Nick Griffin, leader of the (racist, facist) British National Party, appeared on a prime time BBC news programme last night, Question Time.
It is hard to say which of the decision to do so or the content of the programme itself was most controversial. The event has most definitely generated serious heat, before, during and after, with Google News reporting in excess of 3000 stories on the matter.
The BNP is democratically elected, with two Members of the European Parliament, and that gives their leader a mandate to appear on a national TV funded by the electorate to convey his views and his policies.
And I raise this matter here because marketing communicators know the value of dialogue. The days of Mr. Monologue Marketer are numbered, if not expired, and it's through dialogue and freedom of speech and freedom of expression that we can best understand each other and respond accordingly.
Those who cried for Mr. Griffin to be banned from appearing were wrong, yet hopefully many of them will now be satisfied. For through the most powerful media (yes, that's still the TV, not Twitter!) the British public most definitely has come to better understand the BNP better than ever.
Best regards, Philip and the MarCom Professional team.
Mind the Social Media Gap
by Andrew Grill of London Calling
This article first appeared in the PointZero magazine, issue 2 October 2009.
It is often said that marketing helps consumers decide which product they should buy, and the customer service and operations department of any company is where this work can come undone in a flash.
As rightly identified by Dave Evans in a recent post titled “Social Business: the New Black”
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by David Meerman Scott of David Meerman Scott
While in the Netherlands conducting a full-day seminar and presenting at several other events last week, I had an opportunity to learn a bit about Hyves.
The reach of Hyves is amazing.
Radio Netherlands says one in three Dutch are on the social networking site. It is the second most visited site in the Netherlands after Google, but in terms of time spent, it is certainly tops. And Hyves has more users in the Netherlands than the other major social networking sites Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter combined. More...
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The perceived wisdom is that we are checking for things like navigation, headlines and signs of trustworthiness. All of that is true, but the concentration on getting your website into an F-shape for usability purposes could be working against you. More...
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Take a look at Bulletproof Design
irritating music
no contact form
no cut/paste of contact information as it’s a flash site
hard to find menu – had to hover over headline to get menus to appear.
Freaking irritating – try another one…. More...
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Sturgeon has form of course as the former editor of Silicon. But there’s no doubt that mainstream media researchers are using the blogosphere as a means to find commentators. More...
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In an article published on journalism.co.uk John Mair writes of protests via Twitter and Facebook, "It gives the illusion of democracy and belonging to a movement whereas in reality is it membership of a mob, albeit a virtual one? Is this healthy for democracy and media accountability or not?" More...
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As Catherine said, it paints "a pretty grim picture of the future of print publications, even with a fairly robust internet or social media strategy".
Gourmet had the following: Website with both daily content and archives of recipes, restaurants, etc. Online forums Facebook page YouTube channel with lots of recipe demonstrations Podcasts on iTunes Three Twitter accounts (the magazine’s editor, the travel section’s editor and the magazine itself). More...
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db says:
Was it just me, or was the audience biased and lacking in true proportional representation with respect to the British population? Let's consider a pertinent fact - according to the 2001 UK census, over 92% of the UK population was classified as "white" - just have a quick look at the programme, or run a mental recap of the audience or indeed the QT panel composition. Also consider those carefully selected (by the BBC) to pose questions. Representative? No, clearly not.
Don't get me wrong, I'm no BNP voter, but the BBC was working to its own biased agenda - and Nick Griffin was there to serve as some pantomime baddy just in time to kick off the Christmas season.
For instance, much on the night was made of the BNP's change in policies, and this was held against Mr Griffin on the night - but what is "New (but soon to be departed) Labour" if it is not a complete about turn to Labour ideals and long held policy beliefs (well, uncontrolled public spending aside)!?!? Things change, and a moderation in BNP stance should be welcomed.
However, a return to undefendable policies will see them disappear quicker than they have emerged. The fact remains that the BNP are winning seats and gaining a political foothold for any number of reasons, but with the broadcasting bias witnessed last night a real debate to find what those actual reasons were was impossible.
It's the dangerous silence associated with the true facts behind the popular rise of the BNP that reminds me of another piece of political history - the interruption to Kruschev's "Secret speech" where he attacked the Stalin regime. During the speech there was just one interruption.
A delegate shouted, "Why didn't you speak out while all this was going on?"
"Who said that?" demanded Khrushchev.
There was silence.
"Now," said Khrushchev, "you know why not."
Any of you PR guru's want top tackle this silence objectively....
30 November -0001 — 12:00 am
Anonymous says:
Ah, statistics. Love 'em. One can of course resort to the population statistics of the country in question here, as you have done, but perhaps, given the programme was recorded in London, the population statistics of the more immediate area may be more pertinent. Couldn't tell you what the ethnic make-up of Greater London is off the top of my head, but I'm sure it's more of a melting pot. (Probably part of why I love it so much!)
I think you're quite right to come back with such questions, but in terms of the audience make-up perhaps the better question is "Why London?". Dunno the answer to that one.
