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The Spiral of Silence: Understanding BBC Scotland's Bias Without Fear Of The Spiral of Silence: Understanding BBC Scotland’s Bias without fear of invoking Godwin’s Rule of Nazi Analogies Images: Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann (wikiedia.org) Mike Godwin (wikimedia.org) Sir Ian Kershaw (google.com) I’m going to mention the Nazis and Hitler in an attempt to explain why BBC Scotland’s journalism is so consistently nationalist….British nationalist. NEIN, STOP, GO BACK prof before they start calling you ‘Herr Doktor Professor’. Too late - I’ve done it. Once I’ve explained, I’ll return to the everyday business of weighing their balances and entering the numbers in my ‘Running Totals Table’. Don’t let the number-based mundanity of the latter suggest that it’s got nothing to do with these dark thoughts. ‘Godwin's law (or Godwin's rule of Nazi analogies)is an ‘Internet adage’ asserting that "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazism or Hitler that is, if an online discussion (regardless of topic or scope) goes on long enough, sooner or later someone will compare someone or something to Hitler or Nazism.’ (Wikipedia.org) I don’t know if I’ve passed or failed the test technically but either way it doesn’t look good for me, so far. Am I saying BBC Scotland reporters are Nazis? Am I guilty also of what Leo Strauss called, delightfully, ‘Reductio ad Hitlerum’ in 1951, spookily the year of my birth? Well, duh, no, I’m not. Will I stop digging in this hole? Well, no, I won’t do that neither. Here is how Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann explained the emerging of a dominant way of thinking and behaving which she applied to Nazi Germany and later to the US, in the 1970s: ‘Spiral of silence is the term meant to refer to the tendency of people to remain silent when they feel that their views are in opposition to the majority view on a subject. The theory posits that they remain silent for a few reasons: 1. Fear of isolation when the group or public realizes that the individual has a divergent opinion from the status quo. 2. Fear of reprisal or more extreme isolation, in the sense that voicing said opinion might lead to a negative consequence beyond that of mere isolation (loss of a job, status, etc.) For this theory to be plausible it relies on the idea that in a given situation we all possess a sort of intuitive way of knowing what the prevailing opinion happens to be.’ (masscommtheory.com) Applying this to BBC Scotland staff doesn’t mean that they are always consciously biased against independence though they, especially the senior and managerial staff, may be so. When Glen Campbell was caught on screen tearing up an SNP leaflet, we got a wee glimpse. Rather, I’m saying that it’s mostly unconscious predispositions nudging them toward choices which favour the Union. Noam Chomsky though often accused on being a conspiracy theorist, by those who had failed to understand him, was saying essentially the same when he talked about how consent is manufactured. Stepping back onto the thin ice of a Nazi analogy, Sir Professor Kershaw’s notion of ‘Working toward the Fuhrer’, can be added to this dark way of explaining bias. Reminding us that Hitler gave few direct commands but, rather, by his speeches, set the parameters for the behaviour of those below him in the Nazi system, to please him. Here’s how Kershaw puts it: ‘Everyone who has the opportunity to observe it knows that the Fuhrer can hardly dictate from above everything which he intends to realise sooner or later. On the contrary, up till now everyone with a post in the new Germany has worked best when he has, so to speak, worked towards the Fuhrer. Very often and in many spheres it has been the case—in previous years as well—that individuals have simply waited for orders and instructions. Unfortunately, the same will be true in the future; but in fact it is the duty of everybody to try to work towards the Fuhrer along the lines he would wish. Anyone who makes mistakes will notice it soon enough. But anyone who really works towards the Fuhrer along his lines and towards his goal will certainly both now and in the future one day have the finest reward in the form of the sudden legal confirmation of his work.’ (wikipedia.org) Try reading that but substituting the words ‘Head of News’ for ‘Fuhrer’ and ‘reporter’ for ‘his’, ‘everyone’ or ‘everybody’. Now look at my emerging balances below or look back at earlier research on BBC bias around the Referendum 2014. What do you think? Again testing the German ice, think about the wall-to-wall, Union-flag-bedecked coverage of the Olympics in 2012 and 2016. See anything? Here’s the image I see. Imagine inside the mind of a BBC reporter or a junior editor. See little stories on paper, some favouring independence, some favouring the Union, falling downward in a spiral. Some are caught by the unconscious mind and others fall into the silence below. The unconscious mind programed by years of Unionist education, Unionist socialisation in the mainstream media and the words of current senior staff, catches mostly the pro-Union stories and reports them as representing the world, outside their minds even though they more accurately represent the world within their minds. So, BBC Scotland staff are not Nazis. Well maybe one. You can name him below in a comment if you like. I couldn’t possibly comment. Trying to survive inside an hierarchical power-based system, they’re just like citizens under Nazism. OK, how did they do on Monday 26th September 2016? Five reports with one each for Labour’s tax increase proposals, offshore safety, murder, a ferry bump and the cost of commuting. So, there was no time for the Herald’s less Labour- supportive ‘Kezia Dugdale accuses Jeremy Corbyn of trying to undermine her’, the Scotsman’s ‘Scottish Tories appeal to New Labour voters’ or even the National’s admittedly accurate but a bit unkind ‘Kezia Dugdale insists Jeremy Corbyn can unite Labour and win in 2020 ... after saying the opposite.’ To be fair, they did resist the Scotsman’s mind-fucking ‘SNP partly responsible for Brexit, claims Theresa May’. As the SNP suggested themselves, it was ‘beyond parody’. Still, fair play to BBC Scotland for rejecting it? Running Total: Running total 21 to 25/9/16 Number of reports Bad news for SG/SNP 4 Good news for SG/SNP 1 Bad news for Labour 1 Good news for Labour 4 Bad news for CP 0 Good news for CP 0 Early days, I know, but is a picture emerging? Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum https://masscommtheory.com/theory-overviews/spiral-of-silence/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Kershaw .
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