Page 178 - An Introduction to Political Communication Second Edition

PRESSURE GROUP POLITICS

as the British Labour Party for many years resisted this trend in its
campaigning work on the grounds that it signalled a fundamental
degradation of the political process, so many pressure groups,
particularly those on the left of the political spectrum, remain
suspicious of what they view as unauthentic, corrupting campaign
methods (though, as the power of such methods becomes clear,
resistance lessens). Todd Gitlin’s discussion of the interaction between
the US-based Students for a Democratic Society movement and the
media in the 1960s acknowledges that techniques of the sort listed
above allowed the SDS to be present in media coverage, but argues
that by adopting them the organisation was ‘incorporated’ into the
political process in such a way that its original objectives were lost.
‘As movement and media discovered and acted on each other, they
worked out the terms with which they would recognise and work on
the other; they developed a grammar of interaction. This grammar
then shaped the way the movement-media history developed’ (1984,
p.240). This development, Gitlin suggests, was one in which the SDS
members came under pressure to ‘legitimise’ themselves and their
objectives, in the interests of gaining access to the mainstream media
agenda.
In any case, Gitlin adds, to receive coverage in the media is not by
any means the same thing as gaining access to it for the effective
articulation of one’s definition of events. News journalism tends to
trivialise and simplify the activities of subordinate groups, and to
focus on the spectacular demonstrations at the expense of explanation
and argument. Such ‘access’ may have more negative than positive
consequences for an organisation.
In the remainder of this chapter we consider these issues in the
context of the experience of three different types of organisation:
pressure groups proper, such as the Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament and Greenpeace; illegal or ‘terrorist’ organisations, such
as the Irish Republican Army (IRA); and, to begin, the trade unions.

POLITICAL COMMUNICATION AND
INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS

The trade unions in Britain have traditionally been among the most
ardent critics of media ‘bias’ against their viewpoints on, and
definitions of, issues in which they have an interest, such as the
economy, employment rights, and industrial relations legislation.
Fuelled by the work of the Glasgow University Media Group

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