Pearls and Irritations

We live in an era of communicative abundance and post-truth politics, where networked digital platforms shape nearly every aspect of our daily lives, from information and communication to economic and social transactions. Digital platforms have transformed truth-claiming and fact-checking into an emotionally driven process, blurring the boundaries between information and misinformation, as well as opinion and news.

This phenomenon can be illustrated by the persuasion battle between the Yes and No campaigners during the Indigenous Voice to Parliament Referendum in Australia (hereafter referred to as “the Voice”) from September to October 2023. Rather than making a general comment, I focused on Chinese Australians and their engagement with social media as a tool for persuasion. I use this case to demonstrate how opinions and discourses are often presented as information and facts in efforts to persuade. To win such a campaign, one must understand how to appeal to and channel emotions effectively.

The Voice was a failed attempt to amend the Australian Constitution to recognise and enable Indigenous Australians to make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government on matters affecting them. Public debate around the referendum intensified in September and early October 2023, becoming highly politicised and characterised by a “grey zone” of information that challenges what is considered misinformation or disinformation. Through newly created accounts, paid advertisements, or endorsements by celebrities and opinion leaders on social media platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok, it became easier and cheaper to “subdue the enemy without fighting” (as Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese military strategist and philosopher, put it), by propagating information—and misinformation—to persuade or confuse people.

Like other communities, Chinese Australians were actively involved in public discussions on the Voice referendum across various social media platforms. Comments and screenshots were shared across international platforms and major Chinese-language platforms, most notably WeChat and Little Red Book. As observed elsewhere, the Yes campaigners appealed to people’s rational capacity by evoking themes of “recognition, listening, and better results.” Led by some prominent Chinese community leaders, they shared information and commentaries in various chat groups and channels to support Indigenous Australians in the name of solidarity and inclusion.

On the other hand, the No campaigners appealed to emotion, playing on people’s fear of change with slogans like “If you don’t know, vote no.” They also tapped into fears of reverse racism, as argued by the conservative lobbying group Fair Australia, which claimed that the Voice would “divide Australians by race” and conceal a “hidden” agenda. The No campaigners criticised the Yes campaigners for being naïve, idealistic, and morally superior. They also accused their opponents of spreading misinformation or being victims of it.

The term “misinformation” is often used to dismiss others. One Unsure-turned-No voter told me that the pivotal moment in his decision came when a leading Chinese Yes campaigner told him to “do your fact-checking” on a fear-mongering post by No campaigners about the potential racial hierarchy (with Asians at the bottom) that the Voice could bring about. He forwarded the No campaign’s post to the Yes campaigner and asked for their view. Instead of using the opportunity to persuade, the Yes campaigner appeared disengaged and dismissive. But what facts, and whose facts? —asked the Unsure voter, representing the silent majority. In the Voice debate, both the Yes and No campaigns used the “misinformation” label to silence opponents. Both camps urged people to do fact-checking. The problem is that when opinions are dressed up as discourses, and those discourses are dressed up as information, “facts” and “truth” can become fuzzy and lost in between.

In the age of fake news, misinformation, conspiracy theories, and information abundance, we lose basic trust and orientation; we become emotional beings. Powered by big-data-driven digital technologies, networked communication enables the production and reproduction of post-truths across time and space barriers, “so that the raw material of lies, bullshit, buffoonery, and silence produced by gaslighters develops long global legs” (as John Keane puts it). In the era of post-truth communication, “truth” and “misinformation” are multiple and mutable. Information does not explain the world or persuade by itself, and “reality” becomes a matter of interpretation, dominated by opinions and emotions—especially when there is a breakdown of social trust in established institutions like journalism, academia, and government. Confronted with a deluge of information or facts, one tends to question and suspect. Conspiracy theories thrive in post-truth communication, resisting attempts at fact-checking.

The Voice failed, but Australia’s multicultural communities became better educated on Indigenous issues through the process. The persuasion battle observed on WeChat and Little Red Book did not make Chinese Australians pariahs in the realm of politics. Similar campaigns to persuade occurred on all major social media platforms, resulting in an overflow of information and emotions. There were also unpleasant moments when emotions ran out of control and morphed into personal attacks.

Australians have engaged in a national reflection on why the Voice Referendum failed, including proposing six key factors, among others. Politics is a power game, and power lies in winning the campaign to persuade through the discursive orientation of emotions, rather than simply by telling one’s truth or facts. Information and facts alone do not have the power to persuade or provide orientation. Those who can manipulate human emotions and use the next frontier for communication to do so will have a better chance of winning the campaign to persuade.

Share and Enjoy !

SHARE TWEET SHARE COPY EMAIL PRINT