Backstage and front-of-stage identity in the age of mediated performance:

the lessons of Bigotgate.

Kay Richardsoni-mean 3: Bristol, 2013

Identity as ‘character’ Political persona and political life:

◦ Character in politics ◦ Spheres of political action ◦ Onstage/offstage political performance

Stance: respect/disrespect; responsible/not responsible

Theoretical touchstones

GB: A good family. Good to see you.GD: And the education system in Rochdale I will congratulate it.GB: Good. And it's very nice to see you, take care.[GD departs, Gordon enters car]GD: Thanks take care. Good to see you all. Thanks very much. [In car]GB: That was a disaster. Should never have put me with that woman. Whose idea was that?Unknown male: I don’t know, I didn’t see.GB: Sue’s, I think. Just ridiculous.Unknown male: Not sure if they’ll go with that one.GB: They will go with it.Unknown male: What did she say?GB: Everything. She’s just this sort of bigoted woman who said she used to be a Labour voter… Ridiculous.

The self, then, as a performed character, is not an organic thing that has a specific location, whose fundamental fate is to be born, to mature, and to die; it is a dramatic effect arising diffusely from a scene that is presented, and the characteristic issue, the crucial concern, is whether it will be credited or discredited.

(Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, 1959)

The self, then, as a performed character, is not an organic thing that has a specific location, whose fundamental fate is to be born, to mature, and to die; it is a dramatic effect arising diffusely from a scene that is presented, and the characteristic issue, the crucial concern, is whether it will be credited or discredited.

(Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, 1959)

With the development of print and other media, however, political rulers increasingly acquired a kind of visibility that was detached from their physical appearance before assembled audiences. Rulers used the new means of communication not only as a vehicle for promulgating official decrees, but also as a medium for fabricating a self-image that could be conveyed to others in distant locales.

John Thompson, 2005, “The New Visibility”

‘The New Visibility’

Ever since the advent of print, political rulers have found it impossible to control completely the new kind of visibility made possible by the media and to shape it entirely to their liking; now, with the rise of the Internet and other digital technologies, it is more difficult than ever.

John Thompson, 2005, “The New Visibility”

‘The New Visibility’

Conversations or interactions that individuals believe to be private (whether carried out face-to-face or with the aid of one-to-one technologies like the telephone) can be picked up and recorded by covert means, and subsequently made available to many thousands or millions of others through the media. Words or actions that were originally produced as private communication or behaviour can unexpectedly acquire a public character, becoming visible in ways that were certainly unanticipated, possibly very embarrassing and perhaps even seriously incriminating (as Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton, among many others, discovered to their cost).John Thompson, 2005, “The New Visibility”

… and audibility

People become more concerned with the character of the individuals who are (or might become) their leaders and more concerned about their trustworthiness, because increasingly these become the principal means of guaranteeing that political promises will be kept and that difficult decisions in the face of complexity and uncertainty will be made on the basis of sound judgement. The politics of trust becomes increasingly important, not because politicians are inherently less trustworthy today than they were in the past, but because the social conditions that had previously underwritten their credibility have been eroded.

John Thompson, 2005, “The New Visibility”

/Private/public = Offstage/Onstage

Political spherePersonal sphere

Political sphere (a) OnstagePolitical sphere (b) OffstagePersonal sphere (Offstage)

SPHERE OF POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS AND PROCESSES

PRIVATE SPHERE

SPHERE OF PUBLIC AND POPULAR

Strategic projection of political identity in publicity

Journalistic mediations and criticism (interactive sourcing and interactive performance)Interaction of private life with career in political institutions

Strategic projection of private life in publicity

Journalistic revelations of private life: gossip and scandal.

John Corner, 2000, Mediated Persona and Political Culture: Dimensions of Structure and Process

Authentic open-mike gaffes

Open mike gaffes and popular/political culture

Dramatised fictional open-mike gaffes(Yes Prime Minister, ‘The Tangled Web’ 28 Jan 1988)

Fake open-mike gaffes(Getting something into the public domain, but endorsing its authenticity from seeming to originate offstage not onstage)

Dramatised fictional fake open-mike gaffes(The West Wing, ‘The US Poet Laureate’ , 27 March 2002).

