Category: Media

As part of its internship program, Navigator asks its interns to write a blog post about the intersection of communications and an area of personal interest. This week, Meredith Wilson-Smith examines the interplay of art, politics, and marginalization.

Intersectionality, systemic oppression, internalized misogyny: what do these terms have in common?

Maybe they all made you roll your eyes and write this article off as pedantic. But their shared application to marginalized communities relates to one central question: who do you support? As technology develops and expands, this question becomes increasingly relevant.

Politics worldwide have polarized. It takes a couple of clicks to directly contact a politician, and debates are radicalized as people quickly and anonymously spread oftentimes discriminatory viewpoints. We’ve seen this throughout the past year, during the 2016 US presidential election and the 2017 French presidential election. Though these events have inured us to radicalization, they’ve revealed a lesson: dichotomy insulates communities. People are increasingly discouraged from communicating or empathizing with communities outside their own. To express this, they turn to the Internet.

Freedom of speech doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Politically-engaged people seek accessible platforms to express their opinions. Social media is malleable and easily connects like-minded individuals. But it’s dangerous to cloister yourself. As similar viewpoints stoke one another, the buildup of increasingly inflammatory opinions can fuel a harmful collective rage.

Sociologist Alberto Melucci used the term “cognitive liberation” to describe the “awakening of an individual’s awareness of the issues surrounding a movement and a reframing of the world through that issue.” The knowledge that one is not alone inspires a collective demand for solidarity and mobilization in the face of subjugation. Online communities turn otherwise marginalized experiences into a collective narrative that propagates action among group members. As individuals are inspired by peers, they’re initiated into the same movement and gain a link to thousands of others. This is happening on both the left and the right among groups who are confronting both real and perceived subjugation.

One of the darker elements of this mobilization is the ease with which hate crimes can easily be organized online. Canadian anti-Islam group III% found its roots in a Facebook group. Since their founding, members in the U.S. and Canada have been arrested for numerous offenses. These include shootings at Black Lives Matter rallies and an assault at a Canadian Journalists for Free Expression event. During the US election, several pro-Trump rallies were organized through Facebook events, with attendees such as Internet-famous Kyle Chapman (known amongst the alt-right as “Based Stickman”) urging followers to “smash [protestors] on sight”. Arguably most significantly, the “Unite the Right” Rally recently took place in Charlottesville. The far-right gathering in Virginia killed three people, injured at least 38, and, critically, was largely organized online.

Not all Internet-organized protests are prejudiced and violent. The 2017 Women’s March to advocate for gender equality and human rights was planned over Facebook. An estimated five million people participated worldwide. No arrests were made. And the fact that this protest immediately followed Donald Trump’s inauguration raised an interesting point about the increasingly gendered nature of partisanship.

The Week columnist Ed West makes the point that the difference between the social justice left and the alt-right is one of the most gendered divides possible. As 53% of men dominated Trump’s voter base and women voted overwhelmingly to elect Hillary Clinton, the candidates’ disparate views drove their supporters’ gendered radicalization.

Clinton’s female supporters rallied out of fear of Trump’s anti-female braggadocio, as he undermined women’s legal, healthcare, and employment rights. They found solace in the accessible feminist communities of the left online. Similarly, Clinton’s achievements threatened many of Trump’s white, male voters. Her gender, ambition, and socioeconomic class represented a voice they couldn’t relate to at a time when they already feared change. Thus, many Trump supporters united to blame those races, sexual orientations, and religions unfamiliar to them. They hid their fears with a username as alt-right forums assuaged their insecurities with reassuringly homogenous faces and viewpoints.

Trump’s supporters respond to directness and uniformity. This is reflected in the political right’s passionate yet plainspoken statements and calls to action. Trump’s blunt threats towards North Korea, such as a promise to bring “fire and fury” via nuclear bombs are the new normal in politics. When President Trump banned foreign aid for groups abroad that provide abortion counselling (or those that so much as mention the word “abortion”), he did so surrounded by six smiling men in suits. Photo ops with Trump’s all-male staff strategically bank on the support of his largely homogenous voter base as evidence of the fulfillment of the president’s male-centric promises.

As “social justice warriors” (as Trump’s supporters derisively call those on the left) represent a more vocal and diverse community, their online manifestations take different forms. The female existence was politicized long before the Internet, but recent Internet art culture is allowing those ideas to spread like wildfire. The social left — particularly established feminist groups — are using the same platforms as the alt-right in order to express and distribute their thoughts in ways that respond to and resist the oppressive climate within which they live.

At a time of international political instability, women aren’t guaranteed safety. When left-wing and feminist groups have attempted to counter alt-right protests with their own, women were openly attacked by male alt-right protesters.  The Internet has become a place for women to carve out the autonomous spaces that aren’t otherwise available to them in the public sphere.

