 Drama: May 10, 2017 Issue [#8281] |
  Drama
This week: Drama, Politics and Words Edited by: Kitti the Red-Nosed Feline  
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Politics may not be fun, but it matters. Everyone's impacted by it, even your characters. And a lot of politics is words. Powerful words.
This week's Drama Newsletter, then, is all about how words can affect people, and nations.
Kitti the Red-Nosed Feline |
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Words have power. We all know that. They inform. They stir people’s emotions, for better or for worse. As writers, we employ this power to make our pieces stand out. To create an impact. Of course, it’s not just us poets, story writers, novelists and essayists who utilise this power. The media do so, too. And those who write speeches for politicians are, often, masters at word manipulation.
If, then, you are writing a story with a political element, it’s good to have a look at how, exactly, words can have an impact on voting behaviour. How skilled politicians can trigger certain sentiments amongst the wider population. How people can be made to believe the unbelievable, made to do things they would never have believed they would be willing to do, and feel loyalty when they should run a mile. It’s too easy to write off those who vote in certain ways as ignorant and uneducated. History shows that people from all walks of life and from any level of education can be lured into misplaced faith.
One example of the way in which politicians build support for potentially controversial legislation is to use repetition and create availability heuristics. An availability heuristic is a mental shortcut that brings images and thoughts to mind when people are confronted with certain words, topics, ideas or concepts. Take climate change. When seeing those words, pictures of melting ice caps and polar bears will spring into the minds of many people. Why? Those were the images frequently used when the issue was brought to their attention. Now, let’s take another issue, like unemployment. Here in the UK, certain politicians and media outlets have done their very best to link the unemployed with being unskilled, lazy, scroungers, leeches, and it’s worked enough for plenty of people to accept increasing cuts to government support for the unemployed. This is being passed on to people who are unemployed because of disabilities and health problems – they are seen as potential fraudsters who are “putting it on” and again, increasing cuts in support for people with disabilities and health problems have failed to stir much of an outrage. It has helped, of course, when being employed = hardworking taxpayer = those who are doing the right thing.
Immigrant = stealing our jobs and claiming our benefits. Immigrants who aren’t of the pale, blue-eyed and blonde-haired variety = potential terrorist. And so on. Of course, when felt necessary, symbolism is brought into play. The flag. Whatever images are closely associated with one’s nation - the eagle is such an example of people in the US. These stir up national pride and loyalty. You’ll see these images a lot when conflict is looming.
And it may not always register. I didn’t notice a lot of it until I began my degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics. Now that I am less than a month away from completion, I can listen to speeches, analyse the sound bites and the spin, and still it’s difficult to avoid buying into this promise and that lie. If I sound bitter, it’s because part of studying politics is looking at history and seeing similar patterns emerge again and again, as even the idea of power does strange things to people.
Drama writers can use that – politics certainly is riddled with drama and the impact it has on society is dramatic. It includes and excludes. Sometimes it targets. It can cost lives and save lives. It unites and divides.
Politics is everywhere, from the moment we get up until when we finally get some sleep. Daylight saving times? Politics. Breakfast? Food standards agency. The clothes you wear? Where were they made? Do you know? What are the employment rights of the people who made them? You go out of the door and the state of the road is politics. Traffic lights. Seatbelts. You go to school, or you go to your job, and there’s lots of politics there, from your own rights, to the curriculum, to business regulations. Or maybe you are out of a job right now, or suffering from mental and/or physical health problems and how the state treats you is obviously down to politics. You get home, and you chill in front of the television, and you’re exposed to politics. You come online and in countries like mine you have to worry about all your data being collected, constantly, because of politics. And so it goes on. You cannot escape it. So, what impact does politics have on you and your characters?
Whether it plays a huge part or is lingering in the background, if you have some idea of how it works – and most people do – you can use it to great effect.
It may not always be fun to study, but I would say that it’s an ingredient to consider when pondering what to write.
Kitti the Red-Nosed Feline
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