Diskussionsbeiträge der Projektgruppe Friedensforschung Konstanz, Nr. 53, 2004

7 Manipulative propaganda techniques
7.2 Double-bind communication

    Defining properties:
    1Inherent contradictions
    2Emotional involvement with both contradictory messages

War culture is based on fundamental contradictions. First of all, there is the contradiction between beliefs about security to be achieved by enduring conflict and confronting the enemy and beliefs about peace as the ultimate desire of society. Second, there is the immanent contradiction on which lasting conflict is based. It stimulates society members' fighting spirit by portraying an enemy who seems sufficiently dangerous and inhumane, and at the same time, sufficiently weak and fallible that the public does not lose heart, remains certain of victory, and is not frightened by the prospect of possible defeat.

A war culture thus forces the members of a society into a permanent double-bind situation where they have to cope with contradictory messages. They are given no chance to either react to both of the messages, or to withdraw from the situation.

As a result of emotional involvement with both contradictory messages, it becomes extremely difficult to question either of them. If societal members have no access to independent information, they have no alternatives other than to believe the conclusions they are given by the media or to withdraw into selective indifference, prejudice or evasive skepticism, etc. All these are consequences that serve the goals of psychological warfare by paralyzing the capacity for resistance to war. Double-bind communication results in emotional confusion. And, as the audience will long for a way out, it will be prepared to adopt any conclusion that is offered.

From an analytical point of view, double-bind communication involves three aspects, which can be demonstrated with an article from The Times, January 22, 1991, reporting about Allied pilots shot down during the Gulf War and paraded on Iraqi television (cf. Kempf, Reimann & Luostarinen, 1996).

First: Double-bind communication presents two contradictory messages, both of which call for an adequate reaction by the audience. In the present article these messages arouse both fear and hope: On the one hand, "Iraq threats to use prisoners of war as human shields," and, on the other hand, there is the promise "that captured Allied airmen had nothing to fear from the Iraqis."

Second: By the presentation of incentives for social identification with the respective sources, the trustworthiness of both contradictory messages is established. In the present article, a threat is linked to the fears, sorrow and comments of the POWs' relatives and friends; hope is linked to a "former British hostage in Iraq," described as a 59-year-old marine biologist. All of them are depicted in detail, and there is a comprehensive and easily understandable presentation of their views.
At the same time, these incentives for identification produce social commitment to both sources. Questioning the threat would seem to imply a lack of loyalty to innocent civilians, whose sons and friends are in the hands of an unscrupulous dictator, and who call for compassion on the side of the audience. Questioning the hope would look like questioning the competence of an intellectual authority ("a marine biologist"), who, moreover, has experienced what it means to be a hostage in Iraq, and last but not least, who should consequently be honored as a British hero.

Third: This double offer of social identification leaves the reader helplessly torn between contradictory messages, both of which are trustworthy and none of which can be rejected without violating social commitments. Thus lacking any rational or emotional basis for drawing his own conclusions, the only way out of his dilemma would be to accept the conclusions offered by propaganda, whether logical or not. In the present article, these conclusions are to share the outrage at Saddam Hussein with the friends and relatives of "our" POWs and to support the continuation of air raids against Baghdad, whatever the consequences for the POWs might be.

Though double-bind communication is an important propaganda tool, it is not used routinely, but only when the inherent contradictions of war culture become visible and propaganda has the task to obscure them.

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