According to a report carried by Politico on Wednesday, Twitter’s public policy director Carlos Monje has resigned. Monje will allegedly take part in Democrat candidate Joe Biden’s team in the US elections. Monje’s previous inclusion in Hillary Clinton and Obama’s teams and the pre-resignation sighting made of him at a fund-raising meeting for the Democrats add substance to this allegation. It comes as no great surprise, with two months to go until the presidential election, for Biden to be picking experienced social media communicators for his team given that nowadays the main channel for political communications, in common with many other things, will be social media. However, Trump supporters are already starting to say that Twitter, which had announced it would take no political advertising, has right now revealed its political leanings.
At election times and post-election, politicians employ knowledgeable and experienced consultants in the field of communications to manage society’s perception. These are termed spin doctors. With spin referring to the twisting and turning needed to alter public perception, talk of doctors testifies to this being professional work. In liberal democracies in which there is less polarization, spin doctors have extended their “professionalism” to non-disclosure of their political opinions and the ability to serve any party. Just as anything can be marketed, politicians, too, can be marketed and advertised and thanks to these doctors they escape unscathed from political tight spots. One of spin doctors’ most important tasks is to have the journalists we can call gatekeepers at their beck and call. They can do this using such techniques as rewarding or intimidating. But in doing so the key point is to ensure that society is unaware of this. So, a good spin doctor is one who can pull this off as if directing public opinion. Just as, for example, somebody with a gun pressed against their head will not find what is said to be convincing, they will also question the sincerity of one who benefits from the policy they support. Propaganda has to be done as if not propaganda.
Propaganda is a notion that is unloved in today’s politics and carries negative connotations. This is due to the techniques used to manipulate the masses during two world wars. The best-known wielder of these was Nazi-period Minster of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels. Even if popular politics increasingly feels the need to make reference to him, those working in the field of political communications and social psychology account for Goebbels’ success in terms of the political and economic conditions and historical traumas in which society found itself. In other words, there is no guarantee that if you say the same thing again and again to society at any place in the world at any time they will believe it.
It is essentially a success of capitalism not to call propaganda, being an effort to persuade, propaganda and to cast it aside as a bad thing and instead to coin such terms as “strategic relations” and “public diplomacy” which are more pompous but still carry martial connotations. Chomsky considers the perception that we have ridden ourselves of propaganda to be one of the great propaganda successes of the 21st Century.
I suspect you have guessed where I am going with this. The Communications Directorate underwent total repositioning following the publication of Friday’s Official Gazette. Under a Presidential Decree, the Directorate of Communications was tasked to “set policies regarding strategic communications and crisis management and thereby achieve coordination between all public institutions and bodies in activities to be conducted in the national and international arena.” Moreover, a new unit was created by way of Directorate of Strategic Communications and Crisis Management. The first of its duties is “to set the strategic communications policies to be implemented in activities to be conducted in the national and international arena by cooperating with the appropriate institutions and bodies as required with regard to the state’s strategic aims and goals and the state’s and nation’s interests.” Does the Directorate of Communications not do this anyway?
With presidential communication activities previously conducted through the press consultancy, the transition to the presidential system saw the immediate formation of a structure known as the Directorate of Communications that, observed from the outside, could readily be called the directorate of propaganda. The structure does not just consist of the unit created, but a massive building was also erected for it. On accessing the Directorate of Communications’ site, a photograph of a huge skyscraper greets you, not an endearing communications-related symbol. This on its own signifies that a show of strength is involved rather than communications.
Alongside propaganda activities, the Communications Directorate also deals with the distribution of press cards and national and international press accreditation affairs. However, in line with the fundamental right of press freedom, these should never be brought together. We have been debating this aspect since its inception. On accessing the news and announcements section of the Directorate of Communications’ site, even though most of them are the President’s, the Director of Communication’s pronouncements also strike the eye. A spin doctor never declares his own opinions. Nevertheless, as the occasion demands, Fahrettin Altun condemns Macron or takes photographs at a rally. Indeed, at the outset of the epidemic, that is in days in which the greatest need was felt for strategic communications activities, he becomes news with the pergola he had constructed in the field beside his house. Could Fahrettin Altun himself be in need of a spin doctor? The latter could, for example, make some such comment as, “It would be better not to get into the land business in such times, boss. The part of the press we cannot control will report on this.”
Let us return to our basic question. What does this retasking harbinger? The following two are significant:
“Taking stock of the psychological defamation, propaganda and perception operation activities waged against the Republic of Turkey, to counter all manner of manipulation and disinformation.”
“In the event of crisis, disaster, state of emergency and the imminent threat of war, mobilization and war, to engage in strategic communications and crisis management activities to attain the aims and goals the state has set.”
Let us start with the first. How is a unit created virtually by name as a directorate of propaganda going to engage in countering propaganda activities and who is it going to be able to convince in international relations, and how?
To the best of our knowledge there is no crisis in the country; I mean, at the very least, Minister of Treasury and Finance Berat Albayrak tells us there is not. In such cases as disaster, state of emergency, etc. there is a wealth of available measures at the government’s disposal, not least reporting bans.
There is an item in which I think the answer to the question lies concealed:
“Analyzing the internal and external threats facing the Republic of Turkey, to implement the necessary measures in terms of strategic communications and crisis management.”
With the success of propaganda in the international arena limited to the institution’s structure and its managers’ skills, we can more or less guess what measures the Communications Directorate, which forever dishes out fines to certain journalists by means of the Public Advertising Agency attached to it, may resort to against “internal threatening elements.” As such, this retasking is preparing the statutory infrastructure for a new period of censorship we will soon be faced with. However, will the granting of such broad authority to a civil servant who although appointed does not refrain from acting like a politician be to the AKP’s advantage? Not according to Chomsky.
(Translated by Tim DRAYTON)
Ceren Sözeri
Yusuf Karadaş
Aras Coşkuntuncel