Free spirits, fairy dust & free-markets: some notes on the post-political

01/31/2012 By Leave a Comment

Ive been doing some reading recently around the post-political – largely contexualised as post-cold war political philosophy.

I’m trying to apply some of the insights offered by the likes of Jacques Ranciere and Slavoj Zizek to the contemporary situation we find ourselves in in early twenty-first century Britain, and how/whether we can find a way out of the current throes of capitalism.

Then an interesting thing happened, a handful of really prescient stories and ideas converged on me. Here’s a summary…

I was stirred to recap on the post-political by the excellent blog post by Dan McQuillan who examines the seventeenth-century English radical Antinomians in light of the contemporary Anonymous and – to an extent – #Occupy movements.

Fascinatingly both groups seem to reject any attempt at formal, strategic opposition to dominant structures and forces. Instead, such groups adopt a tactic of detachment in which they go about their aims without giving credence to authority’s  anticipated or expected responses. far from entering into power structures, both the Antinomians and Anonymous envision and produce another world. And this in turn is their strategy. It’s a de-strategy.

Highlighting this tactically productive approach, Dan’s post draws a lineage from the heresy of the medieval proto-antinomians, the Free Brethren of the Free Spirit, through to the radical seventeenth-century Antinomians and on to contemporary hackers. A timely reminder that struggles against authority and oppression are nothing new and that revisiting previous excursions into sites of radical action may bring new ideas and new ways of acting.

Then, just as I’m getting into the post-politics at a more contemporary level I come across the excellent chapter, On Fairy Dust and Rupture, in the even more excellent book, Occupy Everything: Reflections on Why its Kicking Off Everywhere.

Penned by the The Free Association the chapter seeks to account for the intrinsic faith people have in capitalism as viable system – a faith that, on the face of it, could be considered a ‘magic’ quality – and how this internalised logic can be tackled and shown for what it is: a sorcery created and maintained by a range of forces operating explicitly and implicitly; at a structural level and at an individual level.

For the authors, the fairy dust refers (via The Troggs!) to an unknown quality that can transform something mundane or everyday into something that exceeds the sum of its parts. “Fairy dust,” they argue “invokes the need for a gamble, a roll of the dice, an experiment.” [p.29].

The authors go on to map out ways this fairy dust can be sprinkled on actions and events and how these one-off ‘ruptures’ can be built upon to spread greater and deeper social and economic change. The spark of nature’s fire that could trigger new antinomian movements, so to speak.

And finally, coming hot on the heels of reading this a friend shared Adam Curtis’ latest blog post on the Soviet stagnation of the 1970s/80s and the responses undertaken by a disaffected youth.

Curtis’ prescience and the dimensions through which he explores seemingly mainstream topics generally unnerves me, and this post is no exception. In it, Curtis plots similar themes tot he ones I’ve been tracing – but from a different angle: the post-political Soviet end of history as The Plan began to fail.

Curtis’ piece is amazingly timely as it looks at how soviet art and cultural movements of post-political Russia sought to reject soviet communism and, realising if offered an equally – if more subtle – totalitarian system, liberal democracy.

Curtis presents a critical appraisal of the economic and social (i.e. human) failures of the soviet system in ways that cannot fail to generate resonance with the reality of our Western society today.

This is especially powerful as Curtis succeeds where others (save for the radical left) have failed. Offering a genuine critique of Britain in the here and now is difficult as The Free Association’s ‘sorcery’ of capitalism maintains its hold creating either a denial or an awe of the system.

Yet Curtis’ analogy is hugely powerful as it shows how the great Soviet Plan entered into increasingly illogical and absurd spasms as it attempted to predict and manage the complex demands of the population.

It would be easy to laugh at the examples given by the scientists and economists as they explain their predicament were it no for the increasingly absurd lengths we see capitalism going to in its attempt to shore up the yawning gap between the economic, material reality and the glossy, consumer driven fiction all around us.

Curtis concludes with the somewhat bleak transition of Soviet Russia to a pseudo-Liberal Democratic Russia where the radicals of the post-political 1970s have either committed suicide (quite a few seemed to go that way, interestingly) or embraced the far-right or liberal democracy or, in the case of Vladislav Surkov, both.

That is is why Dan’s post and The Free Association are so important. They point us towards practical tactics and ideas for conjuring a way to another world.

Back to the post-political and searching for ways out.

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

New from Escalate: Salt

01/21/2012 By Leave a Comment

I’ve blogged about the Escalate Collective before; they’ve produced some pretty excellent critique and analysis.

After months of silence they’ve published a new – and much lengthier – response to the current politics. I’ve not got around to reading it all yet, but I anticipate great things.

Enjoy.

Filed Under: Economics, Politics

#ukriots and the limits of traditional media (and what it means for democracy)

08/14/2011 By 2 Comments

This post started out as a few immediate thoughts about the way the #ukriots played out across the media.

By the time I'd got around to tidying up what I'd written it'd been superceded by a wealth of good analysis – some focused on media, some not.

Having written something I felt it worthwhile adding my own initial reactions to the debate, particularly from a media perspective given the political role the media has within liberal democracies.

