We will now turn to look at the two remaining aspects of Level 2 Discourse. These are factual programming and entertainment. It was argued that while all three divisions of Level 2 appeal on regular occasions to elements of the others, it is essential for the three to remain firmly distinguished in the mind of the PR consumer if they are to have their proper kind of influence. These elements must therefore appear to be used only to facilitate communication. However, as their real purpose is to consolidate state policy, this mutual dependency is a revealing trait.

It has been a guiding assumption throughout this series that the media’s minor purpose is to communicate state policy. To accomplish its major purpose, the defence and justification of state policy, it is essential that the minor purpose appears to be factually plausible. However, the means by which the communication of policy takes place is structured so as to normalise the policy measures that it reports, and to prepare the groundwork for future measures. The success or failure of this role is crucial to the success or failure of state policy. Therefore, it is a crucial factor contributing to the continuity of state power as well.

As with news reporting, it is essential that factual programming appears primarily to serve its stated purpose, namely to inform. Its real or non-ostensive purpose is in fact to instruct. At a cursory glance is it quite easy to confuse these two related but distinct aims, a fact of which it takes full advantage. Authoritativeness is typically less prominent in the factual item. As distinct from news reporting, there is less apparent justification for simply reporting state pronouncements in undiluted form. One might therefore expect more emphasis on persuasion. In other words, one might expect that the ‘softer’ non-ostensive postulates would be leaned on in order to reinforce the Consensus.

However, this is not the case. ‘Factual’ documentaries and series programming are not bound by the same rules as news reporting. The absence of an imperative to directly report state pronouncements does not mean that factual programming exists somehow exterior to the Consensus. It means, instead, that state agendas become the substance of the programming. Whereas there exists in news reporting the need to Balance policy reporting according to the predefined parameters of debate, factual programming occupies what might be called the second degree of second level discourse. In other words, it appears to conceal its alignment with policy needs, whereas in fact it integrates the policies and makes them its subject matter. The emphasis is less on conveying and justifying, and more on consolidating. The Consensus and the grammatical parameters that apply to the news media are still present and direct the approach to the material. However, the rules are more flexible. Balance is no longer an imperative.

A case for a particular agenda can therefore be presented more blatantly than is normally typical of news media. The ostensive reason for this is that this is one side of an argument that is being presented on its own merits, rather than being endorsed. The presumption of Objectivity grants in advance that, for any given argument, there are only two sides; that both of these sides are invariably presented in undistorted form; and that, perhaps most crucially, that neither side on its own is preferable. This is the defence that is resorted to despite the fact that even the ‘other side’, the version that is officially accepted, is invariably accompanied with ‘balancing’ content. Therefore, the structure of factual programming echoes that of news and comment, and is grounded by it. However, there is an unspoken relaxation of the postulates governing news content. The ostensive postulates, in a sense, become more transparent, and display the non-ostensive postulates the more readily. The distinction between news and factual programming, the structure they share, and the logical legitimation and grounding provided to the latter by the former, enable the two to occupy the respective formal roles of information, providing facts, and instruction, arguing a case. Whereas the posture of news and comment is Objective, Authoritative, Balanced and Certain, and must at all costs ensure that the non-ostensive forces remain unspoken, the posture of factual programming is parasitic on the ostensive postulates while dispensing with them in practice. It is freer to directly engage with the non-ostensive postulates.  

News and comment are at a comparative disadvantage when it comes to reflection on and promotion of state policy, because the emphasis is more on integrating current events into the policy worldview. Hence the approach is necessarily more piecemeal. Factual programming does not suffer from this disadvantage. The objective of furthering state policy essentially falls into two stages in factual programming. On the one hand, it employs Cajolement and Praise where certain aspects of state policy agreed on by the Consensus must be confirmed; in other words, it is necessary that certain aspects of the Consensus which are essential to the furthering of certain state policies become talking points. Actual opinions, held by actual people, are by and large irrelevant, both in political and media terms. What matters is the appearance of assent, and to secure such appearance, the necessary talking points must become all-pervasive. Here the relationship between Level 2 and Level 3 discourse becomes apparent. The appearance of debate and discussion is essential to securing the Consensus, and above all to excluding opinions which are incompatible with it on the grounds that all opinions have been considered, ‘public consultation’ has taken place, etc. On the other hand, Blame and Threat are invoked to consolidate state policies that are in force, especially where these are under threat by way of logical argument and/or evidence, even (or especially) where the existence of such argument has only been hinted at. The most effective portrayal of such criticism of the Consensus, of course, is to acknowledge its existence exclusively in the context of an assault upon it. The poverty of argument in such a context is irrelevant when it has the inestimable resources of moral preaching and the threat of state violence to enforce it. Factual programming offers a wider scope for the use of such devices than does news and comment, because of the looser constraints on content, but also because news and comment is a more pervasive form, in the sense that is ever-present in every form of media. Therefore, news and comment shoulder much of the burden for establishing propaganda structures in public discourse, a fact of which factual programming takes full advantage.

