Stamatis Poulakidakos

Anastasia Veneti

• Politics has become throughout modernity and late modernity a systematic exercise of control over people. The increasingly bureaucratized corpus of the modern state and political parties created the framework for the implementation of power politics.

• The modern (and late modern state)-through the government and the party system- has to use propaganda to conduct its policy (Ellul J, 1973:122-138, Smith B. L., Lasswell H.D. & R. D. Cassey, 1946: 1)

• Propaganda is a deliberate process of communication, through the dissemination of information, aiming at structuring social, political and financial “realities” for all individuals or groups taking part in these “realities”

• It is in fact “ideology in motion”

Propaganda appears to have diachronically several characteristics serving the aims of the propagandist:

• Unilateral views

• Selective presentation of issues

• Use of sentimental arguments (positive- hope, patriotism, altruism, euphemism, flutter- and negative- fear, dead-end, dilemma, uncertainty- ones)

• “Transfer” of responsibility

• Logical arguments lacking sufficient explanation (political circumstances, financial data, honesty)

• It might be overt or covert, black or white, true or misleading, serious or funny, “reasonable” or “sensational”

• Was the MoU presentation by the Greek TV and web media, in terms of the political discourse, propagandistic? And if so, which are its characteristics?

• Among the dominant propagandistic practices is the focus on generalities by the propagandist. Consequently, we expect a partial presentation of the MoU content, in order to influence public opinion either in favour or against it.

• Another popular propagandistic practice is that of shifting the responsibilities on others. We, therefore, expect to find frequent use of this practice by political persons.

• With the same logic, there is also the one sided presentation of the possible consequences of the MoU. We expect that its supporters, i.e parties that supported its adoption and voted for its application, will focus on its positive aspects, while the MoU opponents will focus on its negative repercussions.

• According to the propaganda theory, we expect that the presentation of the logical and sentimental arguments in favour or against the MoU will also be one sided. It is expected that the political supporters of the MoU will have a favourable logical and sentimental argumentation towards the MoU, while its opponents will have a negative logical and sentimental argumentation concerning the MoU.

• The propagandistic discourse, that is used either to promote the MoU as an essential solution, or to disdain it as an inadequate solution to the fiscal crisis, will aim –according to the definition of propaganda- to create fear, insecurity and the feeling of ‘deadend’, meaning that people should either adopt it or totally reject it.

• Finally, could we possibly create a “scale” of the logical and sentimental argumentation for the MoU as expressed by the politicians through the TV and web media?

• The research is conducted in the central TV news broadcasts of twoprivate (ALTER, MEGA) and one public (NET) TV channels, the online editions of mainstream center (TA NEA), center-left(ELEFTHEROTIPIA) and center-right newspapers (KATHIMERINI), and the news web pages www.newsit.gr and www.news247.gr.

• Selection of two days per week: either Wednesday, Friday, or Thursday, Saturday, which were rotated each week. Sample of 29% in relation to the population of the days that we wish to examine (43out of the 150 days in total).

• Our unit of analysis is the integral -and making sense- “interview bite” regarding the MoU of either the politician.

• The research covers the period from the 1st of February 2010 till the30th of June 2010

• Total number of statements 1468 (N=1468)• A coding protocol is used for the content analysis of the TV news

bulletins and the web articles. • Data input and analysis using SPSS 20• Statistical tests conducted: chi-square, MANOVA, Factor Analysis

16 axes :• Regulation and supervision of the credit-monetary sector

• Taxes

• Wages-Pensions

• Public Investments

• Labor-Insurance

• Local Administration reforms

• Entrepreneurship-Trade- Corporations

• Transports

• Energy

• Health

• Education

• Government Budget Check

• Cooperation/negotiation with European Commission and E.U.

• Zoning plan

• Expenditures and Function of Government, local governments and public administration

• Unemployment- Vulnerable social groups

Containing 98 actions

• PASOK: Socialist party, government during the time of our research. Member of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats

• New Democracy (ND): Right-wing conservative party, opposition during the time of our research. Member of the European People’s party (Christian Democrats)

• Greek Communist Party (KKE): Communist Party. Member of Confederal Group of the European United Left–Nordic Green Left

• Coalition of the Left, of Movements and Ecology (SYRIZA): Left Party. Member of Confederal Group of the European United Left–Nordic Green Left

• People’s Orthodox Alarm (LAOS): Right-wing nationalist party. Member of Europe of Freedom and Democracy Group

• Independent parliament members: Five (5) Parliament members who became independent after disagreeing with their parties’ stance towards the MoU, during its voting as a law of the Greek state in 6th May 2010. Three of them come from PASOK, 2 from New Democracy. Their independence was the first sign of the big changes that have been taking place within the Greek political scene- because of the MoU- since 2010. These changes were reflected in the results of the 2012 general elections

0,0% 20,0% 40,0% 60,0% 80,0% 100,0%

PASOK Member

ND Member

Communist Party member

SYRIZA Member

LAOS Member

Independent ParliamentMember

79,6%

86,5%

53,3%

60,2%

77,3%

61,5%

20,4%

13,5%

46,7%

39,8%

22,7%

38,5%

Reference generality rate per party

Generalreference

Reference tospecific action

0 20 40 60 80 100

Wages

Pensions

Labour issues

Local Administration reform

Entrepreneurship-Trade- Corporations

Insurance policy

Budget Check

Expenditures and function of government…

Co-operation with European…

Taxes (Direct- Indirect)