Consider Cindy Sherman, the American artist who photographs women in common female personas, from middle-class housewives to sullen teenagers. The artist emphasizes femininity to the point of absurdity, alienating viewers by distorting the familiar. Sherman’s art proves the fruitlessness of crafting a false identity despite the expectation for women to appeal by doing so. It’s fitting, then, that Sherman made an Instagram account this year, as women have been forced online to defend their self-identity and find community. Using face-editing apps that women often use to improve their appearances, Sherman distorts her face grotesquely. Posting these pictures publicly in a culture where the US President casually calls women “fat”, “flat-chested”, “unattractive”, and “crazy” is defiant. As Sherman shares that defiance with thousands of followers, she makes a statement against the culture that diminishes women by politicizing their appearance.

      The Guerrilla Girls are another example. The anonymous group of feminist artists has fought sexism and racism in the art world for over 30 years. When they began in 1985, the group collected data about female representation in museums and made posters reflecting their discontent. Their discussion of issues such as tokenism and the wage gap in the art world reflected the attitude towards women in the larger sphere of employment. With the advent of the Internet, the group has been able to recruit new members, connect with museums, and host workshops and exhibitions to continue to fund and publicize their activist efforts.

      Radicalization is common today. Female artists such as Sherman and the Guerrilla Girls are viewed as “radical” because they challenge existing social norms and institutions that hurt women from outside the political process. Their digital communication has personalized and politicized the consumption of and response to feminist art. Even if art isn’t explicitly feminist, it’s being increasingly consumed through a political lens as feminism proliferates online through left-wing activism.

      It’s arguably dangerous that individuals are radicalizing as politics radicalize. The Internet surrounds them with communities eager for their opinions. Art expresses emotion – it incites and mobilizes. In that case, it could be argued that feminist art online perpetuates the emotionally-motivated culture of violence. The dissemination of accessible and political art is powerful. But a potential threat doesn’t equate evil. Art is also often opaque in its intent, leaving interpretation up to the viewer. This means that one art piece online can bring together communities with vastly varied knowledge and experiences. Those people have the capacity to engage with, learn from, and listen to one another. In that way, art reduces radicalism.  

Art should be encouraged to thrive online. The Internet is an egalitarian aggregator of voices, which gives it limitless political weight for candidates and protestors alike. Individual works of art don’t reduce misogynistic behavior. But thanks to the online networks we use daily, the social awareness of art-centric communities does make a difference. They educate and unite. In a culture where the new normal is nuclear threats and neo-Nazi rallies, there’s comfort in that connectivity.

 

As part of its internship program, Navigator asks its interns to write a blog post about the intersection of communications and an area of personal interest. This week, political junkie Max Ledger.

Words matter. Especially when they are expressed by the President of the United States.

Last week, U.S. intelligence revealed that North Korea has produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead. President Trump responded by issuing a threat, suggesting that the U.S. military would unleash “fire and fury” against the rogue state if it continues to threaten the U.S. He added that the U.S. is “locked and loaded.” North Korea, on the other hand, called Trump’s threats “a load of nonsense”. Trump then took to Twitter:

“Hopefully we will never have to use this power, but there will never be a time that we are not the most powerful nation in the world!”

It goes without saying that Trump is known for his unscripted extemporaneous comments. Both his campaign and his presidency have been littered with examples. One need only scroll through his Twitter feed to find a slew of careless and unscripted commentary.  Trump’s declaration that he was going to “bomb the s**t out of [Isis]” was not the end product of a meticulously crafted communications strategy.

Trump is less known, however, for carefully calculated statements aimed at influencing the decisions of opponents, both domestically and on the international stage. Trump’s rhetoric, to a certain extent, has become normalized. It is no longer surprising to hear the President of the free world threatening nuclear war. Many dismiss these statements as “typical Trumpisms” which are unlikely to be part of a broader strategy.

But is it possible that Trump’s most recent message to North Korea—despite its appearance as a typical Trumpism—was in fact a chess maneuver? Perhaps Trump’s blunt and hyper-aggressive rhetoric was a calculated move to communicate a tough message, not only to North Korea, but also to China.

The Trump White House may well have concluded that civil discussion and polite phone calls to China asking them to take action against North Korea were not having the desired outcome. Seeing China drag its feet on trade sanctions, the U.S. government may have decided to intentionally ramp up the rhetoric. The result being not only to deter Kim Jong-un, but also to raise China’s concerns about its own security. After all, the war currently being vociferously threatened would be on China’s doorstep.

Beyond the geopolitical outcome, what do we learn about communications strategies from the path Trump took to get here? One perspective is that Trump just got lucky—his spontaneous and potentially dangerous rhetoric didn’t provoke war in the region, but rather a diplomatic response from China’s Xi Jinping.

