued this also and it seems likely to me too. By way of illustration, if we had proportional representation in the lower house, as we do in the Senate and in 2013 the electorate had voted as they did the numbers of seats would have been roughly:
Labor 50 seats
LNP 68 seats
Greens 16 seats
Others 16 seats
This would have delivered power to Abbott and the L-NP coalition as the mood of the electorate demanded but would tempered the more extreme aspects of his program by forcing him to negotiate with a cross bench which gained roughly 20% of the vote but won only around 3% of the seats. No wonder the two ‘old’ parties and the concentrated, corporatized mass media hate minority government so much.
Let’s be absolutely crystal clear about this,
it is not “the job of government to coddle us from the world’s evils, avoid risk and use taxes, laws and regulations to either steer or direct our behaviour”. (Tim Wilson)
“I think more than anything this is about sending a message that we don’t necessarily subscribe to the notion of the nanny-state,” (Young LNP state president Hermann Vorster)
We must abolish the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission and the Australian National Preventive Health Agency, repeal renewable energy targets, plain cigarette packaging and the alcopops tax, and see the end of mandatory food labelling. (IPA wish list)
Short version, anything that you can make a profit from should be allowed regardless of the consequences.
The following artilce has a list of 150 regulations that the ‘nanny state’ has protected us with. I wonder which of them the IPA thinks we should repeal
http://theconversation.com/one-hundred-and-fifty-ways-the-nanny-state-is-good-for-us-15587
Contriteshadow
Paul Keating’s former speech writer Don Watson wrote a popular little book called ‘Weasel Words’ some time ago. It’s well worth a read as are his other books – particularly ‘Diary of a Bleeding Heart’.
If I could be granted one wish, it would be that this article was printed on the front page of EVERY newspaper in our country.
Thank you.
Graet article.
We need to actually compile a list of quotes that lack logical consistency or rational and empirical proof and reword them in terms of logical inference. There is no such thing as a self regulating market and absolutely no empirical proof that a market finds some magical mythical balance in the Smithian invisible hand. It is absurd that such notions are treated seriously in academic circles when they are simply self-serving labels meant to justify unmitigated greed. Economics and politics are not sciences they are largely driven by traditional subjective prejudices and it science envy that propels unsupportable claims to proof and truth.
There is absolutely no proof of unbridled free will yet a whole body of proof of the determinate drivers of genetics, environment, culture, family, religion and politics which are ignored for the ridiculous notion of personal responsibility, fallacious freedoms and erroneous free will. We have nominal choice bound by the constraints of probability and conditioned environmental and psychological determinants. Nominal choice is bound by contributing physical, economic, familial, national, class and sociological considerations. We are living in a modern scientific epoch driven by medieval insights.
There is no empirical evidence or rational proof that removing the minimum wage would lead to anything other than poverty and exploitation. There is plenty of proof that removal of regulations lead to environmental exploitation and degradation. There are a litany of right wing sound bites that have no rational, logical or empirical foundations yet they are bandied about as if they are the most rational an objective ideas any sane person could have. Any form of regulation or justifiable limits upon wealth and ownership are derided as denial of freedom when freedom to exploit and accumulate unimaginable wealth alongside abject poverty is not freedom it is narcissistic egocentric self-interest and greed.
When medieval religious judgment, blame, retribution are given free hand against factual evidence only irrational justifications remain. Much of the cultural narrative on the right is just plain nonsense lacking any sound empirical proof. Just calling crap science does not make crap science. These fools are willing to sell the planet and billions of people down the drain for their own insane and irrational self-interest.
And the media is bought off and owned by dunderheads left and right who believe magical nonsense that is leading to untold hardship and suffering. Who is going to call a spade a spade; a lemon a lemon; an oligarchy an oligarchy; democracy an autocratic oligarchic theocracy.
Huston we have problem.
Spaceship earth is becoming unstable.
Shes right just build some paper scrubbers and we’ll land her somewhere else.
Where Huston?
Have to get back to you on that some time next century lads.
Houston. Naughty boy.
In the last couple of days I read, i think, in the Guardian a transcript of an interview of Murdoch acknowledging that his now ex wife and Tony Blair were sharing the American family ranch whilst Rupert was in Australia and that was the catalyst for Murdoch filing for divorce plus some other tasty revelations in a diary by Ms Deng that referred to Tony Blair’s ‘great butt’.
Aaaahhhhhhhhh! the sweet irony, Rupert the kingmaker of all politicians has been cuckolded by a Labor politician. LOL
Perhaps this is why he is showing his scorn against the Labor Party.
.
Great article. Needs to be shared far and wide.
One thing I hadn’t thought of before is the way that the term ‘sustainability’ has been hijacked. Out of right wing mouths it sure is a weasel word. The aim is to prevent people analysing an issue holistically.
For example changing age pension eligibility will affect people who have limited control over their circumstances. Are they supposed to ‘take one for the team’ because the ageing population is out of hand? Are there other discussions that could be had within mainstream media around where our taxes actually go and what other options there could be? We are one of the few countries in the world that subsidises private schools and although paid maternity leave is a good idea, paying large sums of tax payer funds to rich families is dumb. These are just a few of many examples.Why do people just accept the story that there are no other options than just reducing the quality of life of people who have no power?