I end the post with some next step ideas about what this all means for democracy. Something I'll hopefully return to a later date.

As mentioned above, recommended wider reading would include: Zygmunt Bauman's article on the consumerist context for the riots; Critical Legal Thinking and Schnews' account of the broader neoliberal capitalist project as cause of the riots and the London Review of Book's historical perspective.

I wanted to capture some of my thoughts around the limitations (and failings) of the media during the worst of the rioting, which may be useful for my ongoing research.

The guiding theme for all the points I jotted down was how the liberal media has possibly reached its limits for effective and adequate reporting in the 21st century.

This is partly due to the emergence of networked media powered by the internet and increasingly networked mobile technology; however, it is also down the wider structural limitations of liberal democracy within which the media plays a central role (see Louw, for a good overview of how the emergence of liberal democracy has gone hand-in-hand with the media).

Networks/Technology
During the worst of the riots social media gave access to multiple sources of information enabling anyone with internet access to gather information and build their own real-time stream of news.

Fascinatingly, the BBC was urging people not to use social media (Twitter in particular) to interpret events.

They told us: Twitter was full of misinformation, conflicting accounts and unverifiable information. Stay tuned to the BBC for verified and authoritative coverage.

Importantly, this random, disparate and admittedly sometimes misleading information flow of Twitter was the reality of the situation.

Gathering real-time streams of information and content from social channels and augmenting it with mainstream media coverage or official sources allows individuals to build their own personal news feed using multiple, heterogenous sources.

The flaw in the BBC's argument is that live streams of social information are much more reflective of the reality of the situation and allow individuals to create a flexible, open-ended picture of what's happening.

The role of the BBC (and other traditional new providers) is to crystallise information into "news" whereas following events through social channels recognises the fact that "news" is never created as a fixed reality, rather it allows us to infer a complex and ever-changing picture of events.

It can be suggested that this problem arises from the industrial model of news production where the gathering of information has to result in a completed, finalised and sellable product.

The BBC's idea of Twitter being misleading and unreliable is also a flawed argument based on the fact that it fails to recognise any other mode of editorialising except their own, professional news-production.

For example there are a number of filtering, accrediting and editorialising information using peer networks as Yochai Benkler has examined – see chapters 6 & 7 in The Wealth of Networks for an exploration of the different models of peer-to-peer information gathering and filtration.

As an example, I relied mainly on my own Twitter and Facebook network for gathering information about events, turning only to the #riot and #londonriot hashtags to verify what the BBC and mainstream media was reporting.

And as James Cridland has pointed out in a great blog post, when it came to gathering useful or verifiable data on the riots, traditional media – including the BBC – was reporting inaccurate information on events.
 
So, the BBC's attempts to warn people against using social media was telling: if anything, it reveals the real power of social media.

That the nation's public service broadcaster needs to try to convince people it has better information than the people on the ground suggests the game may soon be up for traditional, top-down, authoritative media.

(an ironic foot-note to all this, most forward-thinking mainstream media are actually seeking to build on real-time, social reporting as articulated by by the emerginging concept of "ambient journalism" according to Alfred Hermida.)

Reinforcing the argument that social media is over-taking traditional editorialising was the quality of the BBC and Sky's rolling news coverage.

Throughout the night, as I skipped from the BBC News channel to Sky News all I saw were news anchors repeating a variation of the same information drawn predominently from official sources; largely inane commentary from the paid-up commentariat or politicians and police sources who simply maintained an entrenched position that arguably created the socio-economic situation that gave broth to the riots in the first place.

The real voices of people involved or pragmatic analysis by individuals perhaps better qualified to talk about what was happening – people on the streets, sociologists, political economomists and the rioters/looters themselves – went unreported.

In fact, the news coverage on Sky went further than not offering real voices by actively seeking out and then mis-preresenting real voices.

Reporting on being told by one looter that they were looting because they paid taxes and got nothing in return, the correspondent reported this saying: "But I wouldn't say that's a political response. This is all just opportunistic."

If these points are political and cultural reasons why mainstream media has become inadequate in reporting news then there are also arguably institutional reasons as well.

For example, once the sun went down or rioting become too intense, dangerous or moved to perceived unsafe locations, such as housing estates, both BBC and Sky resorted to reusing aerial footage of burning buildings or footage recorded earlier.

No doubt this is to protect the health and safety of reporters, but it further reveals the limits of the media's ability to tell the full story.

Just as the textual/spoken reporting was limited to a repetitive set of 'known' or 'verified' information so too was visual reporting limited to unhelpful long-range or out-dated scenes.

There was arguably some 'citizen reporting' via Sky and the BBC – but this itself brought about an interesting blurring of boundaries between social and institutional reporting.

With many of their own correspondents living within areas subject to rioting and looting, Sky and BBC brought their reporters into live broadcasts on the phone.

Similarly, many were reporting events in real-time via Twitter. These off-duty reporters were reporting on local events from a personal persepective: remember almost all of these individuals have a "tweeting in a personal capacity" disclaimer on the accounts, plus by reporting through Twitter their coverage isn't limited to Sky subscribers or license fee payers.

Their actions were arguably blurring the role between being a professional reporter and a personal or citizen reporter. 

