Spin Tactics in Australian Politics

 This work is based off the lectures and questions given by Dr Ian Ward in POLS2111: Politics and the Media, UQ.

  

 

Politics has been described as an “ongoing strategic contest to define (or frame) policy problems deserving of attention”. This contest doesn’t just take place in parliament or within the inner sanctums of party rooms, it is a contest that happens daily, in the news papers and in the homes of the voting populace.

To reach this voting constituency, politicians rely on a variety of mediums, chief of which is the media.  However politicians want their message to be broadcast in a certain way – the way most beneficial to them – that may not be how the media is planning to release a story. To combat this, politicians utilise a variety of public relations strategies, or ‘spin’, to maximise favourable news coverage. The concept of ‘spin’ has evolved dramatically with the internet revolution. Spin encompasses not just the delivery of a message or press release, but the ways in which parties and politicians present their message to the media and the consuming populace. Gaber identifies many of these strategies, from the ‘respectable’ or above board strategies, to those considered ‘below the line’. While spinning will not be discussed explicitly, all the strategies utilised and explained below should be considered part of the process of creating and maintaining ‘spin’.

Staying on message

For a politician to stay on message, requires them simply to not stray from the party line, or deviate from pre-written responses. This is crucial for politicians to remember if they are to present a united front – if everyone has the same line scripted they can’t commit to something the party doesn’t want, a costly gaffe not just in terms of media relations, but inter-party politics. This strategy was utilised by Julia Gillard after her recent trip to North Korea; when taking questions from an audience, all her responses related to her trip to North Korea, or the party policy on dealing with North Korea.

Re- and prebuttals

While the definition of a rebuttal is common knowledge, the ‘prebuttal’ is less well known. Rebuttals in politics are responses or party statements to an opposition’s or media story. If a party gets lucky, information on a story or conference will be leaked and they can supply a response to the media before the opposition has even released their story, this is a prebuttal.

Setting the news agenda

Parties see the setting of the news agenda as a crucial element of spin, and rightly so. In framing and timing the release of their stories in a certain way, they can effectively manage the media to present the stories they wish, thus setting the media agenda. However, the timing needs to be right when leaking a story to the media: too much notice on a story gives the media time to seek out differing opinions, rebuttals, which will not be conducive to the original party’s plans.

Fire breaking

Fire breaking occurs when a story is deliberately released as a diversion for another story, for example, to keep journalists from following up a potentially harmful story by suddenly expressing horror at the cut of Julia Gillard’s jackets. The flip side of this strategy is ‘stoking the fire’ – finding material to keep an awkward or potentially damaging story about your opponent running.

Pre-empting, laundering and kite flying

Another tactic Australian politicians employ when attempting to manage the media is that of ‘pre-empting’ or laundering: releasing a bad story in the middle of several positive stories, in the hope it will get relegated to the back pages of the paper or the last minutes of the news. Of course, even better for the party would be if the negative release was simply forgotten. Similar to this tactic is ‘kite flying’, when the government ‘floats’ new proposals in the media to test the public reaction. If the reaction is unfavourable they can quickly pull the story by inserting something more interesting. Pre-empting, laundering and kite flying are most commonly seen around the time the budget is released.

Intimidation, bullying

The brute-force approach employed by some parties and spokespersons can also be quite effective. If a journalist won’t co-operate with a party they can be taken out of the loop. Journalists out of the loop can find themselves not just excluded from sources of information but also openly bullied. When faced with this sort of reception, the dilemma for journalists becomes this: “accept the line, the spokesperson, the story and all would be well, but there would be no investigate or impartiality in the story”. But if they decide to follow up compromising stories, “the result can be interview bids turned down, access to breaking stories denied and no flow of exclusives”.

Today, the word ‘spin’ refers to the process of media communication and manipulation employed by politicians to influence the media and the people. It encompasses a range of techniques both ethical and not quite so decent. These techniques had slowly developed over time, from an often laughed at tactic to the most commonly employed strategy, made possible due to the innovations in technology and online journalism. However, it is only in recent years that the need for ‘spin’ and ‘spin doctors’ has increased, due to the explosion in online journalism and the 24-hour news cycle. Oscar Wilde once said ‘the bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy’. Today, perhaps a more accurate saying would be public relations methods are necessary to manipulate the media because the media expects politicians to utilise public relations methods.