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American Itsesensuuri: a Typology of Self

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American Itsesensuuri: a Typology of Self Gordon R. Mitchell American Itsesensuuri: A typology of University of Pittsburgh self-censorship in the ‘War on Terror’ Gordon R. Mitchell, "American Itsensuuri: A Typology of Self-Censorship in the 'War on Terror,'" in Frans H. van Eemeren, et al., ed., Proceedings of the Fifth Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation (Amsterdam: SicSat, 2002): 767-772. According to an old cliché, the first casualty of war is the truth. drowned out amidst a cacophony of agreement. Ruth Flower, However, when bullets start flying, dissent and debate often fol- director of public policy for the American Association of Univer- low closely behind as early victims of military expediency. This is sity Professors, contrasts this dimension of the current spiral of due in part to the fact that public debate is made possible by con- silence with chilling of dissent during the Cold War: “There are tingent norms that change with shifting circumstances. In peace- some things here that hearken back to McCarthyism. But this is time, democratic nations identify with the processes of open different, because it is not the government telling the public what argumentation and public dialogue as unifying notions that reaf- it can and cannot say. This is more a matter of public sentiment firm the citizenry’s shared commitment to foundational princi- dictating behavior” (qtd. in Fletcher, 2001, October 30). ples such as free speech and popular sovereignty. Yet these com- In this environment, the locus of censorship shifts from the mitments are often reassessed and deferred when war breaks out. state apparatus to private organizations and individuals who Numerous examples of wartime censorship reveal this as a rou- adopt tacit agreements not to “rock the boat.” Finns have word for tine phenomenon in U.S. history. Consider the Alien and Sedi- this – ‘itsesensuur’. Finnish journalism scholar Esko Salminen tion Acts; the Truman administration’s loyal-security program; (1999) describes how the itsesensuuri phenomenon subtly yet and information control during the Persian Gulf War (Schrecker, powerfully controlled the tenor of public argument in Cold War 1986; Moynihan, 1999; MacArthur, 1993). Each of these meas- Finland. At the Soviet embassy in Helsinki, Communist Party ures hushed war dissent by increasing direct governmental con- operatives assembled a large staff that sorted Finnish news arti- trol over public discourse. In the terminology of Michel Foucault cles into pro- and anti- piles. When Finnish journalists published (1977), this type of overt censorship was leveraged by the “juridi- material that ran against the grain of official Soviet propaganda, cal power” of the state, with critical dissenters subjected to crim- internal pressure was covertly applied. From 1970 to 1991, this inal penalties under the law. But for every muckracker punished caused slanted reporting in Finnish media on topics such as qual- under these wartime regimes of speech control there were prob- ity of life in Soviet Union, the health of Soviet premiers, the fate ably hundreds of other potential critics who practiced self-cen- of political prisoners, and, in an eerie echo of the current case, the sorship, holding their tongues in fear of being branded as unpa- Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. triotic or even traitorous. In Salminen’s account (1999: 89), “the opinions of the Finnish In contrast to top-down forms of state-mandated censorship press were restricted, as if by an unseen hand, when the USSR such as prepublication prior restraint or satellite “shutter control,” intervened in Afghanistan. … In just over ten years, even the self-censorship results from tacit agreements between authority Right-wing press had begun to treat aggressive Soviet foreign pol- figures and potential critics that the “higher-order conditions” for icy with kid gloves.” “Orwellian ‘Newspeak’ began to emerge” argumentation do not obtain in a given milieu (see van Eemeren, (Salminen, 1999: 172), creating a “locked public debate.” Finnish Grootendorst, Jackson & Jacobs 1993: 32-3). From a Foucauldian psychologist Kyösti Skyttä assesses Cold War itsesensuuri as a prob- point of view, self-censorship is thus an especially “efficient” form lem of “the rejected present,” explaining that “the Finnish people of wartime speech regulation, because it can be effected through are realists, but their field of action is enclosed by invisible walls” circulation of “disciplinary power.” In contrast to the overt display (qtd. in Salminen, 1999: 9). Skyttä’s point raises a difficult of juridical power by the state apparatus, disciplinary power – here methodological problem for those seeking to document itsesensu- manifested in the