Page 234 - An Introduction to Political Communication Fifth Edition

Intro to Politics Communication (5th edn)-p.qxp 9/2/11 10:55 Page 213

NOTES

1986; Tilson, 1994). For a detailed discussion of the use of source strategies in
industrial relations in 1990s Britain see Negrine, 1996.
3 This argument was used in Britain by ITN’s Alistair Burnett, when questioned by
a critical viewer as to the reasons for the relative invisibility of CND on that
organisation’s bulletins (McNair, 1988).
4 In his letter dated 29 July 1985, then Home Secretary Leon Brittan stated: ‘Recent
events elsewhere in the world have confirmed only too clearly what has long been
understood in this country. That terrorism thrives on the oxygen of publicity.
That publicity derives either from the successful carrying out of terrorist acts or,
as a second best, from the intimidation of the innocent public and the bolstering of
faltering supporters by the well-publicised espousal of violence as a justifiable
means of securing political ends’ (quoted in Bolton, 1990, p. 161).

9 POLITICAL COMMUNICATION IN A GLOBALISED WORLD
1 Michael Parenti notes that the ‘Red-baiting’ of left-wing political movements has
been a feature of the Western media since the nineteenth century, but that its
frequency and intensity increased after the Bolshevik revolution. For him, the
‘Red Peril theme’ played a major part throughout the twentieth century in ‘1)
setting back and limiting the struggles and gains of labour; 2) distracting popular
attention from the recessions and crises of capitalism by directing grievances
towards interior or alien forces; and 3) marshalling public support for huge
military budgets, Cold War policies and Third World interventions to make the
world safe for corporate investments and profits’ (1986, p. 126).
2 For examples of pro-Soviet propaganda produced in Britain during the Second
World War, see the documentary Comrades in Arms (Channel 4, 1988).
3 T. Grundy, ‘Mugabe Hires PR Company’, Sunday Herald, 20 May 2001.
4 Newsnight, BBC2, 3 May 1982.
5 This programme gave voice to critics of government policy from the military and
the Tory back-benches, leading to the accusation that it was an ‘odious and
subversive travesty’ (Sally Oppenheim, MP, quoted in the Glasgow University
Media Group, 1985, p. 14).
6 For a documentary account of these events see To Sell a War, broadcast as part
of ITV’s current affairs strand on 6 February 1992.
7 Hastings, Michael, ‘The Runaway General’, Rolling Stone, 22 June 2010.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/119236.

213