Limits of liberal democracy
The limits of the media can be extended, I'd argue, to an analysis of the increased decline in liberal democracy and its hold over people's lives and society as a whole.

Firstly, which is the demographic consuming least traditional media? Young people of course. And what was the core demographic of rioters? Young people – although, of course, with exception.

Young people as a whole crude homogenous lump don't consume mainstream media. On the one hand this is causing advertisers and media companies sleepless nights, but on the other it also means that the media's role in performing its rational, liberal public information or watch-dog role is being undermined.

Added to this situation is the established – and growing – disenfranchisement of young people by other structural elements of liberal democracy, such as government policy, political parties and the police.

For example, see my post on the March 26th demo and how so many of the young people I saw were serious about fighting back against police brutality meted out at the last year's student demos and a government which has made only too clear how public policy is dictated by the market by u-turning on student fees.

As a result, you have a liberal democratic mechanism of managing public opinion which is no longer effective among the emergent population (not to mention further exacerbated by the ongoing economic effects on quality of life and perceived life chances).

Then there is the content of the media and the role it plays in liberal democracy.

At a normative level the media is meant to help us rationally debate and discuss events in the public sphere and form reasoned, democratic responses upon which our political institutions will act.

However, the trend over the past decades has been an increasing sensationalism and populism among the broader, mainstream media.

The public – and in particular those who consider themselves liberals – who pay particular attention to the media to stay abreast of topical issues – are failing to recognise or discover the nuances and complexities of what is happening.

The public appears almost unanimous in adopting the sensational language used by politicians and media commentators and most importantly the predominently white, middle-class news readers who themselves are guilty of reinforcing this media "restyling" by adopting media stereotypes, e.g. referring to looters as animalistic, feral, etc.

There's no space in this type of traditional media coverage for critical debate. Suggestions that the government's strategy of destroying communities by cutting its funding and increasing levels of unemployment is parallel to destroying a community through the physical violence of trashing shops go unheard.

Arguably, the strategy is the same; the tactics differ. The government has the upper hand and can destroy communities through policy-decisions and structural means; young people adopt much cruder approach

And this allows us to glimpse a subtle and potentially crucial failing of the traditional media in what we might term 'end-stage liberal democracies'.

The government and the wider political institutions in a liberal democracy (of which the media is one) are used to controlling the media and shaping coverage.

Young people realise this. Many refused to become part of the media spectacle by attacking journalists or refusing to be interviewed – which further inflames the media's democratically privileged position and response.

Of course, social media's operational relation to this is not unproblematic. While social media can (but doesn't always) cut through the manipulation of media coverage by dominant interests, it can also incriminate people committing criminal acts.

As if to reinforce how important the traditional media's role is in supporting or facilitating liberal democracy – and social media's potential to disrupt and challenge established ways of working – as I write this endnote David Cameron is stood in the House announcing plans to censor social media during public disorder, effectively legislating for an enforced reliance and dominance of traditional media when liberal democracy is faced with 'legitimation crises'.

As none of the proposed knee-jerk respoens are likely to identify or attempt to fix the underlying causes of the #ukriots I expect we'll see more legitimation crises.

Filed Under: Networks, Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Escalate Collective: a critique of a critique

04/29/2011 By 2 Comments

The Escalate Collective has recently published its latest essay/communique/article/post about events on the 26th March demo which is definitely worth reading.

Escalate, a collective of writers and activists from within the University of London, seems to be the closest we have to Tiqqun here in the UK and at this particular time. For that they should be commended.

On reflection I think I prefer their first essay but in both communiques they unpick key issues unfolding within current events by charting a path direct through centre of the problem. And by that, I don't mean they adopt a middle ground as position for analysis. Rather, they split issues down the middle; break them open; expose the vacuity… I'll end the metaphor there. It's late and you get the idea.

What gets a big thumbs up from me is the inclusion of 'social media' in their list of targets for critique. Their analysis isn't always spot on but crucial contributions include the following:

Escalate challenge the misrepresentation of "social media as panacea". While this is a crucial criticism that addresses and undermines both pro- and anti-technology camp's arguments the collective also over-state the case somewhat. Let's unpack their critique.

Firstly, technology – and in particular Twitter and Facebook – are critiqued for being glorified as radical tools for emancipation. The collective writes:

"The praise Twitter and Facebook have received is matched only by the compliments showered on a mythical young generation who have supposedly expropriated the potentials within this technology for radical means."

It's their belief that this myth hides the reality that social media – incorporating their broader definition, "web-based media" – is of course a commodity. A commodity that young people consume and of course which is as radical as tie-dye t-shirts were for the Soixante Huitardes: "the only victory can be further consumption, this time of web-based goods."

In fact, it gets worse than this. Not only is social media a de-radicalised consumer commodity but it's a commodity whose consumption is undertaken as part of what Jodi Dean has termed 'communicative capitalism' – that is (perhaps stating it too strongly): "Web 2.0 is a political trap that disempowers political action" by grounding it in endless discussion, debate and content circulation.

