To what extent do politicians lead public opinion in the modern context? Is public opinion taking the upper hand over politicians in the present-day democratic environment?

In our age of spin, the electorate is fed an increasing volume of pap.

Every day, it becomes harder to obtain widespread currency for ideas and proposals without resorting to clichés or to the sound bite. This is because technological advance and the information revolution have broken down the political models of yesteryear by atomising society.

Not many decades ago, political arguments flowered in stimulating oratory in parliament and in hours of oration at lecture halls, clubs, and at crowded political meetings.

All of this is now reduced to television sound bites beamed to the living room, or in silent computer messages deposited on the web.

In former days, the print media enjoyed the role of watchdog of the public interest, and was accorded the status of the Fourth Estate. It is no longer so.

Journalistic licence

Among journalists, there is nowadays more pressure to come up with sensational stories. There is less hesitancy to print speculative ones.

In a section of the press, there has emerged unscrupulousness, a propensity to give credence to rumours, a reluctance to correct and apologise, an amnesia about last week’s leading article or front page splash.

No doubt, this may sell newspapers. It also sells their readers short.

To make matters worse, some journalists interpret the freedom of the press as a licence to place their profession above morality, if not also above the law. They spin stories revolving around unnamed “sources” and take liberties by manipulating “leaks”, whose origin is not only concealed, but also protected, by the rules of “confidentiality”.

Trivialisation

On the other hand, television and radio have brought immediacy to reporting and much greater awareness of events. It has introduced politicians to the family household, warts and all. But although radio and TV have become instant media, their emphasis is on brevity, which leads to trivialisation. Television viewers are restricted to the range of vision of the camera eye, and actuality is reduced to the cameraman’s focus, when it is not also distorted.

How could a prospective political leader fare in a world in which the media are more interested in the trivial, the sensational and the scandalous, and in which every political pronouncement is reduced to one or two sound bites?

And how does public opinion react in this developing situation?

In Malta, politicians tried to cope with part of this problem when the major political parties set up their own television and radio stations. In this way, they were one up on the Italians, who had already pioneered a part solution that accommodated the big political parties.

On their part, televiewers, listeners, as well as individual newspaper readers, have had to guide themselves by the rising star of common sense. This might explain, in part, why the so-called floating vote is becoming visibly larger.

This situation poses problems to political leaders and their respective party machines.

Atomisation of modern society

Where once presidents and prime ministers led opinion, now, too often, they have to find out what the electorate is thinking, before making a leap into the future.

I recall General De Gaulle remarking that during the turbulence of the last World War, British war leaders carried public opinion with them “but public opinion, in its turn, and in spite of wartime censorships, guided the government.”

He also noted that “although England cherished Winston Churchill as the apple of her eye, the papers printed, parliament heard, the committees muttered, and the clubs spread judgments about him that were sometimes hostile.”

Where public opinion establishes deep enough roots, it flourishes, and is capable of coping with adversity.

The atomisation of modern democratic society handicaps political leaders who have less physical contact with the electorate, and who must rely increasingly on opinion polls and interactive broadcasts with public participation. The internet may offer new possibilities for communication.

On balance, though, political leaders and their political machines are more hard put to it today than yesteryear.

They now have to contest populist movements that try to invade their turf,

And the independent-minded floating voter navigates by the star of his own enlightened judgment.

It is this floating vote which is gaining the ascendancy and which, therefore, has to be treated with far more respect than in the past.

[email protected]