Part 2 of this series proposed an analysis of state policy debate that suggested five fundamental themes or presuppositions, to be referred to collectively as the Consensus. These themes were as follows: Prosperity and Wellbeing, Peace and Order, Best Interests, Monitoring, and Progress.

The themes, it was argued, form the bedrock both for the formulation of state policy in public relations terms, and for its apprehension by the state media. By definition, the Consensus is unarguable. It frames all debate, and forms the boundary of permissible debate. Therefore, it is never subject to scrutiny. There is a simple reason for this. If the Consensus were ever admitted to be questionable, in the sense of being itself a matter for debate, it would at once cease to be an authoritative ground for all that follows from it. In other words, it would cease to provide the necessary support for policies it is designed to uphold. In fact, the support for the Consensus extends almost to a shared refusal to acknowledge its existence.

We will now examine the role of Level 2 Discourse, in other words the mainstream media. This role consists of two broad functions. First, it serves as a conduit for policy measures: it conveys them to its target audiences. Second, it legitimises them. Through the media’s sympathy with the fundamentals of the Consensus, and its refusal to submit them to question, the Consensus is broadened and extended beyond the area of policy per se. It becomes the controlling frame for all media reporting regardless of the subject matter. Inevitably, it therefore comes to dominate all programming, regardless of ostensible content. This fact is the primary justification for the assumption that all media content falls under the rubric of propaganda, including television and radio programming that is presented as entertainment. The secondary argument is that the variety of genre available to programmers enables a wider palette of techniques to be deployed in furthering the consensus, so that it would be unreasonable to expect those committed to the Consensus not to employ them. The importance of securing the required response to a policy measure, or preparing the ground for acquiescence to a policy measure, is directly proportional to that measure’s proximity to the Consensus.

It follows that where a large number of repugnant policies are to be enforced, a correspondingly large proportion of media content will employ propaganda devices to reinforce the message. This is where the utility of so-called factual and entertainment programming, as distinct from ‘pure news’, becomes apparent. Indeed, it could be argued that the structure of programming content in the media is an interdependent matrix, in which the various forms of propaganda support one another. It is argued that this reinforcing structure is continuous from news print to television. Consequently, little weight will be given to supposed differences arising from the physical medium in which news content and analysis are conveyed. What matters are the content’s structural features, and the aims which the content is made to serve.

Three main categories of programming can be distinguished: news and its subgenre current affairs, factual or documentary programming, and entertainment programming. This list is not intended to reflect a hierarchy of importance. All three categories play a considerable part in disseminating state propaganda.  At the same time, it can be observed that each one of the categories invokes aspects of the others to differing degrees. However, this is not to say that the categories converge. It is vital to the success of their PR aims that each type of content remains distinct. Otherwise there is the risk of dissonance between message and structure. For example, news fails if it relies too heavily on entertainment or documentary techniques, though on occasion it employs both. Documentary fails if it relies too far on the factual and leaves out entertainment value. Entertainment fails if it forgets its professed aims and appeals too much to real events. Propaganda failures are, to some extent, to be understood in terms of their failure to adhere to this rule of content.

However, what distinguishes each category is not the actual content of the programmes in each. It is rather the differing methods that are used. For convenience, we can refer to these methods as the characteristic representational grammar of each. A representational grammar typically consists of a set of elements that appeal to the faculties in varying measures.  Workers of the Consensus appeal to this grammar not to further the aim of conveying a particular content, but to employ content for the purpose of obtaining a response. This response is always political in nature. However, it is essential to the success of the propaganda aim that this political (thus ‘ideological’ in the technical sense) is never apparent.

