Australia has a problem with illegal migration.
Well, no, not a collapse of Operation Sovereign Borders, or the offshore processing laws that will cost the taxpayer A$485 million this year, but with how it reacts to a group of asylum seekers arriving by boat on a West Australian beach.
Australia’s law hasn’t changed in more than a decade. If you arrive in a way that the federal government perceives as “illegal”, you won’t settle in Australia, a fact lost on some.
From behind his microphone in Sydney, top-rating radio talkback host Ray Hadley claimed the arrival of these asylum seekers was illustrative of a government not up to the task.
“Labor governments are no good at protecting our borders,” Hadley claimed earlier this month, going on to explain why. “They love illegal refugees because once they’ve let them in, they’re voters for life. They’ve got the unions and illegal refugees making sure they stay in government.”
Hadley called the prime minister names and ended with: “Absolutely everything this mob touch they completely and utterly fuck up”.
Regardless of policy nuance, the tactics employed by Hadley are nothing new for Australia’s increasingly aggressive media landscape.
A form of “anger-tainment” has become a staple as the hard work of reasoned debate makes way for emotional reactions to the complex nature of modern life.
Conservative opposition to progress in the form of political narratives of fear, anger and division is amplified by news media working by the dictum “if it bleeds, it leads”.
Psychological studies have shown the scarier the news item, the more the audience is gripped. Journalists also presume information is more newsworthy when it is conflict-driven.
During Australia’s Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum in 2023, campaigners for the No vote were revealed to be using a strategy of “fear and doubt” to win over voters.
One of Australia’s leading media publishers, Nine newspapers, reported that volunteers making phone calls for the No campaign were being directed to raise suspicions about the Voice by telling voters that:
“The people who helped design the Voice proposal are campaigning to abolish Australia Day and want to use the Voice to push for compensation and reparations through a Treaty.”
Explaining this fear campaign against the Voice, the campaigners quoted US psychology professor, Drew Westen, saying “When reason and emotion collide, emotion always wins”.
This anti-Voice campaign was premised on one particularly powerful emotion: fear.
It is curious to see conservative campaigners channelling the insights of Westen, a Democrat who dedicated his 2007 book The Political Brain to party campaigners.
In that book, Westen schools Democrats on using emotion to win over hearts and minds, rather than relying only on reason. He implores Democrats to evoke positive emotions more effectively with their communication strategies, encouraging them to appeal to voters’ “better angels”.
This positive strategy is juxtaposed with some conservative political strategies which tend to harness more negative emotions like fear.
Westen says that a “fear of mortality” can shift people’s ideology to become more conservative. This idea is backed up by other studies that find conservatives react more strongly than progressives to negative emotions like fear.
Once people are afraid, he says, they become angry, and then tend to focus their anger on a particular group. Anger is divisive.
The No campaign did not threaten voters with the spectre of death, but its strategy methodically pushed a negative spiral of emotions. First, campaigners created fear that there was more to the Voice than an Indigenous advisory body, threatening that it would lead to compensation and reparations. This fear was designed to make voters angry because they believed they stood to lose something if the Voice was successful.
Threats of compensation and reparations were also tied to manipulative underground campaigning through conspiracy theories and fake campaign materials, alleging that non-Indigenous people might lose their property rights if the Voice was successful.
Analysis of News Corp’s coverage of the referendum showed how these threatening, fear-inducing narratives were used by its outlets as a form of “anger-tainment” to the benefit of the No campaign.
This mixture of fear, anger and division — even hatred — towards Voice advocates and the Indigenous community was likely a large factor in the referendum result; 60% voted No. This is despite an Australian National University survey finding 87% of voters supported the concept of an Aboriginal Voice to Parliament.
Where the researchers who conducted this survey suggested this contradiction could be explained by Australian voters perhaps rejecting the Voice model, another explanation is that the No campaign evoked negative emotions towards the Voice which had a powerful impact on the result.
Political campaigns win people over by creating a narrative, made up of heroes, villains, and victims. Predominantly, conservative campaigners have used these characterisations to tell fear-based stories where the voter is the victim, the progressive is the villain and the conservative is the protective hero.
The Labor Party, too, has used the same technique with telling impact. During the 2016 election campaign, 75% of Labor’s advertising was assessed as negative, giving rise to the infamous “Mediscare” campaign against the government of Malcolm Turnbull.
A narrative of fear was used by the No campaign during the Voice referendum. They told voters they were victims who had much to lose if the villainous Yes campaign was successful.
