Why the Guardians faux progressiveness is more destructive than it appears.

By E.F Nicholson 

Whether we like it or not, our ever increasing participation in the world of consumption, allows us to be sliced and diced by advertisers into increasingly sophisticated demographic cages. The  advertising and brand awareness industry, pervasive and almost omniscient,  adopt  “cradle to grave” strategies that aim to massage you through every demographic group, squeezing the maximum amount of money from you at each stage. Corporations getting into the minds of their target audience  is big business. A huge amount of thought and planning goes into how those interactions take place and the impact they have on the consumer.

Companies like Coca-Cola and McDonalds invest massive amounts of money dedicated to access their key demographic and build their brand loyalty. Yet it is interesting to note that even when you are someone who dislikes Coke for its unethical dealing, would never eat McDonalds for similar reasons, you are an educated professional that actually has genuine interest in the betterment of the planet and have some passion about justice and equality, that theses personal qualities also make you a unique demographic ripe for targetting. For some corporations, a citizen’s sense of disenfranchisement and cynicism is just another vein to tap into and exploit for further financial gain. Twenty two years ago, Rage Against the Machine put out the hit “Killing in the name of.” Being signed by Epic records, a subsidiary of Sony, meant their “Fuck you” anthem to resist the system was, in fact, enriching the very said system .It’s like they are OK with citizens yelling out “Fuck you I won’t do what you tell me”, as long as they making money from it.  Anti-status quo or progressive ideas don’t exclude people from the reach of advertising’s hungry appetite for attention and money. Indeed, people considered “progressives” are actually a very important and  lucrative demographic that companies will pay big figures for the opportunity to  inoculate in their own inane product narrative. A bigger peddler of access to this unique and lucrative demographic is the Guardian Media group.

       The guardian media group promotes itself to its loyal readership  “as the modern, progressive, exciting challenger to the status-quo..”

There is a more detailed version of this below but I took out this one line as I really think sums up how the Guardian wants readers to perceive it.

That image or branding is often absorbed as being true. I remember myself in my early 20s feeling some smug pride as I rode the tube in London  reading my copy of  “The Guardian”. The image I was presenting was “Look I’m smart and a progressive person, can’t you see I am reading The Guardian.” Back then, I identified myself as a “Guardian reader” and saw the paper as expressing my idealism and politics. Coming from Brisbane Australia where literally every single newspaper, national and local, is owned by the Murdoch press, The Guardian was breath of fresh air.  It seemed a lone voice, along with the Independent, that provided real news and some actual progressive view global and current affair. Over time I grew out of this loyal identification but I am sure there are still millions who haven’t realised that the Guardian, like any other brand, targets our sense of trust and identity in the pursuit of profit.

What this creates from an advertisers’ point of view is a very loyal and committed demographic who, by advertising their product or service in the Guardian, can exploit the trust and loyalty created by the Guardian brand. So, somewhere along the line, you begin to ask

“Is the desire to be a voice of progressive and independent  journalism a thing in of itself,  or is it a carefully crafted image that is more concerned with attracting lucrative advertising contracts than about informing the public?”

My view is that it may be a bit of both. Yet I think it’s more of the latter that dominates what gets published. If you click on the link in the advertisers section inside the Guardian website, you immediately see how their loyal readership is sold to the advertisers.

So the advertisers’ packages start off with an introduction about what the Guardian is all about. My emphasis added

Passionately committed to quality journalism, photography and design, the Guardian is the most modern and vibrant newspaper in the country. The Guardian’s vision is to offer independent, agenda-setting content that positions us as the modern, progressive, exciting challenger to the status-quo. The Guardian is consistently innovative, actively encouraging debate and exerting influence. The Guardian’s brand stands fundamentally for taking a fresh approach: we are modern, individual and sometimes unconventional. Healthily sceptical, but not cynical, the Guardian is confident, intelligent and investigative.

This definition creates an immediate cognitive dissonance. They have to navigate a tricky balance between presenting themselves as a progressive voice, a “challenger to the status quo” for their readership but to do so in a way that it still creates an “advertiser friendly environment” for their advertisers.

So it will challenge the status quo, as long as it’s not the status quo that upholds a corporate controlled mass media and the capitalist ideology that goes with that. It will be sceptical but not cynical about issues as long as  those issues don’t threaten to diminish their advertising friendly environment. This combination of trying to have progressive journalism, which still ensures an advertiser can use the space, must create immediate limits on how actually progressive it really can be. As progressive journalism that doesn’t fundamentally challenge the capitalist model that is at the helm of inequality and the destruction of the planet, can it really be called “progressive?” It’s like the old joke, what looks like a frog, has eyes like a frog, had a face like a frog, but isn’t a frog? Well it is a picture of a frog. So at the Guardian, we get a picture or image of progressiveness but not actual progressiveness. For the reader they are being told they are receiving progressive commentary and  status-quo-challenging  journalism, when in fact they are just getting one particular end of an establishment friendly spectrum. Like ordering the salad at McDonalds and feeling really good about how healthy you are.