It is not quite accurate to assume that propaganda does not appeal to the reason. Strictly speaking, propaganda aims at bypassing the essential activity of reason, which is forming opinions based on good evidence, and crucially, deciding independently what is to count as good evidence. Propaganda still relies on the crucial element of reason, namely that beliefs are not isolated entities, but are held but are held on certain grounds. So, even where the appeal is heavy with emotional content, it is still aimed at securing or instilling a belief. It does so by presenting an apparent rationale for such a belief. That belief is thus not an ‘emotional response’ per se.  But in truth there is no such thing as a purely emotional appeal. Emotional appeal is a device used to reinforce the bad reasons, bad evidence, sweeping generalisations, and ‘expert’ opinion which are invoked to lend weight to malign policies. The response which is intended to follow from the implantation of a pre-packaged idea is acquiescence in a policy. The spectrum of acquiescence extends from indifference to a particular issue, the extreme of passive collaboration, through agreement, which is on the borderline between passive and active collaboration, to the degrees of active collaboration, which are advocacy and, ultimately, cooperation.

The degree of cooperation is to some extent dependent on the specific policy measure and the audience to which it is sold. So, for example, those who are more likely to benefit from the measure will already be more inclined towards aggressive advocacy. A propaganda measure is useful if it convinces such a group to subordinate all other considerations and actively support whatever furthers this beneficial end. Correlatively, those who are most likely to be harmed by the measure are those in whom passive acquiescence is most desirable. In this latter case it is necessary to downplay the disadvantages by minimising or denying them altogether or obscuring them with appeals to morality or duty. If there is a perceived danger of dissonance in the audience, on the basis of previous propaganda experiments, the target audience may be intimidated into obedience with warnings of dangers, perils or other consequences.

The grammar of news and current affairs operates on two levels. On the one hand, there are what we might term the ‘ostensive postulates’, the rules within which news must be seen to operate. These are Objectivity, Balance, Certainty or Accuracy, and, fundamentally, Authoritativeness. Objectivity is the affectation of ideological indifference by news and commentary. There is no question of news being biased, even though news and commentary rarely, if ever, acknowledge their sources. To do so would of course take away from the impression of news and commentary being sources themselves. It is essential that they be seen as primary, free of intermediaries between the news they report and the events it purports to convey. The exception, of course, is where the news content conveys the opinion of state authority. In this case, there is no need to conceal (or invent) a source. State pronouncements are invariably authoritative when they invoke the fundamental assumptions of the Consensus. The news outlet can then without pretence or disguise repeat these pronouncements without qualification.

Balance is another aspect of this affectation. So pervasive has the ideology of Balance become in all commentary and news reporting that it might even be said to be their most characteristic ostensive feature. However, it must be remembered that Balance only applies one way. Authoritative pronouncements by the state, by definition, do not require balancing. On the other hand, an opinion which challenges state authority’s PR line (which is also the default position of news and commentary) must invariably be balanced by the contribution of a state spokesperson. However, all such ‘oppositional’ views, if their existence is to be admitted by news and comment, must always remain either voluntarily within the terms of the Consensus, or must be edited to fall within them before transmission. ‘Balance’, therefore, means representation of the state’s viewpoint in any debate, whether in the person of an office holder or of a third-party contractor employed to defend the state’s position. The state view is by default taken as authoritative and reliable, even when no evidence is presented. Therefore, a much higher standard of proof applies even to contrary opinions within the Consensus than applies to state pronouncements. The most blatant falsehoods can be transmitted as news content, and repeated even when exposed as false, so long as they are pronouncements of state authority.

Certainty is similar to Objectivity in that no possibility of doubt or inaccuracy can be admitted. However, there is also the requirement, in keeping with the ‘mirror image’ characteristic of propaganda referred to in the previous article, that the less certain a particular statement is, the more emphatic and conclusive the treatment. The consumer of news and commentary must understand not only that the claims which are presented are indubitable, but also, more importantly, that no doubt is possible.