Phone callers were told to warn of negative consequences such as division and compensation. A key slogan of the No campaign evoked fear of the unknown, urging “If you don’t know, vote no”. The “heroic” No campaign then framed itself as saving Australians from this supposedly scary fate.
Australia’s Liberal and National parties have successfully deployed this tactic in the past to whip up fear, anger and division.
In 2010, their campaign against the mining tax villainised the governing Labor Party for supposedly hurting Australian economic interests and costing jobs by taxing the super-profits of mining companies, sold as heroes of the story. The Liberal-National Party Coalition won the next federal election in 2013 and repealed the mining tax the year after.
In that same election, the Liberals and Nationals again fell back on a fear campaign, this time over a carbon price proposed by Labor to lower greenhouse gas emissions. Then opposition leader Tony Abbott won the 2013 election claiming the “carbon tax” would cost households $550 a year. Abbott painted himself as the hero who would “axe the tax”, saving victimised Australian households.
This type of story-telling spills beyond conservative politicians and is used by employers and their allies during industrial disputes also premised on fear of union collective activity. During Victoria’s 2016 Country Fire Authority dispute, the firefighters and their union — the Victorian United Firefighters Union — was accused by the employer, the Victorian opposition and News Corp media outlets of using its bargaining agreement to “take over” the fire authority.
The anti-union fear campaign twisted a negotiation point from firefighters; a want for more firefighters to be sent to house fires for safety reasons. Then Victorian Liberal Party leader Matthew Guy claimed that the union’s demand would mean volunteer firefighters would have to “stand and watch a house burn” until unionised professional firefighters arrived, a scary claim which was demonstrably false.
Narratives of fear are used by political campaigners and amplified in the media to oppose progressive policies relating to taxation, climate, immigration, industrial relations, health, education, or wider social and cultural change. Anger and fear are regularly shown to be a potent strategy to grab and hold attention, and to persuade voters to oppose progress.
These fear-based strategies are divisive and polarising, and do nothing to further constructive responses to society’s problems. The evidence of what benefits the community derives from them will only be marked by time, which even the most well-funded political campaign can not stop.
Disclosure: Victoria Fielding leads a team of three researchers from the University of Adelaide on the Murdoch Referendum Accountability Project, funded by Australians for a Murdoch Royal Commission.
This piece was republished from 360info.
I don’t have an argument with any of this – it looks researched, and certainly reflects the way I watch the media and politics operating – but what can we do about it? How do you counter this stuff? How do you get people to think when they automatically distrust anyone who does?
Maybe more emphasize on facts, and front page news on BS statements. Fight fire with fire, but real fire, factual peer-reviewed, scientific truth hurts fire..Anything to grab and hold the attention of us normal people.
J3sus wept – I got an Awaiting Approval. So now we play the insanity of Crikey Scrabble. My original comment is below. You have to wonder what is the point of “Awaiting Approval” when, with the some well-chosen symbols substituting for letters, you can get the message out anyway, and still be up for legal liability.
I agree. Just call Dutton, Littleproud and his little N!ts, I mean Nats, “L!@ars”. On the front page. Not “not the facts” or “playing with the truth” or “misleading” – just straight up and down L!@rs. And impugn everything about them “Why would you believe anything these l!@rs say?” And if they want to sue, then let’s put the facts on the bench in front of the judge.
Michelle Obama said “When they go low, we go high”. Nice thought but “Yes We Can” was succeeded by “Mexican r@pi!sts, deep state, fake news and MAGA”. I say, when they go low, go as low as them.
An equally strong msm outlet that doesn’t rely on fear and loathing is the only mechanism that capitalism and our hamstrung democracy and politics offers.
Since the conservatives and corporate allies have taken over msm an alternative will be greatly appreciated by this country.
but what can we do about it?
The best place to begin reform would be by flushing the politically appointed management out of our A(nal) Broadcasting Commission.
But it appears that our ALP lacks the dangly bits required to achieve such an outcome.
Only solution I can see at present is The Greens (but they need to severely modify their modus operandi).
Actually this article goes much deeper.
https://johnmenadue.com/antoinette-v-abc-why-did-lattouf-lawyers-move-for-change-of-venue/
Much more than about Ms. Lattouf – it enumerates much deeper political appointments across a broader range.
Bit of a must read.
So, courage is only equated with the possession of dangly bits, is it?