GB: That was a disaster. Should never have put me with that woman. Whose idea was that?Unknown male: I don’t know, I didn’t see.GB: Sue’s, I think. Just ridiculous.Unknown male: Not sure if they’ll go with that one.GB: They will go with it.Unknown male: What did she say?GB: Everything. She’s just this sort of bigoted woman who said she used to be a Labour voter… Ridiculous.

Strategic publicity considerations: this will play on TV as an unfortunately convincing, eloquent, public, dramatisation of ‘Labour’s own supporters are deserting the party’

Onstage performance – “Respect” willingness to enter into f2f discussion with GD length of time spent in conversation with her tributes to her life and family political undertakings, past and present, that

speak to her concerns Politely framed but substantive responses to her

criticism◦ Rational-political initial response to her point about

immigration (possible trigger for the ‘bigoted’ epithet)Offstage performance – Disrespect“She’s just this sort of bigoted woman who said

she used to be a Labour voter”

Gordon Brown: Hello, how are you? Now, come and talk with me. How are you getting on? Where do you stay around here?

Gillian Duffy: Yes. GB: It's a nice area, isn't it? GD: Now, my family have voted Labour all

their life. Me father, even when he was in his teens went to Free Trade Hall to sing the red flag and now I'm absolutely ashamed of saying I'm Labour.

GB: No, you mustn't be. Because what have we done? We've improved the health service. We're financing more neighbourhood policing, we're getting better schools and we're coming through a very difficult world recession.

You know what my views are. I'm for fairness. For hard working families.

I've told these guys across there - look if you commit a crime you're going to be punished.

GD: I'm afraid I don't think it's happening in Rochdale.

GB: Well, with a bit more policing than there were... but obviously we're going to do better in the future with neighbourhood policing. Neighbourhood policing is the key to it. You're a very good woman you've served the community all your life.

GB: You're a very good woman, you've served the community all your life.

GD: I am, I’ve worked for the Rochdale council for 30 years. And I work with children and handicapped children.

GB: Oh well I think working with children is so important isn’t it? So important. Have you been at some of the children’s centres?

GD: But what I can't understand is why I am still being taxed at 66 years old because my husband's died and I have some of his pension tagged onto my pension.

GB: Well, we’re raising the threshold at which people start paying tax as pensioners, but yes, if you’ve got an occupational pension you may have to pay some tax. But you may be eligible for the pension credit as well, you should check...

GD: No, no, I’m not, I’ve checked and checked and they said I’m no they can't do it.

GB: Well you should look it again just to be sure, to be absolutely sure.

GD: Yes they’ve told me, I’ve been down to Rochdale council to try and get it off me tax.

GB: We’re linking pension to earnings in two years' time, we’ve got the winter allowance as you know, which I hope is of benefit, two fifty...

Length of time

GD: I agree with that, it’s very good, but every year I talk to people of my age and they say "Oh well, they’ll be knocking it off, it will be going - it will be going."

Simon Danczuk (Labour parliamentary party candidate for Rochdale): No, that's not true. You were particularly impressed with the bus pass as well.

GD: Yes. GB: We’ve done the bus passes, free eye

test prescriptions... GD: But how are you going to get us out of

all this debt, Gordon? GB: We’ve got a deficit reduction plan, cut

the debt by half over the next four years, we’ve got the plans that have been set out to do it - look, I was the person who came in and said...

GD: Look, the three main things that I had drummed in when I was a child was education, health service and looking after people who are vulnerable. There are too many people now who aren’t vulnerable but they can claim and people who are vulnerable can’t get claim.

GB: But they shouldn’t be doing that, there is no life on the dole anymore for people, if you’re unemployed

you’ve got to go back to work. At six months…

GD: You can’t say anything about the immigrants because you’re saying you’re, but all these eastern Europeans coming in, where are they flocking from?

GB: A million people come in from Europe, but a million British people have gone into Europe, you do know there’s a lot of British people staying in Europe as well.

Look come back to what your initial principles: helping people - that's what we're in the business of doing.

A decent health service, that's really important, and education. Now these are things that we have tried to do.

We're going to maintain the schools so that people have that chance to get on.

GD: So what are you going about do about students who are coming in now? You've scrapped that now Gordon, to help students go on to university.

GB: Tuition fees? GD: Yes. I'm thinking about my

grandchildren. What will they have to pay to get into university?