Underlying all of these is the assumption of Authoritativeness. There must be no doubt that news reporting and comment is something which must be heeded and taken on board. Regardless of the arguments and evidence, if any, cited in defence of the views taken, these views are expected to be treated with a deference which the same views would not afford if spoken, for instance, on one’s own account and in normal conversation. These views gain a weight out of all proportion to the evidence in their favour. Indeed, the question of evidence is relatively minor beside the issue that an authoritative voice has uttered them. The intention is a prevailing assumption that such views are arrived only after careful evaluation of the available evidence by those well qualified in the relevant disciplines. So persistent is this illusion, in fact, that when it is shown to be precisely that, these are taken to be extraordinary exceptions, which go to reinforce the general law. The effect of such views is in fact far from being to inform their consumers. On the contrary, it is to weaken the consumer’s capacity for exercising judgement to evaluate reality claims in the light of available evidence. This effect is essential to the effective functioning of propaganda.

The ‘non-ostensive postulates’ can be viewed as sub-categories of the above. They represent the implicit rules of reporting which direct and define the ostensive postulates. The ostensive postulates form a code of conduct invoked to defend all reporting and comment, and remain the sole characteristics, despite all countervailing evidence, by which news is to be understood. The non-ostensive postulates, on the other hand, are policing measures that direct the understanding to take the path of least resistance. They depend on and appeal to the Consensus, but to lend conviction to the Consensus, they appeal in each case to some or all of the following: Cajolement (or Persuasion), Praise (or Flattery), Blame (or Moral Wrong) and Threat. Each of these has associated with it a set of words, most of which are freighted with moral associations. The aim of these words is to convey approval or disapproval.

Where Objectivity is concerned, there is Cajolement of those who might be regarded as ideologically neutral. Cajolement involves a plea to overcome one’s own understanding of issues, by definition partial or incomplete, to heed the wise words and convinced tones of the chosen Experts, and hence to adopt the points of view being advertised by news and commentary. Praise is due to those who have shown, or are likely to show, themselves mature, sophisticated, enlightened, progressive, forward-looking, or other similar terms from the list of Praise-words. In other words, these qualities are attributed to those who have adopted the views of authority without undue dissonance. Those who have not yet adopted them are expected to do so if they would be regarded in similar terms. Blame is owing to those who resist these views. Such recalcitrant elements are referred to as marginal, disaffected, the minority, opposed to progress, living in the past, resentful, backward, stupid, etc. But the disparagement is not exclusively character-based. Where the threat of backwardness is deemed sufficiently immoral, and proves impervious to either blandishments or abuse, the only remaining resort is the threat of force, whether legal or physical. This threat is not always invoked in proportion to the size of the perceived difficulty in numerical terms. Aggressive terminology can also be resorted to where the obstacle is numerically minor, but where the state priority is a pressing one and opposition draws attention to its political character. The language of Threat typically imputes the state’s own impulses and sympathies to those it characterises as the enemy.

Balance is the feature of reporting and comment that works to restrict the sphere of opinion so that it remains within the Consensus. Its target is the uncommitted audience, i.e. those whose opinions are there to be secured. To persuade the consumer of the normality of a state of affairs in which any discussion is enclosed in advance within a propaganda framework, and to minimise the possibility of discontent, a ‘soft’ approach is necessary. Therefore, more emphasis is given to the ‘softer’ of the non-ostensive postulates. Every issue is polarised or defined within strict parameters. The oppositional role within this structure, the role of challenge to the official point of view, is an illusion of opposition, as it is merely the expression of another official group. This oppositional role works in two ways. On the one hand, someone having concerns over a particular state policy might be flattered to see these concerns articulated by someone who holds an official position. Seeing one’s own objections anticipated by someone allegedly more qualified to give voice to them tends to weaken the impulse to give expression oneself to these criticisms oneself. It also both ‘legitimises’ the consumer’s criticisms, in the sense that it gives the consumer ‘permission’ to hold them, and also co-opts them into the official structure. On the other hand, there is an underhand expression of the method of Cajolement. The arguments are deliberately constructed and orchestrated to mesh with those of the policy proponent. Therefore, when the policy proponent dismisses and undermines the arguments brought forward by the official opposition, this not only confirms the perceived strength of the policy position, but also answers all possible opposition to the policy. No arguments which fall outside the prepared structure are admitted to exist. Once a ‘debate’ has taken place between the two arms of the official structure, all concerns are deemed answered, and no legitimate grounds for opposition are admitted. The intended effect on the consumer is disillusionment and/or apathy.

