Obama's Star Wars in Cyberspace
It does seem like cyberspace is the final, no, not final, "new" frontier, a frontier that is now, here, up close;a frontier not then, a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. Okay, Barack Obama is not Han Solo, but his cyber minions could be, and are even now fighting off Republican pulsars...oh, no, wait a minute... Confusing Star Wars and Star Trek...let's pause for a moment... Okay, a quick Google check tells me its "blasters." Fine. Blasters. In the form of rumors, half-truths, and innuendo, virally spreading across the cyberspace at veritable nanospeeds...well maybe not nanospeeds but damn fast. They use Lightsabers too, for close order combat, like something really outrageous planted in your hometown newspaper.
The metaphor of battle is apt, I believe, as it is descriptive of the increasingly potent presence of the media, particularly cable news, radio and the Internet, in all things political. The ability to raise money, rally support, allow partisans to view the latest video produced and available online to entice contributions, such as Robert Greenwald's Brave New Films Productions; or help "publish" a book via donation, a book about getting out the vote, something the alternative news site, AlterNet, recently did. These are novel and potentially formidable media strategies. They may even change the face of voting, fund raising and getting out "the truth." Or, less effectually, they may merely change the battle theaters wherein adversaries smite each other with blasters and lightsabers.
But the technique of deploying scurrilous, factually inaccurate rumors, principally through blogs, asking pointed and incriminating questions (Is it true, Mr. Obama, you want Iraq to win the war? Is it true Mr. McCain, you have fathered an inter-racial daughter?) with no corroboration of the assertions implied by the question, are stealth strategies, equivalent to the old legal chestnut, Answer yes or no, have you stopped beating your wife. As strategies they may even be more potent than dozens of political books by journalists, former cabinet officials retired Iraq theater generals, or insider accounts, like the latest by Scott McClellan. His is an account of the evils of the Iraq war and the misleading assertions by the White House that led up to it and keep it going, even as we write and read blogs like this one.
Lies and half-truths are powerful propaganda techniques, as social psychologists, Karl Rove, and Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister, will tell you.
There are many ways to lie in plain sight in the marketplace of rumor and innuendo to injure an opponent. Quotes decontextualized or truncated often provide a totally different sense of intent than that of the intact quote. This is repeatedly done to Obama as his books are readily or easily quoted then surgically modified so as to make destructive points and innuendos about his character, beliefs, policies or biography. These are powerful tricks because people who want to believe negative things about a candidate will not seek out alternative truths, contradictions, or corroborating evidence. They'll go with what is consistent with what they believe or want to believe is true.
Distorting opponents' comments is not solely the province of Republicans, it should be noted. John McCain is still derided for having allegedly said American troops staying in Iraq for 100 years wouldn't bother him. This is accurate but truncated. The quoters routinely leave out his qualifying caveat, that it wouldn't bother him but only if the troops were not in harm's way. A horse of a different color, it seems to me. On the other hand, how that safe harbor would be established without bringing the troops out of Iraq, alas, is left to the imagination. Wars aren't over just because we want them to be.
Research on rumor and on attitude or belief protection indicates that if you like the message, you kiss the messenger. If you don't, you kill him (or her, if we consider the Blonds of the Radical Right like Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter or almost any female, E. D. Hill-like anchor on Fox News). You kill them by finding a way to dismiss or discount what is said or make a point of finding faults with the argument or seek out other messages from other messengers which offer more comforting information that explains away the unpleasant message just received about your candidate.
Launching rumor, especially on the rumor-enabling superhighway called the Internet, makes it easy to preach and report to the converted and be fairly sure that they're not going to try to find out if, how, and why your message is unfair or untrue. This ends up reinforcing consonant beliefs ("I knew it, he really is a terrorist sympathizer," "Yes! Israel did cause the 9/11 bombing.") and perhaps even provide a belief to someone who had no opinion one way or another, especially if the message is passed on by a reliable or familiar and liked source.
The Internet is prime real estate for spreading rumors and half-truths through Swiftboating strategies, which may have undid John Kerry's presidential ambitions, or may undo Obama's or McCain's. Swiftboating refers to the 2004 attacks on Kerry's military record by a group calling itself the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Kerry stayed quiet so as to not give the charges credibility or publicity. But this, others have charged, was a decision that turned out to have devastating consequences for his image in some swing states and with soldiers in Iraq who were registered democrats.
During the primary campaign in Iowa, Obama told reporters: "In the era of the blogosphere, we have seen what happened with John McCain in 2000, what happened with John Kerry in 2004. If you don't get on this stuff quickly, then it starts drifting around..." This is why Obama people launched a quick response site to knock down false and half-truthful statements and charges.
It's hard to know, though, how much impact this tactic will have with segments of the voting population. Video-taped comments from voters in West Virginia indicated that both race per se or belief that Obama is a Muslim affected their voting for Clinton. Other comments shown on CNN recently showed some women voters in Los Angeles refusing to accept evidence that Obama is not Muslim and didn't get schooling in a religious madrasa.
Viewing another facet of anti-Obama sentiment, if one doesn't want to vote for a candidate for prejudicial reasons but is uncomfortable consciously commercing in prejudice, then it's likely the person will find some shard of evidence to put their voting decision in a more acceptable light. We need only look at the recent dust up over a Fox News anchor E. D. Hill referring to the fist touching of Barack and his wife, Michelle, after his address upon becoming the presumptive Democratic candidate for president. Hill shows video of the event and asks, with wide-eyed querulousness, if this was a possible terrorist fist jab. The video and question spread virally -- but not, it should be added, the video of the first president Bush (H.W.) recently committing this "terrorist act" with tennis star Anna Kournikova, after enjoying a game of tennis at the Yale courts. That spread very, very slowly, and not at all on Fox News.
In other words, to put a fine point on things, the media, especially the entertainment media, can and have served a persuasive or propagandistic function. They can, in theory, turn populations any way they want if the messages are well done and thematically consistent, whether we're talking about films, Internet, television, print, and radio. These platforms are so powerful and so easy and so rapid in their ability to disseminate misleading political messages that there is little chance these messages will "go away" by themselves.