As you dig further into their advertising material and research, a picture begins to emerge of an advertising paradigm that seeks to appropriate and incorporate progressive ideas of “ethics” and “political awareness.” These themes that readers identify with become  hooks to draw its readership into an safe and trusted interface where advertisers can engage in their manipulative brand indoctrination. Advertisers are encouraged by the Guardian to hijack both personal and media narratives to create a new generation of brand loyalists. In the “Advertise with us” section the content below is being used to inform potential clients of the Top 10 future opportunities that advertisers can exploit

With money not being able to buy happiness, there has been an increased focus on personal well-being. “Mood of the Nation” research found that brands had a role to play in improving people’s level of happiness by being ethical, empowering people to be more active and unexpected acts of kindness. In 2014, we will see more brands differentiating themselves from competition by influencing how people feel.

So this is basically saying yes, money can’t buy happiness but we can make money from creating the illusion that we are helping to improve their happiness by buying stuff from companies that pretend to care. Wow, another great reason to advertise in the Guardian.

Then it presents a disturbing development in the direction of future advertising as an opportunity to salivate and rejoiced over.

his is certainly taking off in the digital world, from apps such as Kiip which allow brands to reach users during moments of elation (imagine Coca-Cola offering you a voucher after completing a particularly tricky level on Candy Crush Saga) to more tangible products, such as the mobile phone case ‘Feeling Skin’, which glows to indicate the mood of your friends’ messages.This all seems to be heading in one direction and start-up company Affectiva may be the first to offer a glimpse into the mobile advertising future. Their Affdex product could enable real-time emotion tracking to be built into your mobile phone camera, so if you turn your nose up at a McDonald’s ad, it could change to show you one for KFC instead.

A truly progressive media outlet would be lambasting this type of intrusiveness, not promoting it. Instead, in a disturbing indicator of the dominant agenda, it is sold as an opportunity. As if advertisers aren’t entwined enough in our lives, advertisers now plan to exploit every key emotional moment, hijack every spontaneous bit of happiness and use it as an “in” to sell their “ethical brand.” “My dad just died” Aww poor thing, here is some Kleenex tissues. “I really like that girl”, maybe you need to try our deodorant .“I think I am going to kill myself” – Before you do, you might consider this legal firm to help you write your will.

This entirely cynical model of life, promotes the idea that every person, at each and every moment of their life, is a financial opportunity for advertisers to connect with and extract from.This bastion of progressive journalism, behind the scenes is the champion of this model of brand indoctrination and emotional manipulation. Of course, it is couched in terms of “clients needs” and “personal well being” but this language is nothing more than a thin moral cover for wholly dubious advertising practices.  In reality, the Guardian is selling the status quo, not challenging it.

So Guardian Media can’t have it both ways. It can’t appoint itself as the voice of independence and progressiveness, while serving the sociopathic needs of large corporations and pimping out its readership to one of the most insidious and destructive forces of the last century. As Medialens.org succinctly point out in one of their cognitions “The failure of the left”

“..Imagine the impact of reading an article on climate change by a Monbiot or a Jones and then turning the page to an American Airlines advert for reduced-fare flights to New York. Or imagine turning to the front cover of a colour supplement that reads:

‘Time is running out… Ski resorts are melting… Paradise islands are vanishing… So what are you waiting for? 30 places you need to visit while you still can – A 64-page Travel Special.’

This concussive car crash of reality and illusion – of calls for action to address a grave crisis alongside calls to quit worrying and embrace the consumerism that has precisely created the crisis – delivers a transcendent message that the crisis isn’t that serious, things aren’t that bad.

Therein lies the fundamental conflict with the very nature of what is considered progressive media working in lock step with advertisers and corporate agendas. Every advertisement we are exposed to tells us that everything is ok, that there is no need to panic, just reach into your wallet and make your next purchase. When it IS actually time to panic, it’s time to stop buying shit we don’t need and seriously examine the kind of society we live in before humanity is wiped off the face of the planet.

We need progressive voices and we need independent ideas but as soon as those ideas get co-opted or partner with advertisers, they instantly become compromised. The wider and most critical issues of our times, such as climate change, global warfare, inequality and poverty must be diluted and side-lined to ensure the space remains advert friendly. When we see it in the starkest light, the Guardian’s chardonnay activism puts them in the same destructive camp as Fox News and other Murdoch press. Although the Guardian may appeal to a different political ideology and in its haughty conceit views itself as so much more highbrow then Fox News, the prevailing message is the same “Relax, buy things, buy more things, because everything will be ok” When we all know it’s not going to be OK. It isn’t OK. The public need a radical call to action if humanity stands any chance of survival, not a better rate of car insurance or membership of the new Guardian club, which I have no doubt in the future will be sold  as another exclusive demographic to be whored to the highest bidder. Advertising is like an intellectual venereal disease and any publication that has it driving its business inadvertently spreads that STD and all the negative impacts that go with it. It’s not the most charming of analogies but sadly it’s true.