But it may be that the Trump team deployed a carefully crafted strategy under the guise of “just another outburst.” It is possible that Trump’s rhetoric was designed to put pressure on China to enforce sanctions against North Korea. While the “fire and fury” comment was in response to a question, the words themselves (like “locked and loaded”) have an air of pre-selection to them. Their alliterative ring does not sound like Trump speaking off-the-cuff.

It might even have been the case that the contradictory statements made by Trump’s advisors Rex Tillerson and James Mattis were part of a scripted plan to sow confusion and at the same time signal openness to a diplomatic solution without diluting the President’s threat.

When asked by the media for clarification of his North Korea threats, President Trump responded by saying “what I said is what I mean” and “I think you know that I mean”.  But of course, no one really knew what he meant.  Sometimes, a well-crafted communications strategy involves a complex multi-layered message delivered simultaneously to multiple audiences, intended to be read differently by different audiences. And sometimes a good communications strategy involves an element of misdirection – like apparently speaking to North Korea when actually speaking to China.

Whether it was an intentional strategy, or yet another emotional outburst from the President, it appears, for the moment, to have achieved a desirable result. China announced Monday that it would implement a ban on imports of North Korean iron ore, iron, lead and coal and North Korea has, at least temporarily, backed away from its threat to attack Guam.

Forcing China to step up and bear some of the burden of disciplining North Korea is a diplomatic coup for the U.S., and could bode well for greater stability in the region. CNBC predicted that what many viewed initially as a “massive fumble” by the Trump administration could easily become its “biggest triumph of the year”.

If any of this was actually the case – and leaving aside the idiocy of threatening nuclear war – it could be in fact be an effective, if unconventional communications strategy. But that probably gives this administration too much credit.

Despite being on the job for just ten days, it turns out Trump’s briefly employed communications director, Anthony Scaramucci (known colloquially as “The Mooch”), had a plan to try and turn around the White House’s dysfunctional communications team. But thanks to his now infamous profanity-laced phone call with Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker that saw him sacked by newly appointed Chief of Staff, General John F. Kelly, Anthony Scaramucci’s big ideas for getting the White House back on message and controlling the narrative never came to fruition.

That plan, which was released to the press last week, called for a major overhaul of the department he was about to head. Let’s break down some of The Mooch’s offerings and deliver some insights into what the shortest-lived communications director had planned for shaking-up a White House marred in turmoil:

Priority 1 – Improve the Culture

Scaramucci’s number one priority was to improve the culture in the communications department and this started with making nice with the press. To say relations with the media under the Trump administration need a drastic overhaul is an understatement. Trump, and his surrogates’ constant railing against fake news and declaring the press the “enemy of the American people” have drastically hampered the White House’s ability to communicate with the public other than through the president’s off-message Twitter account. While Trump will never admit it, the success of his presidency, and that of the Republican Party in the upcoming midterm elections requires a healthy relationship with the press. Bashing reporters while complaining about the mainstream media’s so-called “liberal agenda” does nothing but harm your chances of electoral success. Ask anyone who has worked on an election campaign and they’ll tell you that having hostilities with the people who help deliver your message to the public is not helpful — to put it lightly.

When you’re in the business of running the most powerful government on earth, professionalism is paramount. The Mooch called for enacting “a series of professionalizing initiatives immediately.” This included the basics like returning reporters phone calls and emails and treating colleagues with respect. Something a skilled communications team should be doing from the get-go. The Mooch also demanded an end to the threats about leaking information to the press, saying anyone who doesn’t work in the president’s best interest will be dismissed. That’s a bit rich coming from the guy who told Lizza of the New Yorker he wanted to “kill all the leakers” in his infamous phone call. So much for treating your colleagues with respect!

Constant infighting among those in the West Wing, particularly when President Trump himself publicly attacks his own cabinet, makes it nearly impossible to project a unified message. It was most obvious with former White House Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, who was constantly blindsided by President Trump’s early morning tweets, effectively derailing his own administration’s key messages.

Priority 2 – Comms is a Customer Service Operation—POTUS is the Number One Customer

Scaramucci planned to restructure the communications department to serve what he called its “various customers”. This included establishing a group dedicated to PR efforts for POTUS and his family. The goal was to “humanize POTUS and burnish his image.” The Mooch suggested the White House play up Trump’s golfing credentials, claiming him to be the best golfer to ever serve as president.  Unfortunately for Scaramucci, drawing attention to a president who has hit the links some 43 times in his 200-some days on the job probably wouldn’t sit well with the public, particularly when the majority of the population is devoid of much paid vacation at all, let alone when they’re the ones footing Trump’s bill on the course. Oh, and those tweets where Trump attacked Obama golfing — we can’t forget those! (For the record, in Obama’s first 100 days in office, he golfed once. Trump has golfed 19 times).