As for the constitution of the panel, Question Time has deliberately selected diverse panelists for decades as homogeniety does not good debate nor telly make.
I think then 'db' that we're in agreement here. I asserted it was a right for the BBC to host Nick Griffin, and you go further and say you want to see more of it, albeit with less perceived bias.
Ultimately, I embrace multi-culturalism, but I'm not putting forward any answers here to the accompanying thornier questions. I'm just making the point that, as Bob Hoskins might say, "It's good to talk".
Love the Krushev story... hadn't come across that before.
30 November -0001 — 12:00 am
db says:
London stats as of 2001, the headline number is 71%. Now it's just dipped under 70%. Still a massive bias. I love stats, and i'm sure we could apply some test to show the degree of bias in BBC sample selection, but i can tell you off the top of my head it would be several standard deviations in terms of significance - be it at a London or UK level.
Also, if positive discrimination in panel/audience selection is allowed by the BBC in order to promote a more diverse debate, then you then cannot suppress the BNP or other minority groups on the same basis! The BBC was right to broadcast them, but was not right to "fix" everything else!
So, now ask yourself this question. If the panel/audience had been more representatively picked, so that there was clear vocal support for Mr Griffin (as is REALLY the situation), would the BNP be bathing in as much positive publicity today? Or would the British public detest open support for racist policies, and once again marginalise this party? Bend the truth, and it has a habit of coming back and kicking you in the balls....
30 November -0001 — 12:00 am
db says:
Was it just me, or was the audience biased and lacking in true proportional representation with respect to the British population? Let's consider a pertinent fact - according to the 2001 UK census, over 92% of the UK population was classified as "white" - just have a quick look at the programme, or run a mental recap of the audience or indeed the QT panel composition. Also consider those carefully selected (by the BBC) to pose questions. Representative? No, clearly not.
Don't get me wrong, I'm no BNP voter, but the BBC was working to its own biased agenda - and Nick Griffin was there to serve as some pantomime baddy just in time to kick off the Christmas season.
For instance, much on the night was made of the BNP's change in policies, and this was held against Mr Griffin on the night - but what is "New (but soon to be departed) Labour" if it is not a complete about turn to Labour ideals and long held policy beliefs (well, uncontrolled public spending aside)!?!? Things change, and a moderation in BNP stance should be welcomed.
However, a return to undefendable policies will see them disappear quicker than they have emerged. The fact remains that the BNP are winning seats and gaining a political foothold for any number of reasons, but with the broadcasting bias witnessed last night a real debate to find what those actual reasons were was impossible.
It's the dangerous silence associated with the true facts behind the popular rise of the BNP that reminds me of another piece of political history - the interruption to Kruschev's "Secret speech" where he attacked the Stalin regime. During the speech there was just one interruption.
A delegate shouted, "Why didn't you speak out while all this was going on?"
"Who said that?" demanded Khrushchev.
There was silence.
"Now," said Khrushchev, "you know why not."
Any of you PR guru's want top tackle this silence objectively....
23 October 2009 — 5:24 pm
Philip Sheldrake says:
Ah, statistics. Love 'em. One can of course resort to the population statistics of the country in question here, as you have done, but perhaps, given the programme was recorded in London, the population statistics of the more immediate area may be more pertinent. Couldn't tell you what the ethnic make-up of Greater London is off the top of my head, but I'm sure it's more of a melting pot. (Probably part of why I love it so much!)
I think you're quite right to come back with such questions, but in terms of the audience make-up perhaps the better question is "Why London?". Dunno the answer to that one.
As for the constitution of the panel, Question Time has deliberately selected diverse panelists for decades as homogeniety does not good debate nor telly make.
I think then 'db' that we're in agreement here. I asserted it was a right for the BBC to host Nick Griffin, and you go further and say you want to see more of it, albeit with less perceived bias.
Ultimately, I embrace multi-culturalism, but I'm not putting forward any answers here to the accompanying thornier questions. I'm just making the point that, as Bob Hoskins might say, "It's good to talk".
Love the Krushev story... hadn't come across that before.
23 October 2009 — 5:50 pm
db says:
London stats as of 2001, the headline number is 71%. Now it's just dipped under 70%. Still a massive bias. I love stats, and i'm sure we could apply some test to show the degree of bias in BBC sample selection, but i can tell you off the top of my head it would be several standard deviations in terms of significance - be it at a London or UK level.
Also, if positive discrimination in panel/audience selection is allowed by the BBC in order to promote a more diverse debate, then you then cannot suppress the BNP or other minority groups on the same basis! The BBC was right to broadcast them, but was not right to "fix" everything else!
So, now ask yourself this question. If the panel/audience had been more representatively picked, so that there was clear vocal support for Mr Griffin (as is REALLY the situation), would the BNP be bathing in as much positive publicity today? Or would the British public detest open support for racist policies, and once again marginalise this party? Bend the truth, and it has a habit of coming back and kicking you in the balls....
24 October 2009 — 12:10 pm