Entertainment programming, despite its apparent differences in aim and content, is in fact closely related in structural terms to factual programming. The principal difference, in fact, is its place in the Level 3 hierarchy. It bears a similar relationship to factual programming as factual does to news and comment. In other words, it is a step further from the ostensive postulates into a more blatant representation of the non-ostensive. Whether the genre is drama or humour, the propaganda aims may be transmitted more directly while concealed by the ruse that the programming content is ‘entertainment’. In this sense, but in this sense only, it is the polar opposite of news and comment. The purpose remains the same, and all content, whether fictional or fact-related, is subordinate to it.

The objective of entertaining an audience is well adapted to the needs of state propaganda. The ostensive postulates do not apply, because it is never admitted that entertainment relates to factual content or any other purpose than to amuse or divert. Hence, the non-ostensive postulates, Cajolement, Praise, Blame and Threat, can be given full rein in the guise of humorous or dramatic intent. Indeed, there is nothing more certain than that the topics of the Consensus will be more blatantly insisted upon. This can be done in two ways. The first is merely through reference or dialogue. The second, and by far the more important, is the use of the Consensus itself as subject matter or theme. Despite the fact that they are abstractions, Prosperity (Wellbeing), Order (Peace), Best Interests, Surveillance, and Progress are the defining subject matter for all entertainment, and no form of entertainment will ever question their necessity. In contrast with other media, which deal in some measure with factual events, entertainment relies on a perceived immunity from factual criticism. It is therefore in a position to deal more directly with the Consensus than the fact-oriented media. In other words, its stated sole aim of providing amusement, together with its supposed alienation from real events, enable it to deal more directly with the fundamental propaganda themes.

The dramatic forms themselves are conducive to propaganda. Comedy, for example, provides a handy platform for derision of those ideas on the ‘opposition’ side of the Consensus where those are different from those endorsed by the state. The real objective, of course, is to consolidate the Consensus by attacking ideas which do not form part of it and threaten it from outside. In addition, comedy works so as to trivialise its subject matter. Consumers of entertainment are not invited to respond on an intellectual level, to engage in a dialogue with the material. On the contrary, they are invited to share the perspective of those who frame the comedy, to regard the Consensus as inevitable and so unalterable, and to dissolve discontent and dissonance in laughter. They are, by extension, invited to emulate the example of deriding that which presents a threat to the Consensus, thus refuting ideas by mockery rather than argument, precisely because the Consensus cannot make a rational case to refute them. The serious story or ‘drama’ works to reduce the issues involved to personal terms. Its intention is to deploy various storytelling and technical conventions to create sympathy for the values of the Consensus, by idealising those who embody it, and provoking a longing in the consumer to approximate to that ideal. The desired situation is that consumers will talk, act, and above all think as they might imagine the exemplar would, or would approve of. Put another way, it is the intention to mould desired values, such as individuality, creativity, personal worth, etc. into the terms dictated by the Consensus, so that no alternatives are admitted that do not involve conformity with these terms.

Level 2 discourse, in summary, involves two aspects, both of which are, contrary to initial impressions, intimately related. Factual programming involves the use of many of the techniques associated with entertainment programming. It involves a partial dissolution of the non-ostensive postulates, and a greater prominence of the ostensive postulates. Entertainment programming, on the other hand, pretends to be unrelated to facts while concerned solely with them. Its disguise is aimed, like factual programming, at consolidating the first principles of state propaganda through emotional and moral suasion. Entertainment, however, precisely because of the ‘artistic license’ that is claimed for it, deals almost exclusively in the non-ostensive postulates.

The concluding part of this series will examine the third level of discourse, informal discussion.