Grounding this emergent concept in more classical Marxist terms, Escalate point out that: 

"Software corporations and PR agencies have entire departments devoted to astro-turfing and the countering of malevolent online publicity. Professional journalists and salaried unionists have the advantage of time and often resources to invest in their Twitterfeeds and Facebook friends."

The initial criticism is arguably wide of the mark – although I utterly understand where the writers are coming from here. For instance, why pick out software corporations? Odd choice – software corps aren't really at the front-end of current political debate as they make software. I put this down to a misunderstanding.

In terms of PR agencies, I'm fairly confident I can say that my dalliances with a couple of very big PR firms' digital teams has shown me that a) many high-profile firms they are not involved in intentionally astro-turfing (to the point of proactively avoiding anything that could be mistaken – although this policy has not always prevented it) and b) "whole departments" in my experience means less than 30 and usually a lot less (the implication for me here is that we're talking 100s as per the Chinese Government's 50 Cent Army) and never the whole department working on a single client.

On the latter point of journalists and union reps I do agree. It is a solution offered by economic capital – perhaps a wider critique missed here: the volunteeristic power of social media is based on social capital. A significnat benefit in circumstances where social relationships are all that's needed to negotiate an outcome. But by injecting economic capital into the mix you get a relational imbalance and if that relational imbalance is desired to misdirect, destabilise or destroy networks of relationships then it can be highly effective – providing you have the resource to scale. Refer back to China's 50 Cent Army.

Escalate also reject another misperception perpetuated through the media and some enthusiastic activists and academics. That is, the binary of social media and horizontality. This is a long-standing bugbear: just because something occurs via the web or social media doesn't make it horizontal.

Yes, the rhizomatic structure of the web often sets the default organisational settings to non-hierarchical networks but care is needed to ensure this myth doesn't end up hiding more deeply set hierarchies and power relations. And lest we forget: horizontal organising can – and does – take place outside of virtually networked structures.

Linked to this, another major critique of social media arises, again from media and organisational misperceptions of what the social web is and how it functions.

Escalate argue:

"Many organisations enjoy the perceived leaderlessness of Twitter and Facebook because of how clearly this myth masks the mechanisms of privilege and capital power which allow leadership to emerge when any network is left unchecked."

While I broadly agree with their conclusion that the "perceived leaderlessness" within social media allows privilege (presumably time-based and technological knowledge) and capital power to allow leadership to emerge this statement is useful because it points to a wider theme that runs through much of Escalate's analysis of social media.

Namely that social media, Twitter, Facebook, "web-based media", etc are interchangable, homogenous wholes when in reality they aren't.

While this methodological short-cut still allows Escalate to make incisive and accurate critique of conteporary politics, media and capitalism, it means that there is arguably a much more deeper analysis and (potentially constuctive) critique that could be made.

I say potentially constructive because this is something I'm thinking and writing about at the moment: how analysis of the complexities of the social web and its components can be used to achieve a greater understanding of forms of resistance.

Perhaps now isn't the time to go into the detail, but perhaps take a look at this recent conference abstract  for an idea of what I'm talking about.

Finally – and most glibly – the collective's approach to writing anonymously overcomes some of the ego issues that definitely can be seen within the liberal/left blogo- and Twittersphere. It's a breath of fresh air and allows – IMHO – a much more radical exploration of contemporary issues to be broached.

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: PHD, Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

*UPDATED* March 26th demo: some initial thoughts

03/29/2011 By 1 Comment

This blog post sets out some of my thoughts from Saturday's demonstration against the Government's cuts agenda.

It should be taken in the context of my immediate reaction to some of the things I witnessed; my initial analysis and the resulting insights.

I'll also use it as an opportunity to develop some thinking around ideas related to my PhD, in particular theories of power and the media, using things I saw as case studies. I'll save these for a follow-up post.

What follows is, in part, a narrative and, in part, a series of first-hand accounts and analyses. It's been written quickly so my apologies for typos, errors, etc

Firstly, some observations

1. Mass turn out
Make no mistake, Saturday's TUC march was huge. Thus I was surprised to see the BBC reporting that the estimated figure was only 250,000 [EDIT: the BBC has now revised this to "250,000 - 500,000" which is possibly even more useless]. Frankly, I don't understand how they arrived at that figure. More below

2. The limits to social media showed
While social media and digitally networked activism provides radically different opportunities for movements (e.g. UKUncut growing from and organising around a hashtag) there were some limitations with the 'real-time' web on this demo. Although I should caveat that I used my smartphone sparingly to converse battery-life.

Firstly, I found it difficult to track everything that happened in real-time. This is perhaps less a limitation of social media and more a by-product of the sheer dynamism and fluidity of the demo. 'Real-time' on Twitter just wasn't real-time enough to keep pace with the speed things evolved on the streets.

Secondly, some technologies (at least the official Twitter iphone app I was using) struggled to function appropriately under the circumstances. So, for example, the official Twitter app pushes popular tweets (determined by the number of RTs) to the top of the timeline. Perhaps there's way of turning this off but it meant that the up-to-date information so essential in live situations wasn't instantly accessible. The anti-kettling site, Sukey, too while appearing very useful in mapping the situation on the streets also aggregates important tweets, but crucially without a time stamp.

