Democracy Café: September

The power of the media: influence and control

The group (17 strong this week) met on September 14th as usual in the Library with 2 topics chosen by vote for discussion.

The first of these was  ”Should the power of the media be in the hands of the people who currently control it?” The media has been a fairly constant topic in our discussions, both national and local.

Much of the debate centred around trying to understand how influenced people are by the media, both the press and social media. The newspaper market is small and elderly, but dominates politics. It was suggested that papers used to be driven by their readers, but that now the owners choose what is important, and this can be dangerous. Defined as “framing”, this means the reader receiving a partial view, which can be resistant to persuasion. (It was said that positive ideas need 5 times more effort than negative to have an effect).

Politicians are afraid of the media, but, as one member said, they should “grow a backbone.”

It was also pointed out that a factor in news reporting is the prevalence of SLAPPS (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation), by which the judiciary can interfere with the publishing of unwelcome information about a person or organization, simply because of the cost of pursuing a case, if charged with defamation. The practice of wealthy litigants paying a sum into court means plaintiffs run the risk of having to pay both sides costs – which runs into millions – if they loose. The Murdochs have paid over £1bn to keep phone hacking out of the news using methods such as this. It’s called ‘British justice’.

But those under 40 don’t tend to read papers. Social media gives access to your preferences and this leads to confirmation bias. For many, social media is where they are getting nearly all their news. A possible remedy would be to make the algorithms available to the public. (There may also be a need for opportunities to be created to re-educate older people about social media)

Another suggestion was that The Guardian model of the newspaper being owned by a Trust could be a better option than ownership? Someone else observed that podcasts are a better source of information.

Likewise with social media sites – open source sites such as Bluesky or Signal don’t use the algorithms that X or TikTok do.

The recent riots have been a useful indicator of the issues. Certain parts of the Press could be accused of adding fuel to the fire, while ostensibly standing aside. The people on the streets were prosecuted, but not those who incited them. The Government’s subsequent prosecutions did not include some who were implicated in the background.

In conclusion, we were left wondering “why do people believe what they believe?” Whether we are nearer an answer remains to be seen.

The second discussion concerned whether the Government should stop selling arms to Israel. Some attendees felt (quite strongly) that there was no justification at all for selling arms, believing that claims of genocide were true. Others were concerned about the possible loss of influence it would involve.

Questions were asked about the extent of British involvement – we are low on the list of suppliers, but arms sales generally are big business (8-10% of our exports), and it is important in our area, even if more through agencies than actual manufacture. The Foreign Office has an open licence policy, but the new government has withdrawn 30 licences out of about 350 over concerns about international humanitarian law.

Concern was expressed about proportionality. It was pointed out that Israel’s targeting ability was greater than events would suggest which may have a bearing on what we should sell. They are a powerful military, the most powerful in the region.

The comparison with our sales to Ukraine was made. The racial angle of the distinction was noted.

International bodies have agreed that the regime is one of apartheid. This seems to be part of a change in attitude over the course of the war. It was questioned whether younger people who don’t get news from the newspapers (see above; the difficulty of journalists getting to the war zones was also noted) might have a different understanding of the situation. Generally the fear was that (partly due to the change in attitude in the US to its historic policing role) a sense of paralysis has set in. The situation was described as the economic colonization of Israel by the US and the political colonization of the US by Israel.

A view was expressed that Israel may have no wish to agree a peace deal since off the coast of Gaza is a vast oil and gas field. Were a Palestinian state to have access to this resource, it would alter the politics of the region immensely.

Clearly not an issue that is going to be resolved soon, but the debate was thoughtful and informative. As so often happens with our debates, the two topics were related since our view of the conflict in Gaza has been powerfully influenced by media coverage and the lack of independent coverage from Gaza itself.

Andrew Hemming

– For those interested in further details of arms sales generally, please go the the Campaign Against the Arms Trade site.

– Glasgow University has a keen interest in media matters and publishes research of interest. Scroll to articles published by the late Greg Philo in particular. See also Bad News (Routledge & Kegan Paul pub)