Political communication

The Bush Administration’s torture-for-intelligence policy, initiated soon after 9/11, was kept secret for several years, as remains the level of complicity of many other nation-states' governments. While this secret policy was gradually revealed from 2004 onwards, initiated by the Abu Ghraib torture photos, the Bush administration engaged in SPC to publicly reframe and protect its secret policy. SPC included silencing and persuasive discursive activity.[7]

• Discursive activity aimed at generating silences comprised plea bargains that silenced detainees, censoring Guantánamo detainees’ descriptions of their own torture in pre–trial hearings, deals with journalists to censor or withhold information that affected national security, weeding out personal sousveillance of torture online, suppression of visual sousveillance of torture while courts–martial and criminal investigations proceeded; destruction of videotapes of CIA interrogations; and withholding key information from intelligence oversight committees. These position those in the know as part of an elite force policing the public sphere to keep the wider public and their representatives ignorant of unpalatable but necessary official practices, relegating the likely emotional and/or moral public dissent towards such practices as unaffordable niceties.
• Persuasive discursive activity included the propagation and repetition of a few key messages consistently over time, with the aim of misdirecting public attention from the silence–generating activities. Key Bush Administration messages were that detainees were evil, dangerous terrorists; that the practice of extraordinary rendition was normal and pragmatic; that interrogation techniques, although harsh, were legal (apart from isolated acts of abuse), necessary and successful in preventing future acts of terror; and that Guantánamo was a model prison. Key British Administration messages were of initial ministerial ignorance (until 2004) of American intelligence agencies’ new interrogation strategies, after which intelligence agencies’ guidelines were tightened; and of no direct involvement of British intelligence agencies in extraordinary rendition. Key messages common to both British and American Administrations were that the Abu Ghraib sousveillance and similar visual evidence involving British soldiers were examples of isolated abuse rather than a torture policy from which lessons had been learned regarding Army training and interrogation guidance (new Army guidelines on interrogation were produced under the Bush and Blair Administrations). These key messages were propagated through a range of discursive activity (including press conferences and media interviews, authorized leaks, real–time reporting, official investigations and public inquiries) and were periodically bolstered by selective public release of once–secret documents. The consistency of key messages over time, together with the offering up of specific evidence, gives the appearance of official disclosure and truth–telling, positioning the public as a force to which political administrations willingly hold themselves accountable. However, the strategic generation of key messages and selectivity of supporting information presented across all these discursive modes means that full accountability is avoided, while the public is potentially fooled into thinking that justice has been served, all–the–while being constant targets of manipulation.

The United Nations is another example of how important and the high impact strategical political communication has on the organization and on the world. With todays complex international landscape, diverse political views and agendas can easily promote unwanted tension within people, political parties, and in this case, world peace. The United Peace Operations (UNPOs) play a crucial role in maintaining peace with peacekeeping being one of the most effective tools available to the UN in order to assist host countries navigate the difficult path from conflict to peace.[8]

• Peace operations are more than likely to stay as one of the key aspects for continued world peace and seems to be an indelible feature of the international system in the future. whether it be for missions led by men, women, the police force, military or even civilians, all will need to understand that:[9]

1. Strategic communication is a vital component to successful UN strategies,
2. how communication has changed over the course of time in regard to how the audience interprets information,
3. UN leadership is in charge to oversee and monitor this as a form of command responsibilities[9]

• According to Jake Sherman and Albert Trithart, “United Nations peace operations often struggle to communicate their messages to the local population and the broader global community.”35 It argued, therefore, that “the outdated public information approach of the United Nations must be transformed into more dynamic communications efforts.” This required missions to better understand key audiences, make better use of national staff, embrace technology, train leaders in effective communication, proactively engage with local populations, and tailor both the message and means of communication to particular audiences."[10]

In the Middle East:

In the Middle East, there appears to be a disconnect between political officials and the citizens of the nation. The idea of clear political communication and how information spreads to the masses could be seen as flawed and are rippled by the effects of the Arab Spring. In the Middle East, “even those supported by a U.S. administration, are at best visionary and without any real practical use”.[11] As explained by Hussein Amin from the American University of Cairo, “because many people view censorship as a sign of social responsibility, civil society has a deep distrust of itself.  While admitting that political communication in the mass media has diversified and developed some more liberal patterns in recent years”.[11] In general, “Mass media have long been linked to the historical development and emergence of national identities and the modern nation-state by creating bounded spaces of political communication and discourse".[12]

Many forms of spreading information like radio, social media, and television have become heavily popularized in the Middle East, while also being ridiculed. In cases of on-going war like Syria and Palestine, the majority of media formats are censored towards the Middle East in order to avoid further catastrophization of an event, possibly by the West. For example, in Syria, “the rebel Free Syrian Army'' was created as an opposition to Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship.[13] Citizens let the government know where they are lacking, the elected officials of the governments are required to reflect and adapt citizens' needs and rights.