UK Politician Says EU Site Wants To 'Brainwash' Children With Propaganda About Democratic Principles

from the reading-too-much-into-it dept

Fri, Mar 15th 2013 3:36am — Glyn Moody

The UK is famous for its tabloid newspapers and their particular brand of journalism. Here's a fine example from the Daily Express, under the headline "EU attempts to brainwash children with 'sinister Soviet-style propaganda'":

European Parliament chiefs are considering setting up a site to target young children with a "playful" presentation of their working methods and democratic principles.

The Daily Express story is mainly built around a few quotations from the politician Paul Nuttall. He belongs to the UK Independence Party, whose policy in a nutshell is as follows: the rescue of the British people depends on withdrawal from the EU to regain our self-governing democracy
So it's no surprise that Nuttall has a slightly jaundiced view of anything the European Parliament does. Here are a few of of his comments in the article: this exercise in funding kiddie propaganda really is cash for EU trash.

...

Our children need to be protected from this type of political propaganda because they are vulnerable and easily manipulated.

…

Political propaganda on vulnerable kids is a form of child abuse.
What's fascinating here is his choice of words: "kiddie propaganda", "vulnerable and easily manipulated", "a form of child abuse". Whether consciously or not, clear parallels are being drawn here with pornography and even child pornography ("kiddie propaganda") through the use of phrases that are familiar from those fields.

It's also striking that the image chosen by the Daily Express to illustrate the story is the classic perplexed child staring at a screen whose contents we cannot see -- the implication being that there is something bad there, but that we are powerless to protect the innocence of the young viewer. That, too, is something of a cliché in articles about pornography, and it's disconcerting to see it being wheeled out here for an article about promoting democratic principles.

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Filed Under: brainwashing, democracy, education, eu, propaganda, uk

26 Comments

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JT, 15 Mar 2013 @ 4:01am

I'm opposed to censorship but I do wish there was a way to make the tabloid press just shut the hell up.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Mar 2013 @ 4:05am

Hyperbole is fun to watch, I had a good laugh.

Although I suspect that many UK citizens will take that seriously.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Mar 2013 @ 4:05am

The Express hates Europe with a passion that rivals McCarthyism in the US. They need to shut up and do some actual journalism, rather than "WAH WAH YURPE SUX"
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Mar 2013 @ 4:07am

My own post about how I laughed about it, brings me to another point.

Why do people read newspapers?

Well tabloids are fun, I enjoyed them tremendously while in the UK, I just never took anything they said seriously though and when asking others they said the same thing.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Mar 2013 @ 4:09am

Thank you! It is refreshing to actually get a story about something from the less EU-hating side of UK for once.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Mar 2013 @ 4:14am

Re:
agreed, unfortunately, there are parallels with Fox News in the US- there are people who trust the Daily Express above other newspapers. Same with most tabloids, actually. That, and the newspapers don't care about the impact of their stories (witness the phone hacking scandal recently- the newspaper accessing a missing girl's voicemail made her parents hope she was still alive. She was already dead.For that matter, witness the fact that they have apparently been paying off police officers to gt information on cases.)
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Zakida Paul (profile), 15 Mar 2013 @ 4:20am

Big bad immigrants stealing jobs
Celebrity gossip
Benefits claimants and their lavish lifestyles
Celebrity gossip
Rumours and hyperbole as political commentary
Celebrity gossip
Celebrity gossip
EU vitriol
Boobs
Celebrity gossip

These are the things printed by the tabloids on a daily basis. Anyone with a brain and a penchant for critical thinking will ignore these journalistic parasites.

There is a lot of quality journalism out there but these tabloids are tainting an entire industry with their non-journalism.
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Steve4586 (profile), 15 Mar 2013 @ 4:20am

Ah the Daily Express.

What a wonderful tome.

If you believe all you read in the Express you are either a) an idiot, b) committed suicide as a result of the depression created from reading such utterly sensationalist crap.

In the Express:

Bad Weather = portent of the world ending
Anthing to do with the EU = portent of the world ending
In fact everything = portent of the world ending

As for the UK independence party, the less said the better.
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Zakida Paul (profile), 15 Mar 2013 @ 4:21am

Re: Re:
The fact that there are people who trust the Daily Mail fills me with sadness and vomit.
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PaulT (profile), 15 Mar 2013 @ 4:32am

Re:
The problem is, newspapers like the Express and the Daily Fail aren't "tabloids" in the same way as "red tops" like the Sun, Star or Mirror. The latter, with their bawdy headlines, half naked women and the like don't tend to be taken too seriously - at least when they're not insulting Liverpudlians or launching hate campaigns against innocent people like Chris Jeffries.

