Part 4 of the series: Propaganda for Beginners. Read Parts 1, 2, and 3.
Teaser
What do the techniques of crime writers, who want to tell an exciting story and at the same time make it as difficult as possible for the reader to find out the truth, have in common with PR and propaganda techniques? Even if it seems surprising at first glance, there are actually many similarities, both in terms of interests and techniques. In this new article from the series ‘Propaganda Tactics,’ some of them are examined in more detail.
Spoiler warning: Contains the solutions to several Agatha Christie crime mysteries.
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“But everything fits in perfectly well if you can only make up your mind what is reality and what is illusion.”
Agatha Christie, They Do It with Mirrors
Every crime novel reader is probably familiar with the “aha” moment when reading a classic detective story: you’ve worked your way through two hundred or more pages, groping in the dark, feeling frightened, having moments of realization where you added two and two together and felt a step ahead of the detective, only to then doubt your own theories. Now you’ve reached the resolution scene. The detective gathers everyone in the drawing room and recaps the entire story. He addresses all the false leads the author skillfully laid out and explains why none of them could account for the true sequence of events. Then comes the big moment. The detective or inspector names the culprit and explains how the case was solved. If the crime novel was well-crafted, we literally or internally slap our foreheads: Why didn’t we see it coming? Everything pointed to it! How could we have missed the clues the detective is now listing? Why didn’t we interpret them correctly? Why didn’t we see them in the right light? Suddenly, the whole picture becomes clear, and we wonder why we were so blind.
This “aha” moment is no accident. It’s not usually because we were simply too dumb or inattentive. This “aha” moment is the result of a very careful construction. It’s the result of the craftsmanship, skill, and art of the author, stemming from their deep understanding of how we humans receive and process information. The art lies in giving the relevant information and clues to the truth while doing everything possible to ensure the reader doesn’t interpret them correctly.
A classic crime novel always consists of two stories. The first story is the truth — what actually happened. A veil of ignorance and misunderstanding lies over this truth. As readers, we try to lift this veil throughout the story. The second story is the veil itself, its various parts, and all the theories and interpretations we develop as we read. All the mistakes we fall for and all the false leads we mentally follow. Additionally, the truth is obscured by lies meant to distract from and conceal it.
In the German Communications Code of the German Council for Public Relations from November 29, 2012, it states:
“(9) PR and communications professionals are committed to truthfulness, do not knowingly spread false or misleading information, or unverified rumors.”
Companies, political actors, and others who engage in professional PR must ensure that they do not explicitly “lie,” but they may still have an interest in preventing citizens from fully recognizing and understanding the whole and true story. Various actors often have a strong interest in concealing or, at least, distorting this truth. Sometimes, it’s about communicating only certain aspects or focusing attention on certain people and topics, while others should ideally remain in the shadows. Public communication is rarely free from such self-interests of the “narrators.” And every communication or story naturally encounters a strong magnetic field of interests that can and sometimes want to bend and distort the story for their purposes.
This field of tension partially aligns, in my opinion, with the challenge faced by the author of a classic “whodunnit” crime novel. Here, as there, the reader/citizen demands to be adequately informed about the events. Here, as there, the author has an interest, or can have an interest, in ensuring that the reader does not discover the truth about certain events and circumstances, or only does so later. Nevertheless, the crime author must, at least according to the rules of classic crime structure, act fairly and communicate all relevant information to allow the reader to “puzzle along”. Thus, the author must communicate, hoping that the reader does not recognize and understand the “hidden story” until the very end.
When this parallel struck me, I reviewed the secondary literature on crime technique regarding which methods of influencing the perception of reality and facts in the public sphere through politics, journalism, and political PR might be comparable to the tricks used by crime writers.
We Are All Detectives
There is another aspect that offers parallels between the construction of crime novels and public, especially political, communication: many people increasingly consume information from the press and other sources as if they were readers of a crime novel. They are always on guard, trying not to be misled. Many critical readers approach articles and the communication from politicians or political parties, as well as information from companies, looking for lies, inconsistencies, bias, deceptions, the cui bono (who benefits), errors, and clues to the hidden story, to what really happened. In some cases, this is an uninformed distrust, an excessive skepticism.
But, of course, there are indeed many secrets, lies, and obfuscations in public communication from both governments and companies. They skillfully use the tools of spin, emotional manipulation, etc., to release only the information they must (for legal, political, or PR reasons) while still trying to guide and control the reception as much as possible. It would be very naive to assume that the public is always told the whole truth.
Method 1: You have to tell me!
One means of obfuscation, but also of creating suspense, are “knowledge gaps” These are omissions in the story, the “untold” parts, the mystery. In a classic crime novel, these are, for example, always the identity of the murderer and usually also the exact sequence of events of the murder.