10

46

73

20

1

73

1

9

24

5

Referred MoU Categories

0 20 40 60 80 100

Decrease of public sector wages

Negotiation with social associates for private sector wages

Pensions' reductions

The 65 years of age as the common age limit for pensioning of…

Increase of the necessary labour years for obtaining a full pension

Calculation of pension from the sum of labour years

Decrease of pensions upper limit

Establishment of guaranteed income for the elderly

Recourse to arbitration for both employees and employers

Adoption of wages below the lowest wage for sensitive social…

Internship up to one year with reduced wage

Increase of mass lay-offs limit

Callicrates

Simplification of the establishment of new corporations

Merger of all insurance funds in three

Publishing on the web of the allocations of General Government

Privatization of state assets and enterprises 1 billion

Ministry of Finance is Jurisdected to represent and sign…

Loan conditions of the country will not be privilleged

Indirect taxes increase

35

219

71

42122

720

111

620

24

Referred MoU Measures

0,0% 20,0% 40,0% 60,0% 80,0% 100,0%

PASOK Member

ND Member

Communist Party member

SYRIZA Member

LAOS Member

22,3%

13,0%

8,1%

6,7%

18,2%

77,7%

87,0%

91,9%

93,3%

81,8%

“Transfer” of Responsibility

No

Yes

0,0% 20,0% 40,0% 60,0% 80,0% 100,0%

PASOK Member

ND Member

Communist Party member

SYRIZA Member

LAOS Member

12,4%

90,4%

88,9%

100,0%

90,9%

87,6%

9,6%

11,1%

0,0%

9,1%

MoU Consequences

Negative

Positive

0,0% 50,0% 100,0%150,0%200,0%250,0%

Fear against the MoU

Fear supporting the MoU

Deadend against the MoU

Deadend supporting the MoU

Patriotism against the MoU

Patriotism supporting the MoU

Decisiveness against the MoU

Decisiveness supporting the MoU

Political environment against the MoU

Political environment supporting the…

100,0%

0,0%

100,0%

0,0%

100,0%

0,0%

100,0%

0,0%

100,0%

0,0%

23,4%

76,6%

17,6%

82,4%

5,1%

94,9%

4,8%

95,2%

22,4%

77,6%

80,5%

19,5%

76,9%

23,1%

58,0%

42,0%

31,3%

68,8%

38,1%

61,9%

Propagandistic use of most used sentimental and logical arguments

Left(Communists,SYRIZA)

Center(PASOK)

Right (ND,LAOS)

0,0% 20,0% 40,0% 60,0% 80,0% 100,0%

PASOK Member

ND Member

Communist Party member

SYRIZA Member

LAOS Member

Independent Parliament Member

59,5%

22,6%

33,7%

35,8%

52,3%

30,8%

40,5%

77,4%

66,3%

64,2%

47,7%

69,2%

Cultivation of fear-deadend environment

No

Yes

2,38 2,40 2,422,36

1,391,82

2,032,32

2,05

1,07

,56,37

,11,31 ,32

0,00

1,00

2,00

3,00

4,00

5,00

PASOKMember

NDMember

KKEMember

SYRIZAMember

LAOSMember

Use of sentimental and logical arguments per party

Sentiments+ Logicscale

Sentimentalargumentation scale

Logicalargumentation scale

• Applicable when we want to discover which variables in the set form- relatively independent- coherent subsets

• Variables correlated with one another but largely independent of other subsets of variables are combined into factors.

• Factors are thought to reflect underlying processes that have created the correlations among variables

Sentimental & logical propaganda scale

Component

Positivism Negativism

Causes and conseqs

of the MoU Political environment

Hope and euphemism .734

Decisiveness and altruism .634

Plainfolks, flutter, patriotism .609

Acceptance of the difficulty of the

MoU, sincerity

.526

Fear, uncertainty, deadend,

dilemma

.736

Scapegoat, namecalling .694

Data concerning consequences of

the MoU

.759

Financial and structural problems .690

Political circumstances- political

“pressure”

.828

KMO= .597

Sphericity= .000

Percentage explained 60.7%

• Intensely vague political discourse, mostly from right wing parties

• Only 262 references to categories and 119 to specific actions

• High rate of responsibility “transfer”, especially from left parties

• Clear division between government and opposition as far as the consequences are concerned

• Clearly propagandistic use of sentimental and logicalarguments

• “Fear and dead-end” by the opposition (especially the left)

• More “pleasant” sentimental argumentation (hope, euphemism, patriotism) by the government

• Very few logical arguments, argumentation mainly based on the provocation of feelings

• “Pleasant” feelings are the main factor for the sentimental argumentation, followed by the unpleasant ones

• Sentimental propaganda characteristic of crisis situations

• The use (and abuse) of feelings “takes us back” to the first mass propaganda campaigns of the two Great Wars and wartime propaganda in general

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!!!

Sentimental propaganda scale

Positive sents Negative sents Will for political action

Plainfolks, flutter,

patriotism

.778

Hope, euphemism .745

Scapegoat, namecalling .863

Fear, uncertainty,

deadend, dilemma

.560

Decisiveness, altruism .921

KMO= .540

Sphericity= .000

Percentage explained

73.2%

Logical propaganda scale

Component

Causes and effects of the MoU

Political

environment Sincerity

Financial and structural problems .845

Data concerning consequences of the

MoU

.644

Political circumstances- political

“pressure”

.923

Acceptance of the difficulties of the

MoU, sincerity

.966

KMO= .531

Sphericity= .000

Percentage explained 79.3%