At the end of the First World War, voting rights started being granted to wider and bigger sections of the population. Just four years after the war ended, Walter Lippmann, who is most famous for coining the word ‘stereotype’, had stated that with everyone having a right to vote, the way we did politics was going to change dramatically.

And so it did, in a big way.

Some say that things changed for the better and some say for the worse, but one thing is for sure: when decisions stopped being taken by what were believed to be a few rational, educated and enlightened men (because, of course, only men could vote at the time) and with the emergence of a more sophisticated mass media, influencing public opinion became the most important part of the political process.

In Malta, many of us are somewhat involved in party politics. Some of us are up to our necks in it, and some of us a bit less, but to some degree or another we’ve all felt manipulative wheels spinning and crafty strings being pulled, sometimes right from under our feet.

Deep down, even when we are hand-on-heart vouching for some political party or another, we all know that a political party’s main concern is not policy, not ethics, not morality but, first and foremost, public opinion, which is still largely constructed, manipulated and shaped by yet another small group of people, not necessarily politicians.

This group of people is made up of publicists, communication experts and press agents whose job is to stand between political parties, politicians, media institutions and, ultimately, the general public. Their job is to influence the press by controlling sound bites, proliferating slogans, framing the narrative, dishing out headlines, crafting spins and negotiating with editors for column space and airtime. In more sophisticated democracies, they even advise (and are taken seriously) on dress codes, body language, camera angles and even hairstyles. They do this as a profession, and serve their clients regardless of whether or not they are in agreement with their policies, because all a good publicist cares about is influencing public opinion in favour of his or her client.

Today, especially with the emergence of social media, the world has really and truly become what way back in the 1960s McLuhan had called a “global village”. It was still 30 years before the Internet’s commercialisation and yet McLuhan had already predicted its impact and called it an “extension of consciousness”.

And how right he was!

Theoretically, with all of us having some kind of social media account or another, we can all influence each other. Independent of who we are and what we do in life, we can convince and persuade without spending a cent and without ever leaving our living rooms. But the truth is that, even though we’ve all been given a loudspeaker to speak to the world, the role of the mass media that mediates between politicians and the public has never been stronger.

So true is this that it would be totally rash for a politician or a political party to venture into today’s political arena without a sophisticated understanding of how the media works and without a professional and experienced public relations machine working for them. Having said that, some things that come out of our politicians’ mouths would have you thinking that even the most experienced ones are not heeding the right advice.

I can’t believe, for example, that the Nationalist Party keeps bringing up the fact that, 10 years ago, the Labour Party had opposed Malta becoming part of the EU. I can’t believe that no one has pointed out to them that now that the Labour Party seems to have fully embraced Europe, not to mention the fact that it won the last election with an unprecedented majority, jumping up and down saying that their party (the PN) was on the right side of history is, to say the least, so last Tuesday.

I would be saying the same thing if, in 10 years time, when I hope that the Nationalist Party will have accepted gay marriage and divorce with all their frills, the Labour Party will still be harping on about how it was on the right side of history.

In fact, I think it’s just as ridiculous that today, decades after the horrific event, the Labour Party still addresses its “soldiers of steel” during EU accession celebrations and European Parliament campaigning. The term “soldiers of steel” was originally used to refer to those who voted for the Labour Party when it was under Church interdiction. That was more than 50 years ago; move on already.

Let’s face it, when it comes to politics, there’s a lot to be said for consistency, but there’s also a lot to be said about the ability of a person – or a political party – to move on, change and adapt. For the pig-headed, it’s far easier to keep one’s head buried in the sand and to keep harping blindly on about the same thing. In fact, for the pig-headed, even considering or listening to another point of view is painful, let alone embracing it and admitting fault. So whenever a political party makes a big deal of how their opponents have changed their views, for me, they’re simply putting a feather in their opponents’ hats, because being capable of changing one’s mind is one of the main reasons why we have one in the first place. 

As Winston Churchill once said: “A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject”.