Cut and Paste Society

…Perception management – Actions to convey and/or deny selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning as well as to intelligence systems and leaders at all levels to influence official estimates, ultimately resulting in foreign behaviors and official actions favorable to the originator’s objectives. In various ways, perception management combines truth projection, operations security, cover and deception, and psychological operations…”

U.S. Department of Defence

I’ve just finished reading a fascinating novel that dealt, in the extreme, with perception management, a distant and dubious relative of public relations.

Perception Management is a form of communication that involves taking a completely false position and presenting it as the truth. In the novel, the fictional Chinese and Russian Governments are brought to the brink of war by the manipulation of a corrupt arms dealer on the basis that such brinkmanship will see both parties placing vast arms orders.

Of course that is fiction but in fact, perception is a highly flexible commodity and communicators need to be highly ethical in the way they seek to influence.

Watching Britain’s Got Talent I am struck by the power of TV editors and how they can influence perception. Watch the credits to see how many people are deployed to undertake this task. The edited sequence shows an eminent judge pronouncing that “this is the most important day of his life, it is make or break for his career” and then the contestant saying “I don’t know what I will do if I lose, it will be the end of the road.” Now forgive me for believing that a ventriloquist act might just survive such an ordeal and whilst the arena tour will be no more, the social club circuit might just still be wiling to pay a few pounds for such an act to see another day.

Maybe comparing the seriously devious military definition of perception management with a talent show is a bit misleading but Bodyproject believes that all communication is about upholding reputation and therefore it has to be explicitly honest, ethical and that modern day editors need to ensure they present output within those absolute values.

Please contact us to learn more about the Bodyproject approach to communications.

What not to say!

“…Never promote yourself at Another’s expense…”

Line from a humanist code of ethics by Arthur Dobrin

Communicators are often faced with ethical dilemmas. Indeed there are many who trade in promoting products and services and pedalling messages that are dubious in the least. Of course the judgement is often down to personal values and probably influenced by multiple considerations.

I was confronted by such an ethical dilemma this week. A man seeking advice through a network I subscribe to requested advice related to key messaging.

In his home country of Kenya it is commonplace for voters to be paid to vote for one of the parties. He wanted to run a key message that encouraged people to take the money but to vote for the opposite party.

For my part, I declined to offer advice actually saying that I felt that no professional communicator could participate in such an exercise and that free democracy could not be exercised by righting a wrong with a wrong.
Interestingly his question on a discussion forum has drawn very little response when normally the forums are very healthy full of contributions and debate. This leads me to think that communicators are constantly struggling with their personal ethics in relation to the messages they deliver.

The recent public flagellation in British politics has shown that corruption is a many-headed beast but I cannot and will not overstep a line – and that line is my personal values. These are values that I am privileged, as a company owner, to be able to deliver as an individual and as a business. I also think it is imperative that all communicators operate to highest ethical and moral standards.

Netanyahu ‘asked Pope to condemn Iran’

Israel’s right-wing new Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, says he has asked Pope Benedict to condemn Iranian threats to destroy his country.

He said he had asked the Pope in Nazareth to speak out against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called for Israel’s destruction.

Mr Netanyahu gave details of their conversation to Israeli TV.

He was also quoted by press as saying Israel did not want a Palestinian state which might jeopardise its security.

Pope Benedict has repeatedly called for a separate Palestinian state during his tour of the Holy Land, most vocally when he met Palestinian refugees on Wednesday in Bethlehem.

Mr Netanyahu has not committed himself to the principle of two states, which past Israeli leaders have accepted.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev Federico Lombardi, said only that Thursday’s talks had “centred on how the peace process can be advanced”.

‘Make your voice loud’

“I asked him, as a moral figure, to make his voice heard loud and continuously against the declarations coming from Iran of their intention to destroy Israel,” Mr Netanyahu said on TV.

POPE IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Monday Arrives in Israel, meets President Shimon Peres
Tuesday Visits the Dome of the Rock and the Western Wall. Celebrates Holy Mass in Josaphat Valley
Wednesday Visits Bethlehem, visits refugees, meets Mahmoud Abbas
Thursday Mass in Nazareth, talks with Benjamin Netanyahu, meets Franciscans
Friday Meets Orthodox Christian leaders, departs

Itinerary: Israel and West Bank
Guide: Jerusalem’s holy sites
In pictures: Pope in Nazareth

“I told him it cannot be that at the beginning of the 21st Century there is a state which says it is going to destroy the Jewish state, there is no aggressive voice being heard condemning this.”

