The Media: A Platform of the Political Collectivist Discourse

The essay analyzes the implications for the use of advertising strategies and the different moves and turns exploited by the media in an attempt to achieve identified, strategic and calculated objectives. Such a process involves a lot of work and entails the integration of a variety of fundamental skills and techniques. This essay also advances the individualist stance with regard to the political institution and points to how the individualist discourse sets itself as a fervent opponent to the collectivist one in that it rejects the manipulation of public opinion and encourages privatizing the individuals’ experience and expression. 
 
 A reflection on the role of media in elections reveals a high degree of direct control and portrays how the political institution utilizes mass media to communicate with the voting public. Electoral propaganda on television is an example that is most illustrative of the way in which the media is used to inject some ready-made assertions. The advertizing campaign   resorts to some creative strategies to disseminate targeted messages about the political institution as a whole. The choice of themes, the use of images, lyrics and sounds and some striking expressions together with the skillful application of the techniques of persuasion, show how fully the political institution exploits the media to manage politics and political choices.

 In this respect, and because of their potential impact on audiences, the choice falls on celebrities that are not only well known to the public but that also represent varied  musical styles, different ages and mixed gender to cater for all tastes and respond to various needs. The electoral campaign, for instance, may resort to rap singers as representatives of a newer genre, most appealing to the youth, pop singers who are appreciated by a mass together with other celebrities and well-known figures that belong to an older generation. This is meant to be as arresting and memorable as possible.  The overall political advertising techniques are brought into play to contribute to the general impression. They have the joint effect of making what the propagandists say sound impressive, and above all of having control over the medium and accordingly over the public. Doris Graber in his Mass Media and American Politics states that:

Media coverage is the very lifeblood of politics because it shapes the perceptions that form the reality on which political action is based. Media do more than depict the political environment; they are the political environment.1

 In an attempt to condition the minds of the audience, to manipulate their attitudes and to convert them to its policies, the political institution refers to religion as representing authenticity and purity of origin and universal values, such as human rights, citizenship, and equality etc. as emblems of modernity and commitment to International Law. Examples of this can also be traced in the Friday Sermon and the king’s speeches, which also use this religious / democratic façade to touch on a sensitive spot.   Elections speak a tricky language that targets a category of people who are easily driven by the fake impressions that elections generate and the deceitful approach that politicians resort to. Again, the political, collectivist discourse makes  assertions  about Man and Existence assuming that truth equals wisdom and knowledge of what is most appropriate to people. In this respect, the individual cannot exist beyond institutions because the social collective has rights, needs, or moral authority above the individuals. Mark Da Cunha explicitly states that according to collectivist ethical principle,  

Man is not an end to himself, but is only a tool to serve the ends of others. Whether those 'others' are a dictator's gang, the nation, society, the race, (the) god(s), the majority, the community, the tribe, etc., is irrelevant -- the point is that man in principle must be sacrificed to others.2
   
The collectivist discourse emphasizes the role of institutions be it political, religious or family as shared set of values. The political discourse is constantly trying to shape people’s attitudes to facilitate the implementation of a certain agenda or policy. This discourse addresses human beings feelings and promises them happiness, Katherine Hall Jamieson, a specialist on political advertising, has concluded that “ads serve as a "safety valve". Political ads affirm that the country is great, has a future, is respected”.3 In his analysis of the outcome of the manipulation of the political institution, P. J. O'Rourke argues that:

"Politics is the business of getting power and privilege without possessing merit.  A politician is anyone who asks individuals to surrender part of their liberty -- their power and privilege -- to State, Masses, Mankind, Planet Earth, or whatever.  This state, those masses, that mankind, and the planet will then be run by ... politicians."4

    The individualist discourse, however, helps reinforce an individualist accent and sets out to “explore those aspects of consciousness, of the true inward life of people, in which human reality resides.” Individualists embark on an internal journey in quest for true identity and redefinition of the self and set themselves in opposition to the collectivist discourse: 

Political tags -- such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth -- are never basic criteria.  The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.5
 
Another feature of the individualist discourse philosophy is the apparent rejection of sovereignty, curatorship or any form of slavery exerted by the political institution. Its essence is based on limiting its dominance and authority and encouraging individuals to speak their minds, not the language of institutions. Hence, individuals can determine their own faith beliefs, political experience and family organization, but apart from a tradition, a body of knowledge or institutions:

Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual…Individualism regards man -- every man -- as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being.  Individualism holds that a civilized society, or any form of association, cooperation or peaceful co-existence among men, can be achieved only on the basis of the recognition of individual rights and that a group, as such, has no rights other than the individual rights of its members.6 
 
At the centre of the individualist view is this rejection of sovereignty which extends to the belief that human existence is without merit if the individual doesn’t claim his moral right to pursue his own happiness. Such an enterprise not only involves undergoing an internal journey for the exploration of the true inward life but also entails a great deal of self- independence, initiative and responsibility.

Individualism is at once an ethical-psychological concept and an ethical-political one. As an ethical-psychological concept, individualism holds that a human being should think and judge independently, respecting nothing more than the sovereignty of his or her mind; thus, it is intimately connected with the concept of autonomy. As an ethical-political concept, individualism upholds the supremacy of individual rights. 7
Professor Clifford Thies advances a compromise where he conceives of a community in which individuals enjoy greater freedom of choice:

Individualism is not antithetical to community. Rather, it can involve free association and a belief in an over-arching harmony of interests. In a free society, individuals join with others because of love and mutual benefit, not because they are programmed or coerced.9

Eventually, the political institution adopts a collectivist discourse directed to a mass and meant to condition the people’s lives, choices and way of thinking. It makes use of media as a platform to communicate its programs and to produce the desired effect of manipulation and conditioning. An analysis of broadcast media shows that political advertisements are made up of many components, each of which is carefully constructed to build a purposeful advertising campaign. Political advertisements put forward   their enterprise with precision, clarity, skill and professionalism. In fact, the effect of propaganda on people’s choices cannot be undermined. However, the media becomes powerless with people who think, people who are in constant quest for the fabrication of individualist tastes and desires, and who claim their moral right to pursue their own happiness.
                                                   
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
    1. Graber, Doris, Mass Media and American Politics, 2001http://www.edb.utexas.edu/ resources/team/lesson_3.html#Activity_1
    2. http://freedomkeys.com/collectivism.htm   (Mark, Da Cunha)
    3. http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Democracy_America/Candidates_Elections_TDF.html
    4. http://freedomkeys.com/collectivism.htm   (P. J. O'Rourke)
    5. http://freedomkeys.com/collectivism.htm (Robert A Heinlein)
    6. http://freedomkeys.com/collectivism.htm  (Ayn Rand )
    7. http://freedomkeys.com/collectivism.htm (Nathaniel Branden)
    8. http://www.edb.utexas.edu/resources/team/lesson_3.html#Activity_1
    9.http://www.libertarianrepublican.net/2010/08/communitarianism-versus-individualism.html
    http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rousseau/#RouCl


Latifa Bousalham is a Moroccan student currently enrolled in a master program majoring in Moroccan-American Studies at Hassan II University/Mohammedia, Faculty of Humanities/Ben M’sik/Casablanca. She obtained her BA in English Literature at  the same university in 1992. She has also been a secondary school teacher since 1998.