The former actually manage to maintain the illusion with many people that they're real journalism, even when they're acting worse than the tabloids. It's been years since I've lived there long enough to get a ground view of things, but the general view when I left was certainly that they're "real" journalism among some crowds. That's definitely worrying given the blatant lies and distortions they get caught with on a regular basis. I hope it's changed, but given the rise in people I seem to be aware of online who repeat their talking points, I doubt it, sadly.
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ECA (profile), 15 Mar 2013 @ 4:43am

HOw many
In the USA 10% of the people participate in The governing..
20% are sheep..
70% either dont know how, DONT care, think its to corrupt,...

The problem tends to be a few...
SMART people that know POLITICS, dont want the job. That leaves those that DO want the job for their OWN PURPOSES..

Difficulty comes with REALLY running things as a democracy...
SHARING KNOWLEDGE..
FINDING TRUTH..
making things WORK..
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Mar 2013 @ 4:54am

Interesting stats. from your rear or actual study ... we may never know.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Mar 2013 @ 4:56am

"rom the politician Paul Nuttall"

Hahaha
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Mar 2013 @ 5:23am

And the answer from the EU: http://www.europarl.org.uk/view/en/media/Euromyths/education.html
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Devils_Advocate (profile), 15 Mar 2013 @ 5:53am

Yeah, but, whose propaganda?
Sometimes, it seems propaganda is the only thing coming at you, from all sides.

You get it from your classic fear-mongering politicians, your sensationalistic gossip press, and of course, your corporate-owned mainstream media.

In this case, it would be important to know exactly WHAT the proposed EU site intends to "educate your children" about, and how. Otherwise, it's anyone's guess as to what propaganda (if any) is being published, and by whom.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Mar 2013 @ 6:37am

Re:
Only morons take tabloids seriously.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Mar 2013 @ 8:22am

The response from the European Parliament's Information Office which The Express declined to mention is too large to post here but it's worth reading in full.

http://tabloid-watch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/we-do-not-normally-find-it-worthwhile.html
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Donglebert the Needlessly Obtuse, 15 Mar 2013 @ 8:55am

Oh the irony
I run the paper purely for the purpose of making propaganda, and with no other motive.

Lord Beaverbrook, 1947, owner of the Daily Express
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Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 15 Mar 2013 @ 9:22am

Re: Re:
Only morons take tabloids seriously.
Perhaps true, but either way there is sadly no shortage of people who do just that in both the UK and the US...
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Mar 2013 @ 10:51am

Re: HOw many
Well said
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Sambo, 15 Mar 2013 @ 1:11pm

unless
"Our children need to be protected from this type of political propaganda because they are vulnerable and easily manipulated.

�

Political propaganda on vulnerable kids is a form of child abuse"

Unless......

You are using a well known newspaper to spread yours!
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SleepyJohn, 17 Mar 2013 @ 4:37pm

Re: Yeah, but, whose propaganda?
"Sometimes, it seems propaganda is the only thing coming at you, from all sides.
You get it from your classic fear-mongering politicians, your sensationalistic gossip press, and of course, your corporate-owned mainstream media."

Not to mention your empire-building political oligarchies, such as the one that plastered my children's UK school with posters deceitfully insinuating that their daily milk was a gift from the bounteous EU. Or the one that fastened deliberately misleading signs and logos on practically every bridge and road in Scotland implying that they were financed by the EU - when said EU had simply contributed a portion, taken out of the taxes they exact from the UK. There are plenty more examples like those.

Don't let contempt for the messenger blind you to the danger in the message. This propaganda paints the EU as your benefactor, when it is actually your master - as the ordinary, thrifty folk of Cyprus are about to discover. And they won't be the last.

Any attempt by the EU to 'educate' your children should be viewed with great concern.
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Tex Arcana (profile), 17 Mar 2013 @ 11:07pm

Wrong title, Glyn...
It should read:, "...brainwash children with propaganda about CORPOROCRATIC principles."

I think that is more correct.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Mar 2013 @ 11:27am

There is nothing democratic in how the EU creates laws or its president is selected since both are done by secret committee. Democracy can't have secret committees making the laws and choosing its leaders, that would be a oligarchy.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Mar 2013 @ 1:36pm

The EU can't "creates laws" and it has never had the power to. Each member state has a choice to ratify any EU suggestions or not
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Jade, 24 Apr 2013 @ 4:56pm

Media Literacy is chiefly concerned with increasing awareness of how the media influences personal choice, filters perceptions and beliefs and shapes popular culture. VoxFemme's campaign is for the introduction of a National Media Literacy Week, spearheaded and supported by government, during which media educators, activists and producers coalesce effort and output to engage young people, children, communities, schools and society in general, in thinking more critically about the content and impact of media and towards being more judicious consumers of media output.
We would like the UK Government to spearhead and support a National Media Literacy week to educate the general population towards more active engagement with media, raise awareness of the impact of media on popular culture and promote more critical media consumption

Please sign and share
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/49014
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