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Creating the Right Reality: Communication Message Strategies and the Republican Party

Arizona State University, bud.goodall{at}asu.edu

Seth Wiener

Columbia University

This critical essay explores the parallels between the communicative strategies and methods of totalitarian movements and those of the modern American conservative movement. The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt (1968) serves as the standard by which the authors investigate the properties of such strategies. The authors find that the conservative movement in general and the Republican Party specifically, though not totalitarian, exhibit numerous common characteristics in the sphere of communication such as the suspension of reality, propaganda techniques, and the use of movement opinion to subvert, transform, and replace fact. Through a commitment to an independent press and civic responsibility, the authors believe it is possible to counter these effects and preserve a society where the free exchange of ideas and the freedom of thought are not threatened by rigid doctrines parading as objective facts.

Key Words: communication • Grover Norquist • message strategies • Republican Party

Cultural Studies <=> Critical Methodologies, Vol. 8, No. 2, 135-158 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/1532708607305122


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