The second presentation in this session at the ZeMKI 20th anniversary conference in Bremen is by Ruth Garland, with a focus on disinformation and the people. How, in particular, can governments communicate effectively in an age of disinformation? What if governments themselves embrace the tools of disinformation for branding and propaganda via their social media channels?
Ruth’s focus here is especially on former UK Chancellor and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s personal branding strategies via official government social media accounts; this contradicts past conventions of impartiality, and takes place in an environment of increasingly partisan media outlets in the UK and US that directly support or attack the government of the day for political or commercial reasons.
Such branding presents the world as a masquerade, creating a culture of illusion in which the best storyteller – the greatest brand value – wins; this is a highly capitalist model suitable for the attention economy. Sunak, for instance, employed an in-house brand-consultant, and posted a series of short films presenting Sunak via its Treasury Connect YouTube series as a visiting political celebrity touring the country.
Other social media posts selectively emphasised minor policy advances while hiding their negative impacts, while another video even presented a behind-the-scenes look at the 2021 budget preparations. This presents itself as a form of verité journalism, but ultimately failed to convince the public – Sunak lost the next general election. However, it nonetheless does damage as it breaks rules against using the government apparatus for personal promotion, and gives the impression of a presidential system in the parliamentary UK electoral environment.
Similar processes were evident in the UK government’s responses to COVID-19 – while the government initially and publicly listened to scientists, it was also strongly influenced by personal advisers to the Prime Minister and cabinet ministers, and privately broke lockdown and social isolation rules; this eventually led to Boris Johnson’s resignation as PM.
Why then should we believe anything that governments say, if they cannot be trusted? The real situation of government is more complex, of course, and much local governance is done in good faith, but higher-level governmental failures play right into the attacks of illiberal and antidemocratic forces that present democratic and parliamentary systems as inefficient and call for a greater concentration of power amongst strong-man leaders.