Cassmiranda
The Paid Parental Leave discussion is evolving with a lot of pressure on Abbott from his own cabinet colleagues.
The major major stumbling block with Abbott’s scheme is the 1.5% tax on major employers to partially fund the scheme as it effectively means that those employers don’t get the benefit of the scheduled 1.5% company tax reduction.
Wiser heads are saying that the existing PPL (minimum wage of $622 p.week for 18 weeks) should stay with the term increased to 26 weeks and to include compulsory superannuation with an encouragement for employers to meet the differential up to normal salary. The rationale being that with the employer making a top-up contribution it maintains the employer/employee link that is missing from the Abbott scheme ( under Abbott’s scheme employers have no obligation to contribute and even those with existing PPL schemes can scrap them and pass the responsibility over to the government : read taxpayer).
Abbott , typically, does not want to see the Labor PPL enhanced. He would rather repeal it and imply that he is introducing a super new coalition policy.
Watch this space !
<blockquote<Why do people just accept the story that there are no other options than just reducing the quality of life of people who have no power?
Where is the bulk of news coming from?
In Newscorspeak, powerless people have ‘chosen’ to be powerless, it is their own fault and, therefore, unsustainable.
Any words previously associated with progressive ideologies will be turned into Newscorspeak.
The truth is, that all the things the government are telling us are “unsustainable”, are in fact sustainable.
What is unsustainable is funneling taxpayer money to the wealthy. These corporate black holes will keep soaking up as much as they can take and give bugger all back.
Why, for instance, do we subsidise fuel for mining and transport? The miners in particular are making huge profits. They could afford to pay full fuel costs the same as I do. They would still be profitable just not to the obscene levels that see a Rinehart triple her wealth in one year.
If the billions that are “given” away to corporations were redirected to health, education and welfare, all things become possible. A society that cares for its vulnerable with compassion and understanding becomes possible. Billions upon billions of dollars have slipped away from the public coffers over the last 15-20 years without doing one iota of benefit for the taxpayers who provided those funds.The only beneficiaries of this government largesse have been people who don’t need it in the first place.
The Carbon price and MRRT would have redressed this imbalance to some degree. Fair and equitable distribution of this nations wealth would have been sustainable… the greed of the few who oppose these measures isn’t.
LOL.
I think that if Liberals reduce the age pension there may be a back lash that will see them out of power right smartly.
Just maybe the pensioner will unite, wouldn’t that be some thing?
Reblogged this on THE VIEW FROM MY GARDEN and commented:
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.
Well written article, especially the paragraph about “Free” Markets, free trade and the like. The trouble with some free markets is that they lead to gross distortions like the “Free” housing market in Darwin. I remember having a long discussion and argument with John Elferink about this situation in Darwin where, thanks to ourr “Free” market houses have become unaffordable for all except the very rich. Weasel words is an apt description of these misleading terms as used by the Australian Conservatives, echoing the IPA and the overseas “Club of Rome” and the Rothschild dynasty. Recently there have been demonstrations in Italy and France against the Rothschild owned European Bank but nary a word in the UK or from here.
The Australian public is at a distinct disadvantage in sharing the same language as the crowd running America’s neocon think-tanks.
All the rubbish they have been spewing into the American electorate is getting imported into OUR country without filtering, editing or context. Here, that stuff gets regurgitated by everyone from popular media commentators to loathsome internet trolls. The language comes pre-packaged and ready to deploy. No thinking required.
Phrases like “wealth creators”, “bleeding-heart”, “welfare-queens” and “war on terror” did NOT originate in Australia, but they have become part of our everyday language.
I wonder if reducing the pension will have any backlash, as long as they leave the self funded retiree alone.
Howard spent years, giving to this mob, at the expense of those on full pensions.
Cannot see Abbott taking anything away from them.,
I read in Saturday’s SMH that Abbott wants a “mature” debate on the subject of allowing Chinese interests to buy up Australian owned properties, companies and resources. This from the man who led the most immature, bullying and thuggish Opposition in decades, perhaps even in the histiry of parliament! His hypocrisy never eases to amaze me. Nor does the laziness/compliance of the MSM.
Make that ‘history’
Fed up:
Tax breaks for retirees on self-funded superannuation will soon overtake the $40 billion-a-year aged pension. Somewhere between a quarter and a third of those tax benefits goes to the top 10% of income earners.
Hockey tells us: “Everyone in Australia has to help to do the heavy lifting on the budget… If the burden falls on a few, the weight of that burden will crush them…”
No doubt, the “few” he is truly worried about are the 10% mentioned above!!
I would like to see how it is that Hockey has done away with the debt level, increased debt, and somehow says we cannot afford the aged pension. Claims that the poor welfare dependent should be penalised while the subsidies for the wealthy remain just don’t fit with the rhetoric that ‘we have run out of money’.