By that definition anyone not possessing dangly bits (eg women) cannot be brave.
well indeed – but its not allowed mate – women are what is wrong with the joint sure they have killed tge BRW 100’Richlist etc – oh and the statistics sitting telling us truths, facts ; all a right wing conspiracy – hey lets just blame all them witches – the few witches who throw tgeir sisters under the bus a gender theory and or corporate/ charity profiteer middlemen – its the real Handmaids Tale – its about language and who has the power to change ; if women are not called women or that definition is diluted to affirm 0.08 of men then its a slippery slope – oh we are here ! wake up
yes biological women might need a bit of support there too before they are thrown out to serve identifying few elites in the lobbyland guardrails at the Party Head quarters
Until facts and rational argument take over this will continue to happe.
This is a failure of regulation that demands radio licences get suspended or nothing happens. Unlike the print media broadcasters have actual laws regarding their conduct.
No look at the rubbish broadcast and the tgeft of content paid for by Austrlian taxpayers ie ABC content or LOCAL ARTS funding content flogged to paid content providers – the broadcast licenses should be reneged and the content and news produced be relevant and educative and creative – it ahould serve the freeview public audiences it is meant to serve without oaying for hefty data or USA based platforms data collecting
Reintroduce explicit critical thinking in school curricula, adult education and community; not allowing a RW MSM cartel would help too.
Many inc. the bush are very cynical of media, but leads to claims of ‘fake news’ and narcissistic loud mouths to spread BS and talking points by word of mouth; instincts and beliefs vs. facts and analysis a la climate science and demography.
Your last sentence nails it. And education, intelligence or training seem to have no effect. Or maybe clever people have been disappointed so many times that voting No to everything is automatic.
The findings published by Dr. Fielding are spot on and show to me we are moving into the dangerous US pattern of this anger-tainment. Sadly it works.
Why can’t people listen to decent radio with music and proper news stories rather than annoying commercials and angry men spilling their guts everywhere. Surely listening to such vile and anger is bad for one’s health?
As a dedicated Classic FM listener I fully agree. I listen to no news broadcasts at all between 9 am and 4 pm.
And I do miss The Drum which lacked angry men spilling their guts everywhere. It had a lot of calm, though often passionate, discussion led by experts. Msm talking heads? I have given up Insiders (except for Bowers’ few minutes of Talking Pictures) and gave up Q+A when Stan Grant hosted it.
Q+A was OK this week, MJM. I normally don’t bother but when Ms Karvelas popped up between 4 Corners and Media Watch to tell me that Peter Frankopan (have read his books – he’s a favourite), Rebecca Huntley and Malcolm Turnbull were going to be on, I tuned in. And glad I did, just to hear those three, although the other two were interesting too. The bonus was no serving politicians. So refreshing and no shouting over the top, or lies. Almost like watching The Drum, but with an audience.
Watching Turnbull flay and disembowel Trump was a pleasure.
Thanks DR. No serving politicians is good to know – in part they’re what puts me off though Grant was a poor anchor/host – he was too opinionated for the role though very good, imo, in other roles.
Turnbull can be very good. And now that we have seen the horrors of Nemesis, maybe he feels that chapter is done and dusted. There is still my NBN though …..
still my NBN
Actually, I prefer MBN (Moron Band Network – or – Malcolm Band Network).
Take your pick :-).
yes better but still not enough balance in the choice and the forum is very closed – hardly a n open forum with “dangerous ideas” – remember Mr Broadband Turnbull rid us off those media ownership protections – im sure he regrets this in hindsight using his logic – and where are the working women – older women who arent right and our aboriginal real women and men on these panels and those we do not or arenot permitted to hear ? Ie women who want to protect womens rights who do not wish to equivocate
Some people thrive on being angry. It frequently becomes their hobby in retirement.
No names, no pack drill.
Fear is not ‘one of the powerful human emotion’. It is the emotion which overrides them all.
Conservatives or progressives, it rules us.
And people use anger as pressure valve, because it is not as emotionally destroying as fear.
The only way to deal with f@#*heads like Ray Hadley is to find what could make the public fearful of them and of their agendas : Chernobyl in Manly (he probably backs Dutton nuclear push), neo-nazis taking over kindergartens, Gina joining Hillary in satanic cults … anything !
Fight dirty, like them.
I can’t remember which LNP MP said they’d be happy to have a nuclear plant in their electorate, but it would be interesting to have a survey of those living there as to their ‘delight’ to have such a plant and, maybe, the waste storage as well. I’m sure that would give many of the listeners to these shocking-jocks (jokes!), as Peter above suggested, ‘anger-tainment’ to the max.
100%. As I wrote above “When they go low, go low with them”, and bring a flaming torch.