Hey Pandora, what's in the box?
#573
Happy New Year. We can always hope.
It’s taken a long time, but there has been a gradual understanding that social media is having a corrosive influence on liberal democracy in all parts of the world. It was said that Trump was the first Twitter President, and now one can see how perfectly matched he is to the medium – twin desseminators of chaos, with Elon Musk driving both of them.
In their paranoid way, the authoritarian regimes were quick to understand the power of social media. As a result, they have taken strict measures to monitor and control the Internet in their own countries while using it to spread disinformation in the west. Such controls were never an option for nations such as the United States and Australia, hamstrung by the very systems that ensure justice and personal freedom. Now we can see how easily such ‘unalloyed goods’ may be manipulated to serve contradictory ends. Whatever checks and safeguards the Biden government was tentatively pursuing will be swept away by the Trump administration.
Elon Musk’s bleating about “freedom of speech” translates into the freedom to publish hate speech and false information. When addressing a captive audience that gets all its news through sources that flatter existing prejudices one can see the pernicious nature of this ‘freedom’. Not long ago, everyone was watching the same few TV networks and reading the same papers, producing a general consensus about the events of the day and the nature of politics.
Today that consensus has been shattered. The ‘news’ is what you want it to be, whether you spend your life glued to Fox News or Sky Channel, or to tune into the ABC website and select happy stories to improve your “mood”. The essential fiction of objectivity has been discarded by both sides of politics as there is scant desire to separate fact from opinion. People have become more accustomed to having their own views fed back to them and have grown increasingly intolerant of anything or anyone that contradicts their personal take on reality. When ABC Chair, Kim Williams, recently lamented the disproportionate influence of a populist podcaster such as Joe Rogan, he received a tidal wave of hate mail.
Few things are more revealing of this glaring division of opinions than the ABC’s annual New Year’s Eve broadcast from the Sydney Opera House. Every year seems to follow the same pattern – a massive emphasis on First Nations artists and their familiar political messages leads to gushing praise in some quarters and angry criticism in others. In the past I’ve found the broadcast to be virtually unwatchable, with hosts saying too many inane things amid an orgy of virtue signalling. This year I watched it playing out in the background at a party, with the sound on the set turned down. I’m not able to make any specific comments, but it looked like business-as-usual. The major difference with previous years was that it ended with Robbie Williams playing a long set and plugging his new movie.
The next morning, all the standard responses were in place. The Daily Mail and Sky News ranted about the embarrassing, “woke garbage” that left viewers “furious”. The Sydney Morning Herald, that reliable vat of media marshmellow, told us “it was a stunning night,” and “a New Year’s Eve broadcast for the ages.”
One suspects the truth lies somewhere between these poles of hyperbole. Although my own suspicions tend (against my political inclinations), towards the Daily Mail end of the spectrum, I imagine the “furious” viewers quickly tuned out. As for the “woke” accusations, they are raised annually, and the ABC’s response is to double down. What’s really tedious is the fixed belief that the masses are hanging out to see an Indigenous rapper such as Nooky, year after year. We’ve seen him appear, incongruously, on the Countdown tribute program. The Powerhouse has put him on the payroll as a program curator for the Blak musical event which has become another brilliant way of spending a massive government stipend in the absence of functioning display areas.
Between them, the ABC and the Powerhouse are treating Nooky as a superstar. The fact that his ‘songs’ are all blak political diatribes is obviously considered to be a big plus. I wish I could share their enthusiasm, but both the medium and the message strike me as banal, hammering away at views – and grievances – that have become more ritualistic than radical.
There is a legitimate case that the ABC, being owned and funded by the taxpayer, should make an attempt to provide entertainment that has a fair chance of appealing to everyone, rather than imposing political messages many view – rightly or wrongly - as propaganda. While there is a case for highlighting Indigenous performers, there are plenty who are not so dedicated to preaching from the pulpit. Imagine if a country and western singer got up and sang a song in praise of white nationalism – it would be an outrage.
We need to apply the same standards across the board, keeping the militant politics out of ABC broadcasts - not to silence dissent but to prevent giving the impression of partisanship and favouritism. The heavy-handed First Nations indulgence may actually be counter-productive in terms of how Aboriginal people and politics are viewed by average Australians. When a one-sided message is foisted on a general audience, many will feel they are being patronised, their intelligence and good will insulted. A hostility arises that has negative political implications for Indigenous causes and for the Labor Party, which has gone out of its way to associate itself with all this sanctimonious messaging. If we end 2025 with the Boiled Egg as Prime Minister and billions of dollars committed to a fanciful nuclear power program, it will be because the Coalition has learned how to use the so-called culture wars to mobilise support.
An exaggerated politics of conscience that renders certain groups privileged and untouchable is dumb politics. The Murdoch media empire has no scruples about peddling blinkered opinions as if they were breaking news, but organs such as the ABC and the SMH add fuel to these practices by expecting audiences to fall in line with their own editorial opinions about what’s naughty and nice. They should have realised by now that the public is not hanging out for tidings of joy, especially in times of economic hardship. In such a climate, hatred and division are far more popular/populist options.
What am I suggesting? Tone it down, guys. Wake up to the realisation that “woke” is political poison. Life cannot be made to conform to fantasies about what should be happening, and the attempt to coerce audiences to this narrow way of thinking can only end in disaster.
When major media outlets decide to merely accept the tales they are told by PR departments, to actively avoid investigating potential corruption, waste, incompetence and nepotism within institutions, we are half-way down the slippery slope. Cover-ups are undertaken with impunity, pockets are lined at taxpayers’ expense. Stupidity and opportunism are rewarded. We become the laughing stock of the world.
In a world dominated by social media, angry messages spread too far and too fast to be discounted. When reports in papers such as the SMH fail to reflect readers’ first-hand experience of a cultural event such as the New Year’s Eve broadcast, any basis of trust is undermined. The Daily Mail, on the other hand, can be as negative as it likes, knowing this appeals to a large part of its readership.
One cannot combat negative extremity with positive extremity and hope to win the contest. The only thing that makes sense is measured, informative criticism that accepts the fact that presentations and performances are neither simply good nor bad. Everything is questionable, everything open to a more nuanced reading. It’s detail and argument that win the day, not duelling ideological declamations.
The art column for The Nightly is back this week, looking at Rauschenberg & Johns – Significant Others at the Geelong Art Gallery. It’s a National Gallery of Australia touring show I’ve meant to write about for some time, finally catching it on the last leg of its journey.
The movie is Parthenope, a strange, ambiguous production, even by Paolo Sorrentino’s standards. It’s also a hypnotic spectacle, focussed on the transcendentally beautiful Celeste Dalla Porta, who is rarely off screen. Sorrentino’s preoccupation is certainly seductive, but is it also exploitative? This is the kind of film that invites disagreement. There’s also a philosophical aspect to this tale that takes a bit of unravelling. I’ve had a go, but there are plenty of ambiguities left over. If you watched the ABC’s New Year’s Eve broadcast, a little ambiguity may be the perfect hangover cure for virtuous excesses.