Essentially, the point I suppose I'm making is that in very dynamic and fluid situations making sure real-time is real-time and knowing just what 'real-time' is becomes of paramount importance and I didn't feel the information I was getting was reliably timely.

Perhaps there's a need for an activist-led Twitter/online info tool that is built around quite specific needs.

As a footnote – and I have some thoughts I need to work up – SMS became a really useful too in this situation.

3. Massive black bloc
The size of the black bloc surprised me greatly. I'm no veteran activist but I was with some when we heard about the size of the black bloc and I think it's fair to say even they were surprised. Newsnight's Paul Mason, tonight said it was the biggest black bloc seen on the streets of the UK for a long time.

Speaking from personal experience, I recall seeing a small black bloc of no more than 20-30 during the G20 in 2009; and if you believe the tabloids these were possibly a European black bloc summit-hopping.

At the Mayday demonstration in Parliament Square in 2010 there was a similarly sized black bloc – or at least a group of activists dressed as a black bloc. From recollection they weren't active.

On Saturday, word on the street was that a black bloc of between 2,000 – 3,000 mobile around central London.

I've seen a similar number reported by activist media although a smaller number reported by the mainstream media [saw it somewhere but no link just yet]

Aside from the finer detail, I don't think I've ever seen such a significant black bloc in the UK.

3. The black bloc had very, very young elements
I mean seriously young. On the strand we passed a group of young people possibly 16-17 who were clearly 'blacked up' under their day-to-day clothes. The same scenario was repeated through-out the afternoon on Oxford Street.

4. These have possibly been 'radicalised' by the student demos
There's a very strong possibility, IMHO, that the younger elements of the black bloc have had their outlook on the police, state and capitalism changed as a result of a) government policy and b) their experiences from the student demos late last year.

These young people have had their perceptions of democracy (built up through education, media and recent prosperity) challenged by the reality of how liberal democracies in free-market regimes operate and the inter-relation between the state and police.

5. Black bloc violence wasn't mindless or unconnected to anti-cuts demos
It is a mistake to believe the media reports on this as they're based partly on police press releases and official statements and partly on internalised beliefs within which the media operate (more on this in the conclusion).

Reporting that claimed – as the BBC did – that the black bloc weren't connected to the wider anti-government protests are incorrect and misleading [EDIT: since reading the original BBC report I can now only find references to the black bloc as a 'separate group'].

Those in the black bloc were – from what evidence I saw – acutely aware of the reality of capitalism; the government's policies and agenda and its effect on people. This wasn't mindless vandalism. It was very mindful vandalism. Neither was it violence.

Secondly, some ideas and insights…
           
5. What is the role of the internet in supporting the black bloc phenomenon?
Thinking about this, the role of the Internet has been perhaps to play two significant roles:

  1. Educating people about role of the black bloc
  2. Connecting people keen to build affinity groups around black bloc tactics

Perhaps this is a facile point but without the internet, finding out about black bloc history and its tactics and then connecting with others sharing similar aims would be difficult.

For obvious reasons this activity traditionally would be based around small-scale affinity groups and learning would be a rare and practical experience.

For #26March there was a well publicised Facebook event for those wanting to take-part in black bloc tactics – with upwards of 1,000 – 2,000 cofirmed attendees reflecting the younger demograhic mentioned above [again, no link showing on facebook anymore]

Of course, using the Interent to research, plan and implement black bloc tactics will potentially open up other challenges such as online surveillance and data mining, but that's something for a separate post.

Some conclusions
I've got an embryonic conclusion to write up that ties some of these thoughts together within a framework of power and media but I'll save this for a follow-up post.

*UPDATE* I was hoping to get these concluding thoughts around media and power blogged shortly after this post – however, I need to get some more reading and writing done for my PhD and then hopefully I can come back to this line of thought with a more robust and radical argument.

Filed Under: Politics, power Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Speaking at Netroots UK this Saturday

01/06/2011 By Leave a Comment

Just a short post to say I'll be sitting on a workshop panel at this Saturday's (8th January) Netroots UK event: "A one day event to help network and inspire progressive activists working on the web."

It promises to be an interesting event with a host of great speakers and an even more interesting set of fringe sessions.

Officially the day is being organised to bring together hundreds of grassroots activists in central London for a day of workshops, discussions and networking with organisers offering the opportunity to:

  • Hear from innovative and effective campaigns in other fields
  • Make useful contacts with key people and organisations
  • Get practical training in digital techniques and technologies
  • Take part in the debate on the future of UK activism

But I'd go even further and suggest it looks as the event will do a pretty good job of cross-fertilising some of the more formal campaigning organisations with some other more loosly organised ones, e.g. UKUncut, Disabled People Against Cuts.

Add to the mix some important thematic sessions like activist security and international perspectives and there should be a heady brew of ideas for action.

I'm speaking on the Working with social media panel and plan on discussing how to use online networks to campaign.

Anyone going that fancies meeting up drop me an email or tweet!

 

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Communicating protest: Some notes on police PR tactics – Part 1

12/22/2010 By Leave a Comment

First and foremost I want to set these blog posts into some context.

