Was Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa's reticence at the height of the Sars crisis a subtle form of spin or just defensive floundering? Either way, it did not seem to cut the mustard. Now, in the harbour landfill debate, officials are (relatively speaking) falling over themselves to appear empathetic and consultative. So, it is probably safe to say that Hong Kong is in for a serious ratcheting up of the practice of spin. Spin, as opposed to propaganda, advertising or public relations, has a particularly glossy, contemporary ring to it. People are at once repulsed and attracted. Both the critical Spin Cycle: Inside the Clinton Propaganda Machine, by Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz, and Spin Man, by PR heavyweight Thomas Madden, were bestsellers. Why are we so fascinated? Partly because spin exposes make more lively reading than the real issues. And for the media, they are much more fun stories to tell. As Tipping Point author Malcolm Gladwell put it in a New Yorker article: 'Spin suggests drama, a script to decode, a game played at the highest of levels.' Another reason spin gets such a lot of press is because spin doctors frequently treat members of the media as evil, second-guessing predators who are nonetheless necessary to get their messages across. Not surprisingly, the press repays this attitude with gleeful front-page coverage any time a spin meister makes the slightest slip. Spin for the most part is not targeted directly at the general public, but at the media. It is designed specifically so that its passage through the media will leave the message uncontaminated or, to be more convincing still, give the impression that the media spontaneously condones it. This can be through explicit commentary or by more sophisticated means, such as the tone in which the message is conveyed, the prominence it is given, and so on. But another technique is to deceive the media to get to the public. Phoney leaks are the perfect example. Leaked information has more of an impact than government statements. Why? Because the public is wary of any sort of targeted message and a leak, because it looks accidental, seems more authentic; without a hidden agenda. Psychology professors Deborah Gruenfeld and Robert Wyler junior showed just how powerful this effect is. They read straightforward newspaper headlines to subjects. They stated the obvious like, say: 'Environmentalists favour reforestation.' When asked how plausible they were, subjects naturally rated them highly. Then, participants were given statements that contradicted this headline. Unsurprisingly, plausibility ratings went down a little. But when another group was given statements that supported the first headline, plausibility ratings still went down. In other words, people are suspicious when they are targeted with a message, whether it sounds right or not. Decision maker-adviser cliques are so closed that they lead to what people in the marketing business call the dilemma of the internal-audience. This is fancy language for how the battle for people's money or votes tends to incestuousness. Marketing directors and political leaders are not typically in touch with how their customers or constituents live. On the way up, they increasingly depend on consultants for that. But consultants live in yet another parallel universe and breathe equally rarefied intellectual air. So consultants, PR staff and their clients or bosses can end up working in stiflingly tight circles of perception with pretty distorted views of how ordinary people think. Internal-audience problems are bizarrely self-perpetuating. PR people keep themselves in a job not by successfully deconstructing or influencing the public's views, but by convincing their clients that they do, which is quite a different thing. This is because it is virtually impossible to gauge just how successful any analysis or campaign turns out to be. There are simply too many possible mitigating factors, and polls and statistics are putty in the hands of the PR professionals. The marketing directors and politicians who employ spin meisters, consequently, are probably as surrounded by spin as the public, if not more so. So as spin and stories of spin escalate in equal measure, is it useful to remember that political subterfuge, deceit and lying makes for a better story than intricate budget figures. Everyone errs on the side of portraying themselves, their thoughts and their actions in a better light than they deserve. We are all PR agents in our own service and, for self-serving reasons, in the service of our employer, family and friends. It is in the interests of sane debate to remember that politicians are no different. Jean Nicol is a Hong Kong-based psychologist and writer everydaypsychologist@yahoo.com
