Comment

G8 Protests in the mass media: 'Good Protestors', 'Bad Protestors' and a case of silenced dissent

Marianne McKiggan

On Wednesday 6th July, 2005 the G8 summit was held in the Gleneagles Hotel, near the village of Auchterarder, Perthshire, Scotland; where leaders of the eight most industrialised nations gathered to exercise power and promote a neo-liberal agenda of privatisation, trade liberalisation, economic growth and corporate profit above the real needs of people and planet.

On the same day approximately five thousand people from all over the world gathered in Auchterarder to march to Gleneagles to voice their opposition to this exploitative, inequitable and undemocratic system and the policies it pursues. The outrage, concerns, and ideas for alternatives expressed by these activists however were all but silenced in the mainstream media.

On the one hand, wristband wearing, pop concert attending, 'good protestors', the acceptable face of dissent, were given massive, largely positive and spectacular media attention. On the other hand, 'bad protestors', those engaged in direct action, were demonised in the mainstream media as 'troublemakers', 'hooligans' or 'radical anarchists'. These two seemingly polarised groups have a large contingent of active, politically engaged, aware people in common, activists for whom 'Live8' and much of the 'Make Poverty History' (MPH) campaign ring sadly hollow but who are committed to peaceful protest, and who remain either largely invisible in the media or identified as part of the vilified minority.

The global justice or global resistance movement as it is now recognised - a 'movement of movements' - connects a broad spectrum of dissidents from environmentalists, poverty and trade justice campaigners, and anti-war demonstrators, to radical, and not so radical, anarchists and revolutionaries, with many different ideas for change and activism, but united in their opposition to market-driven politics. But whatever the differences surely Noam Chomsky in Understanding Power is correct when he says 'if you're a dissident, typically you're ignored. If you can't be ignored, and you can't be answered, you're vilified'.

'Good Protestors'

On Saturday 2nd July, the image of 'good protestors', apolitical revellers at the Live8 concerts and the MPH campaign gained media coverage around the globe, although the latter had less coverage. Both events were little more than well-orchestrated carnivals, mediated spectacles disguised as protest. There were no banners or slogans at Live8. The calls to MPH were largely voiced with little or no challenge to, or comprehension of, the policy agenda of the G8, which is pivotal in creating and exacerbating poverty, inequality, ecological crisis and conflict. There was no mention of climate change, war, or the military industrial complex, causing the death and suffering of hundreds of thousands of people, or the simple fact that current consumption levels are unsustainable.

The G8 have had 25 years to end poverty, if that was their desire, but of course that was never their intention; furthering corporate interests at home and abroad will not MPH. Live8 and MPH served as an almost perfect foil for business-as-usual.

These protestors, which could not be ignored for sheer numbers and the inability of anyone remotely humane to deny their cause, were to reference Chomsky, answered. And they seem to have accepted the answer; Bob Geldof patting the G8 leaders on the back for their (in)action on Africa and debt, whilst climate change didn't even warrant a mention.

The President of the Royal Society had made critical statements of the G8 'action plan' on climate change for its lack of any real action or progress and commenting on these events in the New Statesman, June 22nd, 2005 John Pilger suggests that this 'illusion of an anti-establishment crusade led by pop stars serves to dilute a great political movement of anger'.

'Bad Protestors'

The other type of media representation portrayed people as 'bad protesters' who were characterised as masked rioters, anarchists, troublemakers, eco-activists, they too received media attention, but their cause, unlike the 'good protestors' was almost never on the agenda. They were the ones for whom the answer was not a solution but part of the problem.

'Bad protestors' are portrayed in this manner because they, and many thousands more, who gathered across Scotland to protest in Edinburgh and Gleneagles, were there to take action against or voice opposition to the G8, rejecting the official answers. Dissent! Blockaders successfully delayed delegates attending the summit and dispersed police. However, media coverage focused on damage caused to chain stores where activists were forced by police into a trading estate and media reports that personal cars and homes were targeted were never verified. It has been suggested that much of the violence reported was exaggerated and often the result of police tactics and intimidation.