I posted previously about The Met's use of staged or managed events at the second student demo as part of its communications strategy and suggetsed I might write a follow-up post to examine some of the Met's more conventional PR tactics to shape media coverage and public opinion.

Also, as part of my PhD I'm planning on using my blog as a way of keeping notes and sharing thoughts that will come in useful as my research progresses. These posts are part of that iterative process. 

In addition to the above, these posts will also hopefully serve as a handy – if modest and incomplete – reference guide for journalists to help them undertand and decode some of the communications tactics employed by the Met and thus potentially improve the depth of questioning and breadth of coverage.

Part 1 – How 'framing' media stories is used for effective political policing

In US academic, Robert Entman's, book on the way issues or stories are 'framed' (that is how relevant information is gathered and edited into 'news') by the media he asserts that by establishing the terms of a potential story, strategic actors (in our case, the Met) can command and control the way the subsequent news is perceived and – more importantly – how it continues to influence future stories.

Specifically, in Projections of Power (2004) he outlines what Curran (2002) calls the "definitional power" of the media:

"A dominant frame [i.e an official way of interpreting information] in early news coverage of an event can acticat and sprad congruinet thoughts and feelings in individuals' knowledge [...] that guides responses to all future reports. First impressions may be difficult to dislodge." p.7 [my emphasis]

This theory can be used to explain the PR tactics adopted by the Met even before a demonstration takes place who you will often find issuing a briefing to 'define' the direction of the media narrative.

This happened ahead of the most recent student demonstration on 9th December where Commander Bob Broadhurst, the head of the Met's public order branch, told media they were expecting the student demonstration to be violent.

It also happened ahead of the 2009 G20 protests in London when weeks before planned demos Superintendent David Hartshorn, who then headed the Met's public order branch, exclusively told The Guardian the Met was: "preparing for a "summer of rage" as victims of the economic downturn take to the streets to demonstrate against financial institutions."

With hindsight these examples offer a useful opportunity to interpret the way they potentially shaped public perception of events.

Take the recent student demo as our first case study: telling the media they were execting violence firstly activates in the public's mind that the demonstration is goin to be violent. Whether it ever turns out to be or not this perception and mindet towards demonstrators is established. Secondly, it acts to legitimise police violence because, as the Met has aldready confirmed in advance, it was expecting violence so any brutality on its part must be a response.

This technique neatly reverses cause an effect of violent public order situations and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for the Met.

The ' helped significantly by the news management technique of 'embedding' journalists within forces to help ensure the event is interpreted from a specific perspective – despite the best aims of 'objective' reporting.

Another 'set piece' in the police's PR toolkit to help 'frame' news from within protests or public order situations is the use – and reporting – of injuries.  

**Before I go any further, please note: I am not excusing or valorising any kind of violent behaviour or resultant injury to anyone. I am trying to explore and explian how injuries that happen within tense situations can be used to establish a particular perception in the media.**

The reporting of injuries can be used both qualitatively to reinforce the notion of 'violent demonstrators' and 'police as victims' and also quantitively to show how much of a battle the police won/lost (depending on the public's wider perceptions post-event).

As an example of the first tactic see this quote from a police spokesperson from Nottinghamshire police during the demonstration at Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in 2009:

"Throughout the day officers have been assaulted but police remain in control of the site. We have one officer who sustained head injuries at the protest. He was airlifted to Derbyshire Royal Infirmary where he is being treated. His wife has been made aware but we have no update on his condition.

"One protester also received treatment on site by police officers and was taken away by ambulance. His condition is unknown."

It would later transpire that the office didn't sustain a head injury – which, of course, was good news.

What is noticable is the formal and melodramatic reporting for the injured police officer (e.g. "his wife has been informed") that's clearly missing from comments about the injured protester – along with a more complete total of injured protestors which was much higher than 'one'.

Now, this may seem rather extreme: exploiting injuries to shape media covergae, but wider context and examples will hopefully illustrate the point further.

The injured officer airlifted to hospital was actually treated by a medic that was protesting on the day. From tweets at the time and emails I've seen subsequently it would appear that at the time the officer was being treated it was apparent that he was unlikely to be suffering from head injuries, as the hospital or police later confirmed.

The Guardian – as I understand it – was party to the development in the story, but of course by then it was old news and the public's perception had been set.

A further – and by now, infamous – example of the quantitative use of police injuries in PR is Kingsnorth Climate Camp.

During the 2008 Climate Camp gathering police used extreme measures to intimidate protestors, such as sleep deprivation and excessive stop and search activity. In addition, police revealed to the media and Parliament that a total of 70 officers had been injured during the police operation.

It wasn't until a FoI request from the Liberal Democrats that it became apparent not a single injury was sustained from protestors; rather records showed injujuries were mostly toothache, diarrhoea, cut fingers and "possible bee stings".

I won't labour the point, but you get the idea that by the time the reality of the situation has unravelled it's old news and the public perception has been crystalised.

For a good overview of examples of this, specifically related to climate change and climate justice campaigning, see Kevin Smith's post for the Guardian's CiF blog.

The next post in this series will look at post-demonstration tactics, the use of language and perhaps look at some of the additional reasons for the effectiveness of police PR and media management, e.g. the formalised news production processes and cultural values of the media.

