Propaganda and State Policy Part 1 - Levels of Discourse
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The M3 Motorway is an example of a new tendency in State policy. The abolition of Dúchas, the State heritage board, and the evisceration of heritage protection law in 2004 constituted a public statement of a policy that has tended to be pursued more covertly in the past. The Office of Public Works, for instance, has undertaken ‘restoration’ works at some of Ireland’s most important sites, such as Grianan Aileach and the World Heritage Site of Skellig Michael, which involve nothing less than the total reconstruction of the sites according to the opinion of an archaeologist and/or architect as to what they ought to look like. This policy, apparently that of effacing the past by either eradicating all trace of it, as at Tara, or by reconstructing it according to a certain preconception, as at Skellig Michael and Grianan Aileach, has coincided with a massive construction boom in Ireland, so industry demands for construction opportunities became a useful propaganda tool for forcing through the agenda.
So, for instance, public relations advisors to Government employed the theme of a “demand” for motorways among commuters: this theme has been deployed heavily in media coverage relating to the M3 motorway. This is despite the fact that, in 1999, the Government had in its hands a road needs study prepared by the National Roads Authority, advocating a far more modest national roads upgrade and town bypass scheme. This scheme, moreover, had the benefit of research and experience, something the National Development Plan in general significantly lacks. The N3 road could have been upgraded in 1999 or 2000 to meet increasing and projected demand, but instead the Government, on the basis of no research, adopted a motorway scheme, mandating what would eventually become a total of four motorways through Co. Meath alone. Since this plan could not be justified by any considerations that would normally be employed when formulating an effective transport policy, such as the requirements of commuters, cost effectiveness, and integration with an overall transport scheme, other justifications needed to be manufactured.
Indeed, development policy seemed deliberately skewed toward increasing crisis levels of traffic on roads that had not been designed to cope with it. Roads such as the N3, upgrades on which ought to have commenced after the NRA's 1999 study was (however briefly) adopted as policy, were simply left as they were, while the inevitably contentious, expensive, and protracted process of building new motorways alongside existing roads was put into place. Deferring essential road upgrades for years was a means of creating support, so far as expression of opinion was allowed, for the otherwise insupportable roads programme, or at least creating pressure to carry it through.
This is an example of how the media's parameters of coverage correspond entirely to those laid down by the State. The process of transmitting policy, and at the same time framing it in terms which compel assent, consists of a multitude of layers and employs a wide range of techniques, but among these some fundamental characteristics can be identified. It is a universal practice in politics, for instance, to employ public relations companies to spin unattractive and often harmful policies into their polar opposites. But it has reached a considerable degree of artistry in Ireland; in other words, it has succeeded in separating the reality of policy from the framing and public discussion of policy, to such an extent that the practice can be both acknowledged (usually with affectations of weariness and cynicism, for such is part of the normalising technique) by media commentators, and at the same time indulged in wholeheartedly and without apology or acknowledgement.
Such an outlook is generally adopted wholly and unquestioningly by the major media. Any variation, any disagreement or “question of interpretation” that occurs, does so entirely within the predefined terms of reference transmitted by the PR stage (for convenience referred to here as Stage 1), and never strays outside these parameters to pose methodological questions, such as: a) whether the Stage 1 representation corresponds to the actual content or likely effects of policy measures; b) whether, disregarding the claims made in Stage 1 representations, the policies themselves are desirable or necessary. In short, it is almost unheard of for the media to question the substantive content of policy measures. The only dissent that is permissible within these predefined parameters is whether fault lies with the manner in which policy is being implemented. So the media themselves serve as a conduit for expanding on, and ultimately strengthening, the PR press releases of Stage 1. As such, they can themselves be viewed, regardless of rare lapses, as an integral part of the State propaganda apparatus.
For convenience this can be labelled Stage 2, with the understanding that, even more than the first, there is a series of subdivisions that must be made, corresponding to the division of labour within the media. By this we mean the variety of tasks and methods used to highlight specific themes, confuse and obscure unwelcome subjects, and generally “package” important measures. That they bear little resemblance to the actual substance of the measures is not important; indeed this consequence is often desirable. What is generated by this “packaging” is a certain emotional temperament, a state of mind which relies exclusively on appearances and impressions. This state of mind, qualitatively different from Stage 1 and 2, is nevertheless an aspect of the same process. It imbues an informal schema of propaganda, imparted and spread largely by non-media communication, including word of mouth and everyday communication. Though informal in appearance, it bears a remarkable similarity, an “imprint” of the tropes imparted by Stage 2. Yet it is not merely a passive process. While it dispenses to a great extent with logic and evidence, it appeals for support to a patchwork of media-disseminated information, whose plausibility is helped by such propaganda devices as repetition, emotional devices such as ridicule and disdain of opposing views, and even variously modulated threats of force. The effect is to create an illusion of discussion and debate, to which Stage 2 can then itself appeal for support for its own adoption of Stage 1's framing device.
This analysis can help to illuminate how such policies as the roads programme, for example the M3 motorway, while unsupported by any independent evidence or argument, can be given the appearance of plausibility. This appearance, false though it may be, gains considerable force in proportion to its success in pervading the three levels of discourse. So statement which is demonstrably false, such that that employed by several Government ministers in reference to their questionable policies, is that “It's going to happen anyway”, which in the propaganda context, once issued by Stage 1, is at once adopted as an order by Stage 2. Stage 2's approach is then to use every available method to enable this view to percolate to Stage 3. What is remarkable is the uniformity with which every threat to the enforcement of State policy is met by each stage in turn; from the M3, to the Corrib gas controversy, to the Aughinish Alumina plant.
So well honed are the Stage 2 responses to such challenges (perceived or, more often, anticipated) that even apparently innocuous programming, for instance lightweight entertainment, tourism-related shows, and so on, are aimed at defining the agenda, insinuating the “right responses” which Stage 3 takes as its cue, and excluding as unthinkable any contributions which lie even slightly outside the parameters.
In the next two parts we will examine key features of the enforcement of State policy at Stages 1 and 2. It will be argued that, even more than the packaging of policy at Stage 1, Stage 2 has a unique and indispensable role in distorting discourse and understanding toward the specific aim of securing consent to dubious policy measures that might otherwise be, in the industry jargon, a “hard sell”.But Stage 1 is the exemplar, where not only the content of policy, but also the structure of all future discussion regarding it, is defined in advance.
© The Tara Foundation, 2007
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P.R. Model 1
