Politics and the media

The intersection between Politics and the Media
ABC Radio Script on 22 March 24, 2007

This article has been another eye-opener for me. The producer of the show, Andrew Davies, discusses about the influence of Media in politics and political influence in media.

The highlight of how media influences the political scene in Australia was discussed by using Alan Jones, a talk host in Sydney radio station.

Alan Jones was believed to pursue political influence as an objective in his talk shows. How is a talk show host able to influence the result of a national election? This made me even more curious in this article.

For your quick reference, these are the tactics used by Alan Jones: He uses a lot of repetitions that became like a “holy mantra” which creates a kind of frame in the mind of people with regards to an issue. To skillfully drill these ideas onto people heads, he uses rhetorical intensity.

In Australia politicians are more open to talk back radio shows to get and manipulate public opinion than in United Kingdom. Though in America there are numerous talk back shows, there are too many such shows to create an impact on a large community.

Now moving on to how politics affect the media, other interesting viewpoints were discussed. How does the evolution of the new media affect public and political accountability?

Nik Gowing, Senior presenter for BBC was sharing his views. He said the involvement of public in inputting information onto the media platform adds a fragility and vulnerability to the political stand of a nation. This creates an empowerment of press freedom among the public, however journalist now have to switch their roles from being mere information provider to intelligent officers who are able to validate and check for accuracy of the news brought in by public contributors.

The most outstanding idea I have picked from this radio show is that “simple reiteration of false information strengthens it”. Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, from the Department of Psychology, University of Western Australia mentions about how during the proposition for the war of Iraq, false information were fed to the public to justify the war. E.g. British Prime Minister Tony Blair claimed that Iraqis had executed Coalition P-O-Ws after they have surrendered. The next day, his own Ministry of Defence retracted the information saying there was no such news.

Now we know this was also the case for the claim of Weapons of mass Destruction, the Iran being the supplier of weapons to Iraqi insurgents, etc etc etc. All lies with a political propaganda. So it’s the information that we get at first from the media that we have to be critical and skeptical about and that way we can immunize ourselves against misinformation says Mr. Lewandowsky.

Blogging helps us to be more critical and skeptical as we are able to search and read broader views.