Israel’s prime minister said he was pleased with the Pope’s response: “He said that he condemns all instances of anti-Semitism and hate against the state of Israel – against humanity as a whole, but in this case against Israel.”

Mr Netanyahu reportedly added that Israel wanted peace with the Palestinians but “only the kind of peace that brings security”.

“We don’t want to dominate another people, but we also don’t want a terror state backed by Iran to rise alongside us and jeopardize Israel’s safety,” he was quoted as saying by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

Mr Netanyahu’s election this year was ill-received in the Arab world because of his hard-line views, including his opposition to returning land captured in wars.

Mr Netanyahu is due in Washington on 18 May for what are being seen as crucial talks with President Barack Obama.

‘Legitimate aspirations’

In Bethlehem on Wednesday, the Pope delivered what correspondents say was one of his strongest expressions of support for the Palestinians, offering his backing for Palestinians’ right to a “homeland”.

The Pope celebrates Mass in Nazareth

He told Palestinian refugees his heart went out to families divided by detention and restrictions on freedom of movement, a reference to Israeli military control of the West Bank.

“It is understandable that you often feel frustrated,” the pontiff said.

“Your legitimate aspirations for permanent homes, for an independent Palestinian state, remain unfulfilled.”

Pope Benedict said the largest Mass of his Holy Land tour in Nazareth on Thursday.

He preached against prejudice and hatred “which kills men’s souls before it kills their bodies”.

At least 40,000 Christians, among them many Arabs, attended the service in the northern Israeli town where Jesus is said to have grown up.

Polish priest publishes sex guide

A Polish Catholic priest has published a book which provides married couples with a theological and practical guide to spicing up their sex lives.

In his book, Sex as you don’t know it: for married couples who love God, Father Ksawery Knotz aims to sweep away the strait-laced attitudes many hold.

Sex in marriage, the Franciscan friar explains, should not be boring but “saucy, surprising and fantasy packed”.

The book, which has the backing of the Polish Catholic Church, has been a hit.

The Sw. Pawel publishing house has ordered a reprint after Poles snapped up the first 5,000 copies within weeks of them going on sale.

‘Sought-after caresses’

In the book that has been dubbed the “Catholic Kama Sutra”, Father Knotz goes into graphic detail about a subject many in the Church consider taboo.

Some people [think married sex] has to be sad like a traditional church hymn
Father Ksawery Knotz

“Some people, when they hear about the holiness of married sex, immediately imagine that such sex has to be deprived of joy, frivolous play, fantasy and attractive positions,” he writes.

“[They think] it has to be sad like a traditional church hymn.

“Every act – a type of caress, a sexual position – with the goal of arousal is permitted and pleases God. During sexual intercourse, married couples can show their love in every way, can offer one another the most sought-after caresses.”

Father Knotz believes sex is an important way for a husband and wife to express their love and grow closer to God.

“Married couples celebrate their sacrament, their life with Christ also during sex,” he writes.

“Calling sex a celebration of the marriage sacrament raises its dignity in an exceptional way. Such a statement shocks people who learned to look at sexuality in a bad way. It is difficult for them to understand that God is also interested in their happy sex life and in this way gives them his gift.”

But Father Knotz stresses the book does not differ from the Church’s view on sex. He discourages the use of contraceptives, saying they “lead a married couple outside of Catholic culture and into a completely different lifestyle”.

He also dismisses those that have questioned the competency of a celibate monk to write about sex, saying his experience comes from counselling married couples and from running a website giving sexual advice for almost a year.

Israel’s Katsav rape trial opens

The trial of former Israeli President Moshe Katsav, accused of rape and a series of sexual offences, has been adjourned until September.

Mr Katsav vowed to prove his innocence as he arrived at the court in Tel Aviv for the trial’s opening.

The charges relate to accusations by several female employees who worked for Mr Katsav while he was tourism minister and, later, president.

If convicted of rape charges he could face up to 16 years in jail.

Mr Katsav, who resigned from the presidency in 2007, would become Israel’s first head of state to be convicted of sex offences.

Postponed

The court agreed to a defence team request to postpone for 30 days the submission of its detailed written response to all the charges facing Mr Katsav.

The judge also ruled that the trial should re-open on 1 September.

Mr Katsav arrived at the court on Thursday in a defiant mood.

“We are starting today a tough and long struggle to clear my name and I promise once again that I will emerge innocent,” he told reporters.

Mr Katsav called off a plea bargain in 2008 that would have seen him plead guilty to sexual misconduct but avoid more serious charges, saying that he would stand trial in order to clear his name

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