Certainty employs Cajolement to pressure the uncommitted to fall into line. It appeals to certain cultural pressures in favour of conforming with received opinion and against being conspicuous, on one’s own, isolated, and thus a potential object of derision to one’s peers. In this instance, the advantages of going-along per se are emphasised. The evaluation of particular arguments on their own merits loses its appeal when faced with the danger of being ostracised, and the comparatively simple step of simply accepting what is offered in the name of avoiding unpleasantness. Praise is of course due to those who obey. However, since active participation is more praiseworthy than simple acquiescence, the latter is more of a duty, something which it is expected one should observe. Simple agreement, non-thinking acquiescence, is therefore less likely to draw Praise than the boon of being left alone, which indeed is more than enough for many. Certainty is more readily undermined than Balance or Objectivity. Balance is demonstrated by simply pointing to the spectrum of pre-approved views which have been represented. Objectivity is more of an unknown quantity; where the accusation of bias has been made, the burden of proof tends to fall on the accuser. It is therefore relatively easy, by dint of constant repetition, to uphold the illusion. However, Certainty is another matter.  All it takes to undermine Certainty is the consistent and energetic highlighting of contradictory facts. Repetition and increased volume in response to such attacks might have a temporary impact, but cannot compensate for a failure of the illusion. Therefore, it is necessary to back up Certainty with both Blame and Threat. Blame often operates in this context via the mechanism of the mirror image. Those who threaten Certainty are disparaged by means of opposition; reason and science are set against irrationality and backwardness. The state assumes the role of moral arbiter, comparable in many ways to the historical role of the church. The crucial difference is that, instead of thoughts which might lead to the commission of a sinful act, the media police bad thoughts which might lead to bad speech. The language of Threat is the necessary accompaniment to that of moral imprecation. Ultimately, Certainty must be backed by the state’s unique claim on the right to use force against the disobedient.  It is never described as ‘violence’. This term is reserved for situations where force is not directly attributable to the state, and the victims are of an enemy group. Instead, terms such as ‘upholding the law’, ‘justice’, ‘restoration of order’, and ‘keeping the peace’ are employed. The intended effect is so far to criminalise opposition to state power as to represent all its manifestations as a form of violence. It is a short step then to attributing the state’s own violence to its victims.

Authoritativeness is unique in that it does not refer at all to the ‘softer’ non-ostensive postulates. It is grounded entirely on the state’s capacity for force, appealing to the moral effects of the Threat of violence and harm, and indeed its example. The aim is to intimidate, suborn, subdue, or frighten. The fact that it is also the fundamental ostensive postulate, the one to which all others appeal, indicates that news and commentary is administrative, in other words, military, in content and purpose. Victims are openly blamed for their own abjection; their plight is attributed to their own moral inadequacy. While other reasons can be allowed when the picture needs to be softened, for instance where Persuasion is needed (as in Balance or Objectivity), one must never lose sight of this fundamental explanation for all victimisation. Although the technique of reversal is shared with the other postulates, here it is unique in two respects. Firstly, it is complete. To create a justification for violence, the effect must be turned into its cause. The threats that are made against victims become a threat made by the victims. It is also essential that the justification is couched in terms that are sufficiently aggressive to work as a warning to others. There must be no ‘grey areas’ or excuses. Secondly, it is blatant. No camouflage is necessary; the burden of moral justification is borne by the other ostensive postulates and their associated ‘soft’ non-ostensive postulates. State violence can be inflicted with a minimum of dissent because this preparatory work has already been done, and continues to work its surveillance over differing interpretations.