Such “knowledge gaps” in crime novels, but also in real life, trigger a detective-like ambition in most people and a strong desire to solve the mystery and thus close the gaps. This suspense-creating and curiosity-arousing effect could be well observed in the case of the Italian writer Elena Ferrante. Simply the fact that the bestselling author wanted to keep her identity and name secret aroused such great curiosity that the “revelation” of her identity and the details of her person and life — which turned out to be completely mundane and unspectacular—received huge media coverage. If she had not had this desire for secrecy, her private life would have been regarded as much less interesting. This is not a moral judgment, but simply a strategic and tactical analysis. When something is kept secret, people immediately assume it is interesting. The value of a secret information increases, and our curiosity and ambition are piqued.
In public communication, there are many actual and also many supposed knowledge gaps. Every obvious gap in the narrative, whether concerning motives, perpetrators, methods, backgrounds, or connections, triggers this suspense. It is hard to say why we struggle so much with these knowledge gaps, mysteries, uncertainties, and open questions. Perhaps as humans, we simply cannot endure an unexplained and inexplicable reality for long because we lose our orientation and no longer feel safe.
Whatever the reason, one thing is certain: nothing makes people as curious as a secret. Here lies a danger in public communication if information cannot or must not be given. Journalists and people will then inevitably speculate and, like in a crime novel, want to “solve” the “case.” Shortly after an event like a terrorist attack (or not, see my previous article “The Primacy Effect”) or in the case of unsolved crimes, we must live with these indeterminate points, and it is also a sign of maturity to endure this tension.
People love exciting stories, puzzles, and mysteries and sometimes see crimes, intrigues, and connections where there are none. This can lead to an excess of conspiracy theories and great mistrust of politicians, other important public figures, and journalists (keyword: “Lügenpresse” and fake news). If the fake news or the simplified, distorted, or simply false stories provided by some politicians or agitators are more exciting and dramaturgically better stories, the boring, banal, and confusing reality is discarded.
But there are also many situations in which people show very good instincts and correctly identify real indeterminate points and omissions in the story. The public “smells” correctly that something is wrong with the story being presented to them. The motives are implausible, the sequence of events is wrong, the events and actions do not match the character or motivation of the people involved, etc. In these cases, it is good that citizens and investigative journalists do not rest until certain connections are clarified, as in the case of the murder of John F. Kennedy, the death of Uwe Barschel in a Geneva hotel, or the NSU murder series in Germany (these were a string of seemingly racially motivated murders committed by a neo-Nazi terrorist group between 2000 and 2007, surrounded by suspicions of the German intelligence agencies being somehow involved, fuelled by many inconsistencies in the case, as well as accidents, suicides and deaths of the perpetrators and witnesses and destruction of files).
Method 2: Hidden in Plain Sight
Another common technique in classic detective literature is to provide the reader with a crucial piece of information while simultaneously hiding its relevance. In Agatha Christie’s novel The Sittaford Mystery, there is a long list of items found in the cupboard in the murdered man’s cabin, including two pairs of skis. The murderer used the second pair of skis to reach the cabin and commit the murder. By skiing, he could arrive at the cabin much earlier than the detective calculated, who assumed he was on foot, thus giving him a perfect alibi. The significance of the skis, particularly the fact that there were two pairs, is not recognized by the reader because they are cleverly listed among other sports equipment like golf clubs, tennis rackets, and fishing gear, causing the skis to blend into a vague heap of sports accessories in the reader’s mind. We think only of their function as sports equipment, not as a means of transportation.
Similar tactics are often used in PR and political communication. Information can be hidden in plain sight by being buried in a mass of complicated technical information, jargon, and complex interrelations. This often happens unintentionally, but sometimes it is done deliberately.
In government communication, this obfuscation tactic is often used in legislative procedures, where laws are bundled and nested together like Russian matryoshka dolls, making the individual measures and especially the overall political direction and strategy behind them indistinguishable to laypersons and even well-informed journalists. Good examples are the so-called free trade agreements TTIP, CETA, TISA, etc., where agreements on tariff reductions were intertwined with investment protection provisions, strongly privatization-promoting regulations, the establishment of arbitration procedures, and many other elements. Another example was the legislation on toll collection on German highways (Autobahn), which seems to have been part of a complex process towards the privatization of the German long-distance road infrastructure, but this was only partially disclosed and explained because the acting politicians were aware of the population’s resistance to such a move. The current European legislative initiatives towards the proclaimed goals of “Fighting Disinformation”, “Combatting Hate Speech” and for “Security Online”, provide other good current examples, as they actually consist of legal shifts that are a very dangerous move towards censorship and authoritarianism, but are communicated as safety measures.
Method 3: Do you remember?
Another well-known tactic used by crime writers is the wide scattering of facts. Important elements that could contribute to the solution are broken up and communicated with great distance between them. When the reader receives the second part of the information, they have already forgotten the first part and thus cannot combine the two parts into a meaningful context.
In Agatha Christie’s novel The Clocks, the reader learns from a Mrs. Bland, a neighbor of the house where a murder occurred, that she is the only surviving member of her family. Later, the same woman tells Inspector Hardcastle in a conversation that her sister lives in the same place. The gap of almost 40 pages between these two statements makes it difficult for the reader to recognize the obvious contradiction and solve the crime. For “Mrs. Bland” is actually an impostor who assumed the identity of her husband’s first wife to inherit a large fortune and committed the murder because her false identity was about to be exposed, and she slipped up in the second interview.
