Media Matters

Media coverage reduces the reality of Maoists and their intent by muddling fact with fuss

JOHN NARAYAN PARAJULI

Even as the army row forced his hand, the prime minister pulled a trick out of his sleeves and unexpectedly stepped down. The Maoists might have had the last laugh after all.
There is fundamental misjudgment about how the Maoists operate among segments of the media, the political parties and the international community. Part of this misconception has been perpetuated by the Maoists themselves to keep everyone guessing. But largely it is the consequence of the complex nature of interaction between the Maoist party and plethora of sister organizations and the work of over-speculative media pundits. Media coverage reduces the reality about the Maoists and their intent through sweeping generalizations and selective hype.
Empirical researches have shown that there is a positive correlation between the use of the mass media and the process of democratic engagement: political interest, knowledge and participation. But there is another side to the coin. The mass media also foments apathy, ignorance, disengagement and cynicism. Studies have also showed that there is a positive correlation between lack of trust in the government and trust in the media.
The story about the role of the mass media gets complicated. But one way to look at is that the trust of the government and the politicians is intertwined with the media's own credibility, and that the media is partly responsible for public cynicism and apathy.
A quick glance at the coverage of the army-Maoists row in the mainstream media shows how the media has failed miserably at political propaganda analysis. The coverage has been excessively critical of the Maoist bid to "politicize" the army, while the stance of the opposition, though equally driven by similar considerations of political expediency, has been subtly portrayed as an act in "defence of democracy". This comes to show how susceptible the media is to the forces of push and pull. Or is there an inherent urban-elite bias that the media cannot overcome?
There are not many functional institutions in Nepal, and the media as the gatekeeper of information ought to be more vigilant. More than a decade long democratic rule under of the watch of the Nepali Congress (for the most part) and others has done very little to build institutions. The problem is doubly compounded for a government led by the Maoists who have not been out in the mainstream for some period of time. For them, everything begins from scratch -- establishing power relationships, navigating the subtleties of coalition politics and learning to behave like parliamentarians, ministers and even prime minister.
The political orientation and the continuing belief of hardliners in Marxist and Maoist ideals dichotomize the work of the government led by moderates. In the classical Marxist view, there is no distinction between state institutions and political organizations. Nepali Maoists may also have taken Mao's maxim to heart: The party must control the gun, and that gun must never control the party. Euphemistically put, it simply means that there should be political control of the army, not the other way around. The Maoist interpretation of this maxim depends on how much the party has transformed so far, and how far it is willing to go in the future. For that, we should look at the continuing evolution of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for clues.
Shiping Zheng, a political scientist in his 1997 book Party vs. State in Post-1949 China, describes how the CCP still suffers from a revolutionary hangover half a century later. (Although the book is a decade old, some of my Chinese colleagues assure me that not much has changed since then.) The feud between moderates and hardliners among Nepali Maoists is largely about whether or not the party should continue to retain its revolutionary character and uphold the ideology of the "vanguard party". Even in China where there is a one-party state, CCP elders have been unwilling to completely abandon the wartime strategy. Therefore, it is not unnatural for Nepali Maoists -- so steeped in communist ideology and who still see themselves as being surrounded by adversaries -- to display similar traits.
The Maoists would like everyone to believe that they are rash and reckless in their decision-making process. But they are not so hell-bent on establishing a one-party dictatorship as it would appear from press headlines. The Maoist strategy, as I see it, is two-pronged: At the political level, they are playing up the stereotypical understanding of communists -- impervious to reason, rash and confrontational. On a more general level, they are ratcheting up the conflict to wear down their adversaries -- provoking them to react, not to reason.
Apart from measuring the preparedness of their adversaries, these conflicts provide a big propaganda victory for the Maoists. First, it keeps the cadres united and prepared against the "enemy". Second, every reaction or criticism is an opportunity to highlight how "regressive elements" are working to scuttle the aspiration of the people. Dahal's resignation shows to what length they will go to keep the party united. But they have killed two birds with one stone. They have managed to bury their poor performance with a political drama that ended with Dahal appearing to be resigning over a principle.
The Maoists are well versed in the process of political communication and how it trickles down to the masses, and they are making full use of the excessive negative media coverage (about themselves) to poison the well -- literally telling their constituency and beyond that they cannot trust the media because they are hand in glove with "anti-people" elements. For the Nepali media to become an effective watchdog of public interest, it is imperative to learn to cut through the thick of political propaganda (of both the Maoists and other parties) and separate the facts from the fuss.
Published in the The Kathmandu Post, May 07, 09