 

Bibliography:

Curran, J. (2002). Media & Power. Routledge.

Entman, R. (2004). Projections of Power. University of Chicago Press.

Filed Under: News, policing, Politics, PR Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Wikileaks analysis part 2: Power in a networked society

12/09/2010 By Leave a Comment

*This is the second post about Wikileaks and the implications it has on the current political, media and technological landscape. The first one can be found here.*

Michael Trice from Leeds University's Centre for Digital Citizenship wrote an interesting post recently evaluating Wikileaks' impact on the distribution of power in our contemporary, networked society.

Michael suggested that, in the terminology of academic Manual Castells, Wikileaks has used the media as a 'switcher' network – that is, it re-directs or reorients the goals of other networks to ensure it achieves a greater audience for itself and information.

I responded to Michael's blog post with a comment that opposed this perspective and suggested an alternative reading which I've re-posted below.

But before I re-post my [slightly updated and edited] comment here's a quick recap of what Castell's means by 'switching' and 'programming' power within networks:

Castells argues that power within a networked society fundamentally concerns actors' (both individuals and groups) ability to establish and control particular networks.

This control can be achieved in one of two ways:

  1. the ability to constitute network(s), and to program/reprogram the network(s) in terms of goals assigned to the network (largely by setting and controlling the way we perceive issues and information)
  2. the ability to connect and ensure cooperation of different networks by sharing common goals and combining resources (i.e. identifying like-minded networks with which you can work to challenge the dominant program)

Castells calls actors in the first mechanism ‘programmers’ and those in the second mechanism, ‘switchers’.
  
Contrasting Michael's argument that Wikileaks uses the global media to 'switch' power within networks, I suggest that if global media traditionally set the goals of our communication networks, it’s fair to argue that these goals tend to create coverage that a) minimises criticism of government activities b) is increasingly reliant of ‘soft’, entertainment stories and c) increasingly linked to official sources of information through proactive and reactive news management/PR (see point a))

So, if Wikileaks can provide source material for the media to cover issues that are traditionally the preserve of niche and, arguably, radical media then surely Wikileaks is the network switcher, working strategically to ensure the “cooperation of different networks” of traditional media and using it to publicise Wikileaks and its material and achieve its goals (presenting confidential material to a wider audience).

But perhaps more interesting is not the effect Wikileaks is having on media networks, but rather its role as a case study proving Castells’ theory of ‘Networking power’.

Castells believes this abstraction of power in a network society is about the power of those actors that are included in a network over those that are not.

For example, all the benefits of being connected to the Internet are available to those with Internet access. Those without access, lose out.

With this in mind, it would certainly seem that the US government (and no doubt other governments) along with corporate actors are doing their best to exclude Wikileaks [and also Assange] from dominant networks that most of us rely on for participation in our networked society.

If we continue to use the Internet as an example, cutting off Wikileaks from its servers (e.g. Amazon) is about excluding the organisation. From a financial perspective Mastercard, Visa and Paypal are examples of pulling the plug and excluding the organisation from financial networks. From a media perspective counter-briefing & pressuring media to report critically, etc, etc.

A further test of Castell’s hypotheses on power in networks will be the outcome of all this wrangllng between Wikileaks and established power networks.

On the subject of ultimate power, Castell’s is either vague or evasive. He believes that such a question is either easy or impossible to answer.

Easy, because we can say – for example – the US government can pull enough strings with actors within networks to shut down Wikileaks and silence Assange for good.

But also impossible to answer if we accept that even though Wikileaks might be shut down and Assange silenced, the leaked material will still have residual presence on other nodes within numerous networks – plus the Wikileaks model is replicable and will no doubt be imitated by other network actors.

So, while Wikileaks adds to discussion and analysis of Castells' notion of ‘Switching’ and 'Programming' power it also has a lot to offer for empirical validation of Castell’s wider theories of power in a networked society.

Filed Under: Manuel Castells, Networks, Politics, power, Wikileaks Tagged With: , ,

Student protests, communication power and undercover police

11/28/2010 By 6 Comments

I’ve been burying my head in books of late trying to map out my first PhD chapter. This has meant some fairly extensive reading around the subject of power.

It’s fair to say that most scholars agree that power can be exerted through two complementary mechanics: violence (i.e. physical force) and discourse/communication (i.e. coercion, influence, etc).

So it was interesting to be on Whitehall last Wednesday during the student demo and to witness both mechanics in operation.

[Slideshow courtesy of ashleydmiddleton on Flickr]

I won’t major on the resultant media coverage (which, is something that could be discussed extensively in another post) but suffice to say that hindsight, the traditional media’s coverage was fairly standard reporting utilising the atypcial frames wheeled out for public disorder, (e.g. any violence is always the work of a “minority”; a false dichotomy is established between legitimate, peaceful protest and illegitimate, violent protest, largely unquestioning of police facts, press releases, etc – although to be fair, the latter is partly a problem with the formalised news production processes, than, say, undue influence).

But two things struck me as worth blogging about.

