Your Posts Aren't Praxis, But They Could Be: Some thoughts on Agenda Setting
You ever think about how the Conservative line about Trans Women went from "they are just too hot, if we don't do something all our young men will accidentally have gay sex" to "they are disgusting ogres in a dress, if we don't do something they'll eat our kids" somewhere I want to say 2014 or so?
Now, this isn't just wallowing in anxious dreams about what my hypothetical murderer will be testifying to the court during his Trans Panic plea. This has a point, what happened here is a "Narrative Shift," they changed their "Line" for their "Agenda Setting" campaign. I highlight the above terms because not everyone is familiar with them so I will run though really quick.
Western Mass Media is a bare-knuckle pit fight between several private corporations, state actors, and independent Fascist political interest groups mediated through Capital as a social organizational force. Attention is the first thing each group is trying to get, because they have an overriding need to turn that back into real Capital. For Media Companies that is the only thing they care about and will do anything to get it, they don't believe in anything and will often repeat what they think the audience wants to hear. For the other two, they both have Interests they are acting within so their mad drive for Capital is in tension with that group's particular Interest; they advance that Interest with Attention's byproduct, Influence. They don't just want to get attention, they want to actually use that attention for something, favorably affecting the viewer, and so can not afford just any kind of attention. As a matter of fact, for most functions, not all press is good press and smart groups know that, so they must self-select attention that will give them the most positive influence and avoid scandal.
Now, this means that Media Companies can make more Capital and thus be rewarded by Capital more, getting to collect even more attention and by extension influence then their competition ever could. Savvy individuals figured this out a long time ago and adjusted their tactics. State Actors have it easy, they can just tell companies what to say, take for instance the US Armed Forces getting final edit over Marvel movies featuring military assets; for Interest Groups they have a much harder time, these groups need to convince Media Companies their Interest is what the public wants discussed. And to do that Interest Groups have to sift though talking points and lines until they have a narrative that sticks and then they repeat it and repeat it and repeat it, and they don't stop repeating it unless they come up with an even stickier narrative to replace it with.
People outside this group but aligned with the Interest will engage with the narrative first, then after a while and with enough of a critical mass people outside or opposed to that Interest will be exposed to it. The first outside people to interact become bridges, spreading the Narrative like contagion, legitimizing from their engagement. Some very dastardly groups will embed their people in outside groups for that purpose. If the first time you hear about a Conservative narrative is from a "Progressive," be a bit suspicious. If you are talking about their arguments earnestly you are losing. Discussing their narrative makes their narrative something discussed. If that discourse persists it creates an audience segment Media Companies will want to serve.
This is called "Agenda Setting" it is the process Political Interest groups use to get their ideas out there by becoming the thing talked about, and Fascists have a near monopoly on this.
The late 2010s saw an increase in Racism targeted against Central and South American peoples because of the "Immigration Caravan" Narrative, In 2020 Anti-Asian hate attacks spiked because of the "China Virus" Narrative, and to circle back around in 2022 Queerphobic violence rose, typified by the Club Q shooting in Colorado. This is a product of Fascist Agenda Setting.
We have to learn some of these tricks, we can't let Fascists be the only ones driving the culture from the ground up. Communists must, for the sake of Trans, PoC, and all oppressed people get our foothold in culture or we are going to see much much worse things in the coming years. That starts with getting organized into cadres of Communists experimenting with memetics and mass culture, actually adapting to advances in personal and public psychology rather then relying on propaganda tactics from before the popularization of radio. And in doing this Communists must learn the right things from the Political Interest group industrial complex, and that isn't Opportunistically getting more bigoted as some "Leftists" suggest (again, suspicion is a virtue in Mass Media.) And, as a Trans Woman I will say, if you post about being my "Ally" you could at least do me the favor of learning how to post well.