GB: We've got forty per cent of young people now going to university...

Simon Danczuk: More than ever. GB: More than ever. So you got to have

some balance. If you get a degree and you earn twice as much after you get the degree then you got to pay something back as a contribution.

But there are grants for your grandchildren. There are more grants than ever before. You know more young people are going to university than ever before. And for the first year the majority of people going to university are women. So there's big opportunities for women.

So education, health and helping people. That's what I'm about.

GD: I hope you keep to it. GB: It’s been very good to meet you.

And you’re wearing the right colour today! (Laughter) How many grandchildren do you have?

GD: Two. GB: What age are they? GD: They’ve just come back from

Australia where they’ve been stuck for ten days they couldn’t get back with this ash crisis.

.

GD: They’ve just come back from Australia where they’ve been stuck for ten days they couldn’t get back with this ash crisis

GB: They got through now? GD: Yes. GB: We’ve been trying to get

people back quickly. But are they going to university, is that the plan?

GD: I hope so. They’re only 12 and 10.

GB: They’re only 12 and 10! But they’re doing well at school?

GD: Yes. Very good. GB: A good family. Good to see

you. GD: And the education system in

Rochdale I will congratulate it. GB: Good. And it's very nice to see

you, take care.

GB: You're a very good woman you've served the community all your life.

GD: I am, I’ve worked for the Rochdale council for 30 years. And I work with children and handicapped children.

GB: Oh well I think working with children is so important isn’t it? So important. Have you been at some of the children’s centres?

Tribute

Look come back to what your initial principles: helping people - that's what we're in the business of doing.

A decent health service, that's really important, and education. Now these are things that we have tried to do.

We're going to maintain the schools so that people have that chance to get on.

Political undertakings

GD: You can’t say anything about the immigrants because you’re saying you’re, but all these eastern Europeans coming in, where are they flocking from?

GB: A million people come in from Europe, but a million British people have gone into Europe, you do know there’s a lot of British people staying in Europe as well.

(GB changes the subject)

Politely framed but substantive responses to her criticism: Rational-political engagement on immigration

(but also vague, implausible, repetitive, minimal)

You can’t say anything about the immigrants because you’re saying you’re, but all these eastern Europeans coming in, where are they flocking from?

You can’t say anything about the immigrants because you’re saying you’re RACIST, but all these eastern Europeans coming in, where are they flocking from?

Gillian Duffy is also reflexively aware of political ‘presentation of self’ issues: cf Van Dijk, ‘I’m not a racist but...’

GB is dissatisfied with his own performance, caught out, as he sees it, by Gillian Duffy’s unexpectedly critical stance. To retrospectively maintain his own face to himself and to his aides, he needs to propose rationalisations for the imperfections of that performance. He chooses character attack as one of these rationalisations. If Duffy were indeed ‘bigoted’, then his own failure to deploy intelligent and persuasive reasoning to convince her is explicable. Rational political discussion is not an option with people who are bigoted. They are beyond the reach of rationality, their views guided by prejudices that resist all evidence and all logic.

Interpretation

The open-mike comment, though it was not meant to be heard by Duffy or the wider voting public, was meant to be heard by a more immediate grouping – the aides who were present in the car as he spoke. This set of people is also an audience, but an affiliated audience, part of ‘team GB’, who share a concern with the efficacy of their leader’s campaigning.

Offstage performance

Onstage/offstage with Jeremy Vine

What GB says is “onstage” (live radio broadcast, publicly audible)

What he does (hand to head) is “offstage” (visible only locally). Open-cam gaffe?

Although the ‘bigoted’ comment was taken to index Gillian’s comment on immigration specifically, this interpretation is misleading.

Politicians and those who help them need to be careful in the ‘always-on’ political era. (Thompson)

The offstage political sphere is not innocent of ‘presentation of self’ considerations, varying according to context. There are audiences in this sphere too.

In multimodal configurations, performances can be simultaneously onstage and offstage.

Lessons learned

John Corner 2000: Mediated Persona and Political Culture: Dimensions of Structure and Process. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 3(3), 386-402

Erving Goffman 1959: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books

John Thompson, 2005: The New Visibility. Theory, Culture and Society 22 (6), 31-51

Teun van Dijk, 1987: Communicating racism: Ethnic prejudice in thought and talk. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

References