The Mooch also wanted to set up a crisis response team that one can only assume is to deal with the president’s 140 character morning rants in hopes of keeping the government’s key talking points on track. While every government (and company for that matter) should have a crisis response plan in place, it’s impossible to implement a successful response strategy when your organization is not aligned and constantly contradicts itself with mixed messages. Whether or not Scaramucci had the power to persuade President Trump to get on board with his plan, this was almost certainly doomed to fail, especially when it seems he acknowledged that Trump will always be Trump when it comes to bashing the media and going off-message — that is something his team would just have to swallow.

Priority 3 Make the News—We Go First

Governments have tremendous power over the news cycle. Market-moving announcements are timed for certain hours of the day depending on whether it’s good news or bad, and policy plans can be leaked to distract from possible embarrassing news that could harm government support. It’s a carefully choreographed dance, but as mentioned above, when President Trump consistently derails his comms team’s announcements, shaping the conversation can be extremely difficult. That’s why Scaramucci wanted to do a much better job in preparing cabinet members and surrogates for interviews.

Time after time we’ve seen completely different messages coming from people who are clearly on different pages despite claiming to speak on behalf of the same government. Just recently,  Trump has been beating the drums of war, declaring the US will unleash “fire and fury” on North Korea, while at the same time his Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, is telling Americans they’ve got nothing to worry about. If there was ever a time when words matter, it would be when the leader of the free world is discussing nuclear war.

The Mooch knew how critical it was to make sure everyone stuck to the same talking points, and called for his team to act as “gatekeeper/air traffic controller over all external communications.” This is a common-sense strategy, but unlikely to work if Trump continues to unleash on Twitter and constantly go off-script.

Priority 4 – Fill the Content Void

We’ve all heard the saying “content is king,” which is especially true in a 24-hour news cycle. News networks have an insatiable appetite for content, and Scaramucci hit the nail on the head when he says “either we fill it, or they will”. The simple truth is, networks don’t have the capacity to consistently pump out fresh content. Recognizing this, The Mooch wanted Trump to regularly provide op-eds to major news outlets to “produce the story of the day, “ so that the president would set “the terms of the discussion.” This is a great idea, and Obama did this from time to time to forward his agenda.

Op-eds are great for message control, and help contain presidents and corporate leaders who often go off-script, which run the risk of turning into viral soundbites. This is by far one of the best ideas to stand out in his comms plan, and it will be interesting to see if it catches on. On the flip side, one of Scaramucci’s worst ideas was pitching to have President Trump take questions from the public via Facebook Live and other social media platforms. Opening the floodgates to criticism while the world watches live would be disastrous and almost impossible to contain, and if you’ve watched the latest season of House of Cards, you know how that turned out for a certain Republican.

Priority 5 – Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

If there’s been any good news this administration can latch onto, it is the strong job growth that has propelled the US economy since Trump took office. There’s much debate on whether Trump can claim credit, given this upward trend started under Obama’s tenure — well before Trump was sworn in. Regardless of the cause, The Mooch saw this as an opportunity for Trump to own this positive news, and knew the comms team needed to make pretty much every public communication focus on jobs. This makes sense when things are going well, but could backfire should things go sideways (war with North Korea, anyone?).

When you’re building a brand, you want to create an identity that people will associate with you. Trump positioned himself as an outsider businessman who knew how to build billion dollar companies that created hundreds of jobs. This was laying the foundation for branding him as the ‘Jobs President’, and Scaramucci wanted to run every piece of positive job news through his department to spin it to their advantage. Controlling the message this way was also intended to distract from whatever bluster Trump tweeted that morning.

Whether or not the American economy continues to do well, whoever takes over the comms department should follow The Mooch’s advice and trumpet jobs numbers as much as they can. Just don’t tweet about the jobs report like Trump did within an hour of its release, because that violates federal laws that prohibit executive branch members for publicly discussing it. Oops.

While The Mooch didn’t get to stick around long enough to put his plan into action, he did have some good ideas. He wanted to bring discipline and order to a White House comms team that has struggled to stay on-message, play nice with the press and colleagues, and ultimately act like professionals in charge of managing the message of the most powerful office in the world. Who knows what sparked that lewd tirade with Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker. We know it cost him his job. It seems as though Scaramucci was unfamiliar with the concept that you must practice what you preach. In government, business, and in life, your reputation is everything. It takes years to build, and minutes to destroy. If only he listened to his own advice, he may still be working at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue:

“All Comms actions/decisions need to be evaluated through one and only one prism — does it help POTUS. To this end, I will lead by example and make sure that my overall conduct, tweets, internal and external comments meet this standard” — Anthony Scaramucci