Firstly, I wanted to write down a personal encounter that got me thinking about the possible use of strategic policing tactics that were potentially used to manipulate the outcome of events and the subsequent media representation of the day.

Shortly after the kettle formed – and it was inevitable from the minute the march arrived at Parliament Square that it would be kettled – I was stood behind the police line when I witnessed a short man dressed in black, with a black hat (or possbly balaclava pulled up onto his head) be ushered through the police line after flashing something small and white resembling an ID card from a retractable lanyard at his waist.

He then disappeared between several police vans parked near the police line.

Now far be it from me to suggest that the police were using the same tactics as were used during the G20 protests when it was revealed that undercover or plain clothes police were being used as agents provocateurs, but the similarities between this scenario and the G20 struck me as a possibility.

Of course, it is apparently standard procedure to sue undercover police to gather intelligence at demonstrations but it would interesting to scour the footage of the first people to start trashing the controversial police van, allegedly planted as bait for riot porn, to see whether the same person was involved.

The second thing worth mentioning is that while a lot of people present on Wednesday were confident the van *had* been left as bait (similar tactics were possibly used during the already mentioned G20 protests when the only building left unprotected by horading was a branch of RBS, then the UK’s most hated bank) most presumed that this angle to the story would not make mainstream news reports.

But in that assumption they were only half right. While the story didn’t make any main bulletin,  Sky News’ Frontline blog comes right out and asks the question whether the van was intentionally planted.

What’s interesting to me is that here is a classic example of professional journalists using informal, social media platforms to publish stories not deemed sufficiently news-worthy to make the headlines – or at least mainstream headlines. Not only that, but this story actually challenges the dominant media narrative based on ‘official’ reporting of events.

So, what are the conclusions and implications here? I’m not entirely sure really. But it’s worth considering the argument that the police don’t just use communications strategies to best report what’s happening, but rather stage-manage events to shape the communcitive outcome.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that while big new outlets remain dominant in shaping the agenda, social media not only provides (potentially mutiple) counter-arguments it seems that this counter-voice can also come from within media corporations.

I guess this latter point seems like common sense, but it’s always nice to spot and note a case study.

Filed Under: Campaigning, Coalition, Conservatives, Flickr, Government, Lib Dems, Manuel Castells, policing, Politics, power, PR, Students Tagged With: , , , ,

Activism, Clicktivism and the limits of social media in achieving social change

11/16/2010 By 3 Comments

Last month, Malcolm Gladwell published a piece in The New Yorker arguing that social media was preventing real social change taking place by encouraging what he termed 'clicktivism' – a form of engagement and action based on weak social ties, rather than real-life activism based on strong ties.

Of course, Gladwell’s piece was mostly a straw-man argument concocted to earn him some column inches and boost his profile between book launches. And of course it generated a number of impassioned rebuttals from the social movement and NGO communities.

However, while Gladwell was wrong on most counts, the past week has started to reveal the faultlines within social media and activism.

Drawing on the fall-out from the student demonstrations in central London last week (for those wanting a back-story, see the LRB’s fantasic essay on why the government's cuts are driven by ideology rather than economic necessity) we can argubly see clear limitations to the power of social networking and social change.

First of all, there was zero mobile phone signal for many students during the march which meant people were unable to live-tweet, live-blog or upload images and video in real-time. I’m not sure if there was an explanation for the outage, but it had the same effect regardless: people were unable to live-report and co-ordinate actions online from the heart of the demonstration.

And I didn’t see the Home Office intervening and encouraging mobile networks to fix any problems to cope with increased demand as with the 'Iranian Twitter revolution'.

Secondly, the pitfalls of being a digital native became all to clear to students involved in potentially criminal activity whose actions were uplaoded to social networking sites and shared with the world – especially the media who had a field day harvesting and publishing photography and video of students engaged in direct action.The BBC reports in lurid – and somewhat pointless – detail about this while the Telegraph set up a distasteful 'shop-a-student' section [No link, sorry. Refuse to]. As this was the first action for a lot of students, many failed to ‘mask up’ or conceal their identity.

Thirdly, once the media witch-hunt began and the police started rounding up suspects support and solidarity networks sprang to life via blogs and Twitter offering advice for people involved in the demo as well as  campaigning to raise funds for those facing charges.

However it would seem that the police are pretty good at spotting these websites – largely hosted on corporate blogging platforms or hosting providers – and pressuring the provider to pull the entire site. The most high profile example to date has been Fitwatch, a blog dedicated to reporting on the police Forward Intelligence Teams who take photos of people suspected of being linked to all manner of lawful protests and adding their profiles to a huge database.

Fitwatch (re)posted advice (widely available on the web) providing guidance on how to deal with the fall-out of the demo which resulted in the entire site being removed by its host, Just Host – purely on the say so of an acting detective inspector, Will Hodgeson, from the Met Police's CO11 section.

As of tonight Fitwatch is still offline, despite the Guardian taking up their case.

So, while Gladwell argued that the "revolution won't be tweeted", he sadly might be closer to the truth then he intended – and definitely more than social change campaigners hope he is.

Filed Under: Campaigning, Coalition, Conservatives, Government, policing, Politics, power, social media, social networking, Students, Twitter Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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