ability to mobilize mass voluntary consent – is uri: “Self-censorship is very difficult to observe in practice. As a more discrete and diffuse, while also being more ostensibly con- mechanism, it operates largely on a subconscious level, and is sistent with norms of democratic governance. thus a devious tool in the hands of those in power” (Salminen, While instances of overt government censorship in the current 1999: 176). As a distortion of the argumentative process, isesensu- U.S. “war on terror” are relatively infrequent compared to previ- uri is similar to the ad baculum fallacy (appeal to force), which may ous wars, as the war drifts beyond Afghanistan, public argument not involve explicit arguments at all. This sub rosa dimension of ad is constrained by overwhelming polling data in support of the war baculum argumentation poses particular problems for scholars effort and a deliberative straightjacket imposed by the Bush seeking to analyze discourse through reconstruction (van administration’s edict that the world sorts tidily into two camps – Eemeren, Grootendorst, Jackson & Jacobs 1993: 57), just as the “with us or with the terrorists.” This dominant argument forma- subtlety of itsesensuuri complicates the task of scholarly criticism. tion contributes to what Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann (1993) calls The leverage for self-censorship in the Finnish case came from a “spiral of silence,” where pervasive self-censorship instills wide- fear of Soviet reprisals. Finnish journalists were reluctant to pub- spread quietism. Noelle-Neumann explains that poll-driven West- lish articles critical of Soviet policy out of anxiety that such pub- ern democracies experience spirals of silence when super-major- lications would prompt the Kremlin to repress Finland openly ity opinion survey statistics surpass their apparently neutral (perhaps even through a repeat of Prague spring in Helsinki). function as carriers of public opinion and become coercive tools Today, a prevailing argument formation in the U.S. instills self- of social control. The danger of voicing viewpoints outside a nar- censorship by raising the private costs of war dissent. This essay row band of acceptable consensus opinion grows. Private sanc- explores American itsesensuuri by proposing a typology of self-cen- tions and penalties for dissent escalate. A hush of criticism is sorship. According to the typology, three forms of American war 768 Gordon R. Mitchell self-censorship can be differentiated: Mothballing, mine dodging Fox suspended efforts to produce Deadline, a television series and patron pressure. Exploration of how each type of self-censor- based on a hijacking theme (Hoberman, 2001, December 5). ship responds to and shapes public discourse patterns may help Gary Trudeau said he decided to withhold a number of already elucidate deliberative dynamics of the “war on terror” and build finished “Doonesbury” installments that were critical of the pres- upon scholarly analysis of the itsesensuuri phenomenon. ident because they no longer felt appropriate (McTavish, 2001, October 20). The decision to hold back work in progress because Mothballing of an intervening event indicates something dramatic about the The violent erasure of the World Trade Center from the New York power of that event to control norms of public discourse. The City skyline on September 11, 2001 prompted many in the enter- 9/11 suicide hijackings froze a number of high-profile U.S. enter- tainment industry to re-evaluate projects already in the pipeline tainment projects that either criticized government leadership or for public release. For example, in the immediate aftermath of the made references to key symbols in the attacks. In Cold War Fin- suicide hijackings, industry officials modified or shelved com- land, such self-censorship was also evident in popular entertain- pletely film, posters and television shows that depicted the twin ment, with songs and plays brought into the ambit of the “psue- towers or used them in storylines. dototalitarian culture” (Salminen, 1999, p. 29) that deterred A trailer for the movie Spider Man was pulled by Sony because anti-Soviet discourse. it contained images of the World Trade Center, while the same Is there significance in the fact that mothballing was so preva- company shot retakes of Men in Black 2 that put the Chrysler lent in the entertainment world? Perhaps producers felt that 9/11- Building in place of the twin towers. CBS edited out views of the related content was inappropriate to include in films in the trade center in the television show Sex in the City (Hoberman, immediate aftermath of the suicide hijackings, because it hit “too 2001, December 5). Suddenly, classic images of the New York close to home.” Producer Robert Altman offered a more cynical City skyline became obscene symbols when juxtaposed
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