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History through images
One hundred years ago the phantom of communism, which was already existing in Europe for two decades, was warmly welcomed by a number of states on a large territory, and since then it has turned the world upside down. Almost two dozens of years later on, the world exploded, having gone through the power of this phantom. It is hard to tell now who benefited from this, as all depends on the criteria you use for assessment. From the point of view of the living standards, the defeated has won. Taking the patriotic rhetoric as a basis, we can say that the winner has won. Personally, I would not like to choose between living well and living in a strong state (the question was addressed to me by one of the “impartial” television presenters), because there should not be a choice here. As to me, it is worthless and even criminal to strive to create a strong state where citizens live poorly.
A century later, another phantom has appeared, several years ago now, and not only in Europe, as with the invention of the Internet, connection with the whole world stopped being a problem. Propaganda is the name of this phantom. Namely, harmful propaganda.
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Propaganda and the social balance
In fact, propaganda should be neither encouraged nor prohibited. It is not prohibited by the humankind, which has signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The humankind does propaganda for healthy lifestyle, but it banned war propaganda, as it could unbalance the world.
At the same time, let us not forget that the social balance can be disrupted by numerous factors – political, economic, social, military, internal and external, – and the government is responsible for eliminating these factors. Propaganda, be it internal or external, is definitely a destabilizing factor, which must be eliminated. There is a lot of ways to do it, but democratic methods are the best for this purpose. For a short period of time, a dictatorial regime might seem effective. In the long term, however, both general progress and sustainable development require a comprehensive and judicious approach.
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Both those who distribute harmful propaganda and those who are subjected to it have already understood that propaganda is a cheap and effective weapon in the ocean of information we are swallowed by. People are now trying to find a way out from this ultra-modern epidemic, which is able to influence parliamentary and presidential elections both internally and externally in the countries where the votes of citizens seem not to matter anymore. So, internal or external propaganda becomes a deadly threat for the right to vote, which people sought to obtain for centuries, and which is not everyone’s right even now. Moldova, being an integral part of the world and having experienced the consequences of propaganda, needed to do something about it, and it actually has taken some steps in this direction. Of course, it did not go all the way: the law says nothing about citizens’ safety and internal propaganda. Moreover, it is unlikely that a society where internal propaganda competes with the external one can stay balanced. Progress here is out of the question, because propaganda and progress are mutually exclusive phenomena.
What can we replace external propaganda with?
In my view, the anti-propaganda amendments adopted by the parliament are quite elegant: they do not prohibit propaganda and do not prohibit anything at all; they allow transmitting only certain audiovisual programs from certain countries. This way, neither broadcasters, nor operators of cable TV, nor regulatory bodies, nor judges will have to prove the presence or absence of propaganda in a particular content. It is, in fact, impossible and, to my mind, it would generate a flow of legal proceedings both in the country and in the European Court of Human Rights for the century ahead. Though, this flow might emerge if anyone insisted enough to prove that any kind of radio or TV program is informative in its nature, be it musical, historic or, entertainment. Moreover, any key message containing propaganda can easily migrate from a political program to a cooking show or to social networks, where it can be easier perceived by the consumer. Nevertheless, these amendments will influence the consumer at least somewhat, especially a lazy one, used to pressing the buttons on a remote control instead of surfing the Internet. I wonder what awaits broadcasters and operators of cable TV in case they fail to meet the legal norms by February 12. The first variant is that they will have to invest (because changes cost much), i.e. if they have the money, as I have never known who and how much invests in business development. The second variant is sad: in case of failure, “the failed” will have to pay fines from MDL 40,000 to MDL 100,000. For some, MDL 100,000 is an annual budget, for others it is the cost of one minute of advertisement. The former broadcasters influence a thousand people by propaganda programs, the latter can influence a hundred thousand people. Still, the punishment is equal for all. No matter how unfair this equalization is, it serves to protect the consumer. I was thinking primarily of broadcasters and operators of cable TV, because it is they who are the first to be subjected to the new amendments. (…). Eventually, broadcasters and operators of cable TV will have to obey the law, and then what? What will we replace external propaganda with in the year of elections? You guessed right – with internal propaganda, which we see too much already.
Let us understand that internal propaganda is not better at all than the foreign one. They both use the same toxic weapon and they both have the same scope – to make us act guided not by our own minds, but by ideas launched by somebody else’s minds for purposes that differ from our own.
So far we’ve seen that the local media steadily worsen in election years. I bet the situation will be the same this year, too, because the most influential media outlets are politically polarized or have specific political views. It means that with the elimination of external propaganda we will make more room for the internal one, the best for “informing” the consumer.
What would be better
It would be better if propaganda existed, but not a harmful one and not in the media. And as the perfect solution is not possible at the moment, it would be better if we could expose propaganda, wherever it came from. Propaganda ceases to be effective as soon as you realize it is propaganda. So, our task is simply to realize whether a message is propaganda.
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The article was published within the Advocacy Campaigns Aimed at Improving Transparency of Media Ownership, Access to Information and promotion of EU values and integration project, implemented by the IJC, which is, in its turn, part of the Moldova Partnerships for Sustainable Civil Society project, implemented by FHI 360.
This article is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The content are the responsibility of author and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.
