SEPTEMBER 2014 The Evolution of Propaganda Investigating Online Electioneering in the UK General Election of 2010 Cassian Sparkes-Vian Award: PHD Awarding Body: De Montfort University Contents Table of Figures ....................................................................................................................................... 6 Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... 7 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................. 8 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 9 Theory: Memetics, propaganda and digital communication .............................................................. 9 Methodology: Qualitative memetics and the ‘toolkit’ approach ..................................................... 13 Case Study: The 2010 UK election .................................................................................................... 14 Memetics, democracy and propaganda ........................................................................................... 16 Chapter One: Introducing Memetics .................................................................................................... 18 Memetics, mimetics and sociobiology .............................................................................................. 18 Critics and controversies ................................................................................................................... 24 The questions of location and existence .......................................................................................... 26 The ‘meme as gene’ versus ‘meme as germ’ debate ....................................................................... 30 Do memes construct vehicles? ......................................................................................................... 31 The institutional memeplex .............................................................................................................. 32 The negative connotations of the virus ............................................................................................ 34 Internet memes ................................................................................................................................ 35 Conclusion: Merging the pop-cultural and academic approaches ................................................... 38 Chapter Two: Memetics and Propaganda ............................................................................................ 41 What is propaganda? ........................................................................................................................ 42 Techniques of persuasion ................................................................................................................. 46 Memes of propaganda ...................................................................................................................... 49 Meme texts ....................................................................................................................................... 51 Beyond the text: Structural propaganda .......................................................................................... 57 Viral news and selection by structure ............................................................................................... 59 Conclusion: Design for propagation .................................................................................................. 62 Chapter Three: The Evolution of the Internet Campaign ..................................................................... 65 The USA: Early adopters of digital campaigning ............................................................................... 66 The digital divide ............................................................................................................................... 68 From cyber utopians versus cyber cynics to punctuated evolution ................................................. 71 From progress to hope: Evolving Obama.......................................................................................... 73 The 2000 and 2004 presidential races .............................................................................................. 74 1 Into Web 2.0 ..................................................................................................................................... 76 Obama's pop-cultural memes ........................................................................................................... 78 UK elections ...................................................................................................................................... 79 Social networking in elections .......................................................................................................... 82 Conclusion: Digital propaganda, losing control or hiding it? ............................................................ 84 Chapter Four: Methodology ................................................................................................................. 86 Data ................................................................................................................................................... 86 Procedure .......................................................................................................................................... 88 Framework ........................................................................................................................................ 90 The memetic methodological toolkit ................................................................................................ 92 Method ......................................................................................................................................... 92 Level of replication ........................................................................................................................ 93 Is this memeplex a vehicle? .......................................................................................................... 94 Disaggregate the memeplex ......................................................................................................... 96 Meme's eye view .......................................................................................................................... 96 What propaganda techniques are in evidence? ........................................................................... 97 Conclusion: Testing the toolkit ......................................................................................................... 98 Chapter Five: The 2010 UK General Election ........................................................................................ 99 An environment of crisis and scandal ............................................................................................. 100 The financial crisis ....................................................................................................................... 100 The expenses’ scandal................................................................................................................. 102 The parties ...................................................................................................................................... 104 The Conservatives ....................................................................................................................... 104 The Labour Party ......................................................................................................................... 106 The Liberal Democrats ................................................................................................................ 108 The leaders’ debates ....................................................................................................................... 111 Conclusion: Replication in an inhospitable environment ............................................................... 113 Chapter Six: Party Homepages ............................................................................................................ 115 Homepages: Meme, memeplex and vehicle................................................................................... 115 Homepages in detail ....................................................................................................................... 121 Labour homepages ......................................................................................................................... 121 Design of the Labour homepage ..................................................................................................... 122 The top-down horizontal synthesis ............................................................................................. 124 The ‘Word of Mouth’ campaign .................................................................................................. 125 2 Environmental drag ..................................................................................................................... 127 Conservative homepage ................................................................................................................