The same method is often applied by conveying important information but tearing it out of context and spreading it over time so that we as citizens cannot recognize the overall context.
Method 4: Bang!
“It is, you see, the simple theory of the conjuring trick.
The attention cannot be in two places at once.
To do my conjuring trick, I need the attention focused elsewhere (…).”
(Christie, Three Act Tragedy, 157)
This is one of the “easiest and oldest tricks in the bag”: A person’s attention can only be focused on a few things at once. To divert attention from a topic or situation, crime writers often and gladly use a bang effect. An exciting event that arouses strong emotions, such as an accident, a love story, a wedding, a threat, etc., is used to divert attention from another important situation. The reader is distracted and only pays attention to the development of the big emotions or worries about the hero because of an apparent danger, and thus no longer pays attention to other, quieter tones.
In political communication, this characteristic of people is also used, for example, when passing unpopular laws that the government has a majority for in parliament, but knows that the majority of the population is against. These are then passed, for example, during the summer holidays or during the final round of the Football World Cup, to take advantage of the fact that there are fewer witnesses or that another, more emotional event binds the attention of journalists and the public.
Method 5: This Is Much More Exciting
There is another form of distraction that is subtler than the bang effect: laying false trails or providing “red herrings”. Here, the readers’ attention is not diverted by another event but by a different question, puzzle, or task. Their mental energy is redirected to a false trail, binding their attention and analytical abilities to distract them from the main important question.
A prime example is the reactions of the NSA, the US government, and even large parts of the US and German media coverage regarding the 2013 NSA scandal revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden. To prevent people from focusing on the main issue of the violation of fundamental rights, criminal law, and international law by intelligence agencies’ surveillance the activities, attention and puzzle-solving skills of the public were redirected to the following questions: “What are the technical backgrounds that allow these surveillance techniques?”, “How can I protect my devices from these surveillance techniques?”, “How was this information leaked? Who had access to this information and passed it on? Was it another Russian spy?” Although I cannot prove it, it seems suspiciously beneficial to the NSA and the US government that through these framings in the media coverage, 90% of public attention was focused on these questions instead of the illegality of the surveillance activities themselves. Additionally, the two diversion manoeuvres have a welcome spin effect:
The first question, “How can I protect my devices?” not only diverts attention from the illegal surveillance activities but also subtly shifts the situation so that the citizen perceive it as a purely technical problem (and not a political one). The surveillance activities are viewed more as a natural force against which nothing political can be done, rather we need to think about protection measures, like against a storm surge or a power outage.
With the strong focus on the second question, “Who leaked it?” the spin effect is even more pronounced. Here, in an very deft slight of hand, the perpetrator (the intelligence agencies) suddenly becomes the victim. Through the “whodunnit” framing, the leaker or whistleblower automatically becomes the villain. Within this framing, we discuss how such “betrayal of secrets” was possible, how the intelligence agencies could protect themselves from it, and how the perpetrator should be identified, caught, and punished. Journalists and the public easily fall for such framing shifts and then only discuss the topic within the predefined parameters of this new framing.
Method 6: Look Who’s Talking
Another classic method to prevent information or messages from being believed is to discredit the source. This method has the added effect of diverting public attention to the character, private life, and, ideally, intimate life of the source — sex is always a good attention magnet — rather than the information provided by the source.
Agatha Christie is also a master at discrediting sources. In her novel A Murder is Announced, the most important and best clues about the actual course of events come from Dora Bunner, the friend and housekeeper of the murderer Miss Blacklock. However, Christie cleverly characterizes Dora Bunner through her mouthpiece, Inspector Craddock, as forgetful, scattered, confused, and completely unreliable. Each of her statements, which could help clarify the sequence of events of the murder and highlight Miss Blacklock’s guilt, is immediately relativized. Especially because her interrogation takes place together with Miss Blacklock, who is described as competent, smart, and matter-of-fact and who always immediately contradicts Dora Bunner’s statements.
A very good example of this method in political communication is the media coverage of Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, back in the day, against whom largely unfounded rape allegations were made, among other things, to divert attention from the war crimes of the US military in Iraq uncovered by him and WikiLeaks and to get the public’s and journalists’ attention strictly focused on his sex life, character flaws, and alleged misdemeanours.
The Resolution
These considerations are not intended as a guide to lying but to help understand how people’s attention is guided, thereby clarifying how information can be hidden and distorted. This knowledge enables all actors in communication, both professionals and laypersons, to recognize these methods and respond to them.
This is a translation, also updated, of an article first published in German in politik+kommunikation. https://www.politik-kommunikation.de/politik/sechs-verschleierungstechniken-mit-denen-krimiautoren-und-politische-kommunikatoren-arbeiten/
(Featured Image: “Pan G144 (1960)” by jhcrawshaw is licensed under CC BY 2.0. Cropped by Propaganda In Focus)