I know just enough to see that debt rising and spending on services/employment cut does not make sense.
I hope that someone smart in economics or accounting can explain where the money is going, because it is not going to services etc.
Hockey needs to be forced to answer: where is the money?
Thank you Loz Lawrey for your informative article.
Neil Postman had some thoughts on why “logic and reason lie bleeding and forgotten by the masses”.
The following comes from the back cover of his book, “Amusing Ourselves to Death” :
‘When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when a cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainment, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.’
Neil Postman (1931 – 2003) formerly Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at New York University, argues…that television is transforming our culture into one vast arena for show business in which all public affairs – politics, religion, news, education, journalism, commerce – have been turned into a form of entertainment. …
Television…has taken the place of the printed word at the centre of our culture, and in so doing has trivialised the once serious and coherent discussion of all public affairs.
Postman makes a convincing… case that we are moving not towards George Orwell’s vision of the future but towards Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” in which people become addicted to technologies which take away their capacity to think; their critical faculties are destroyed and their sense of history is lost.’
Chomsky also bemoans the fact that people don’t read.
“I get hundreds of emails and letters everyday from people asking me for information, for the source of something they saw me say that was put up on You Tube. I say, ‘Why don’t you read what I wrote?’ They are stumped; they wouldn’t think of reading something where there is a nuanced discussion and footnotes. If it’s not on You Tube it doesn’t exist, but you can’t say things appropriately in two minutes.”
October 22, 2011 Good Weekend, Sydney Morning Herald
James Cook:
Yeh… saw that this morning and I’m still mopping coffee off my keyboard. Here’s more of what the shameless halfwit’s brainfart:
“…what I don’t think we ought to be doing here is playing to the gallery back home”
“I don’t think we want to be getting a shock-horror headline that the ‘Chinese are coming’ or something like that,”
“We know that foreign investment can be contentious and we know that it is easy enough to whip up a storm about selling off the farm.
“Depending on the mood of the moment or a particular example some people can be furiously in favour of foreign investment … that same person, given a different time and different circumstances, can be quite ambivalent about it.”
WTF? Is he serious? Jeeayzuz wept!!! Here’s a translation… ahhh using xenophobia to score easy political points with the bogans is baaad! But it’s only bad if the victims of the hatred are rich and powerful. Otherwise you have the right to be a bigot!
Oh… and when young Phony says: “…given a different time and different circumstances…” of course the knuckle-dragger means that HE will decide who is demonised in this country and the circumstances in which they will be mistreated.
Without going to any great depths to find where the billions that the government needs, one only has to look at our so-called self -funded retirees. Good old Mr. Eleventy can probably see that, but feel sure he chooses not too. Some, probably quite a few, live in multi-million dollar homes, have enormous savings invested safely overseas, thanks to LNP governments they have inflated superannuation deposits, limited tax on all benefits and yet they are further encouraged to maintain some ridiculous amount of wealth when the rest of us are told we have to do the “heavy lifting”. God knows what we have done wrong, apart from struggle all our lives for those that are classified as “self-funded retirees. So much for a balanced economy and a fair and equitable tax system.
Faith people, I read in an England document today, that a great many people are cutting their ties with Foxtel. Most said it was in principle of Murdochs blatant belief of trying to construe his measure of gaining political bias against all things Labor. Foxtel shares are something I won’t invest in. It is sad (as I wipe away a tear), Ruph’s empire is crumbling.
I watched a TV show just last night on the North of England’s industrialisation and it reminded me of the word Indentured, not used much now but is still in use in some countries, outback Australia and also in some ways in apprenticeships. The original Indenture was where a worker had to sign up for years and work only for that company, buy from the company stores and rent company houses. There was no hope for better conditions, no pay rises and no way out. Similar types of working conditions were still around in my childhood and we had to live in some awful houses reeking of creosote in saw mill towns. Indentured workers faded out with the freedoms of the sixties when people started speaking up and moving out as jobs became more plentiful in country areas. Howard tried to get it back with his Work Choices and I fear Abbott and Co are going to try again too as it seems every LNP member and their voters are all for castigating those employees who do the manual work that they want unseen, unheard but reaping the benefits of. As one of the ‘working poor’ all my life I can honestly state that I have never been so well off as I am now on the aged pension. And I want to continue living as I have now become accustomed 🙂
Kaye
I have on the wall of my office here a Certificate of Indenture that belonged to my father and bound him to his employer as an apprentice fitter, for five years from 1926: his remuneration started at six shillings a week in the first year and rose to a staggering fifteen shillings in year five ; he was granted three days holiday a year – either as whole days or six half days – plus designated public holidays but all unpaid of course.
The IPA would drool !
Campbell Newman (Lib) has mastered this in Queensland. “People of Queensland” he says again and again reading from his song sheet…..and are they to assume that if they don’t sign up to his ideas for these people that they are out of step ? So People of Queensland want what Newman wants is the subtext.
Wealthy as some of us may be, civilisation is still a goal and not an accomplishment.
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I connect with it also, to the point of a dark anger.