The G8 legal support group had condemned the policing of the protests believing it to be heavy-handed, stating that the excessive police presence was an attack on civil liberties. The Independent on Sunday, July 10th 2005 encapsulated this: 'Chinook helicopters were hovering low over a field of grass in rural Scotland, disgorging riot police by the dozen to cope with an amiable bunch of scruffy protestors who had pushed past a fence'.

Many thousands of activists loosely associated with Dissent! - G8 Alternatives and small groups of individuals gathered in Scotland during the G8 meeting, holding diverse demonstrations. Many of these activists, broadly part of the global resistance movement are, on the whole, politically engaged, articulate, questioning, and aim to directly challenge the system of power and control which currently dominates society and environment.

The fact that this movement is so aware, diverse and growing, and far more critical, questioning, and often rejecting, of the Bob-Blair-Curtis PR line than the accepting 'good protestors', is likely to explain why the state, through policing, and the mainstream media work so hard to silence it mostly by demonising this broad movement.

Significant Omission: Where the silenced ones were…hidden from view by the 'Battle of Gleneagles'.

In contradiction to the media portrayal of frightened villagers boarding up ready for trouble (e.g. John Vidal & Kirsty Scott, 'G8 summit: Under siege, thesmall town with a world view - and big fears: Security Massed press, 5,000 protestors and 3,000 police', Guardian, July 6th, 2005); people were out in force, waving, cheering, old and young, smiling and welcoming.

It was the G8 leaders who were unwelcome not the marchers. Speaking to locals some felt that the media had used them as fodder, cast them as idiots with no thoughts of their own, and were resentful of divisions caused within the community. The majority seemed to be in support of the demonstrations and many people expressed opposition to the war in Iraq. There were people opposed to the demonstration, but the pub, church and shops were open and people were waving and being cheerful.

Where was this story in the media? Even if one accepts media convention of needing 'good pictures' wouldn't the sight of fifty to seventy coaches rolling into a small rural village with the residents out and cheering them on have 'looked good'? The rally on Auchterarder Park was colourful and cheerful, people from all over the world gathered, joined by many locals.

Instead the media focused on a small group of protestors who left the march- route and entered a field next to the security fencing. The media hyped this small incident as the 'Battle of Gleneagles' (John Vidal & Kirsty Scott, '10,000 march and protestors fight running battles with riot police', Guardian, July 7th, 2005; Paul Kelbie, Jonathan Brown & Oliver Duff, 'G8 Summit: Army flies in extra police for the battle of Gleneagles', Independent, July 7th, 2005). This focus on a minor breach in a fence, and subsequent framing of the demonstration as a violent incident, avoids the need for the media to engage with activists, on any meaningful level.

Press attention to the G8 protests routinely exaggerated the extent of violence, whilst systematically evading the issues. Evidence of exaggeration was demonstrated in The Scotsman, July 7th, 2005 when it stated that the 'assault on the hotel was part of a highly organised campaign of disruption and violence'.

Misinformation and Misrepresentation

The mainstream media misled the public throughits systematic focus and framing of the events surrounding G8 protests on the few acts, which led to conflict between police and activists. The fact that police actions were highly questionable (e.g., trying to stop the protest from taking place and halting the march) and the magnitude of popular dissatisfaction with the G8 and their policies were, largely neglected in the mainstream.

The mainstream media misrepresented the events in accordance with their own corporate interests; engaging meaningfully with protestors would mean questioning corporate capitalism. Misinformation occurred through significant omission; downplaying the number of peaceful protestors and their agendas, the numbers prevented from attending the march to Gleneagles, lack of analysis of policing practices and legality, and the disregard of the welcome of the local people. Also through the focus and framing of articles there was distortion and exaggeration of events with emphasis on 'troublemakers', and the use of inflammatory language such as 'rioting' and 'hard-line anarchists'.

The powerful no doubt will always try to silence those who question them. However the media - positioning itself as provider of information for the citizens of a democracy - has been complicit in the silencing of the voices of legitimate political protest against the G8. Understanding that their corporate bias requires them to support the inequitable status quo, goes a long way to providing an insight into why this should be the case, but they should not go unchallenged, for in our mediated age they provide the information on which the majority of people gain their understanding.

December 2005