People are rightly concerned about misinformation spreading throughout community which blames fire crisis on fire bugs and decrease in back burning and hazard reduction. Here are tips for countering these conspiracy theories in conversations with friends and family. A thread👇🏻
Firstly, it’s very possible these theories are not only the result of Murdoch media lies in concert with climate denier Lib Nat MPs. It’s possible, actually likely, there is a paid social media sock puppet campaign, ironically, setting fire to spread lies for political reasons.
Either way, countering them is important. If Australia is going to respond to this crisis, we need everyone on board with real reasons it has occurred, ready to put pressure on Morrison to take meaningful action to reduce the threat in the future. Lies stop that happening.
First thing is this misinformation is readily accepted in the community because it is comforting. Many people have denied climate change for a decade because it horrifies them. People protect themselves by rejecting scary information. Fire bugs isn’t as scary as climate change.
Second thing is people reject information that threatens their world view. Imagine you had voted Lib Nat your whole life - like many in regional areas - and suddenly you were told these guys you trusted had let you down. Your home and family is at risk because of how you voted.
People will go to great lengths to avoid accepting that information. So it bounces off. Climate change is the domain of their political rivals - so they need to maintain that villain, rejecting that they indeed have elected villains. It is no coincidence that Greens are blamed.
Right wing voters also tend to be more focused on national security and crime from the perspective that there are ‘bad people’ who need to be punished to make them good. That’s where fire bugs come in. Fire bugs are a much easier concept for them to blame than a burning coal.
It’s also important to note that coal communities absolutely don’t want to hear how coal mining has contributed to the drought and bushfire crisis. Imagine if you were told your livelihood was the reason the country was on fire? You would clutch at any straw to avoid that.
My study of narratives have shown me that people only accept information that fits with their existing narratives and reject info that doesn’t. So, we can’t convince people who are ideologically opposed to the environment movement to suddenly become conservationists. Won’t happen
Instead of swimming against their narrative tide, you need to swim with it. Counter narratives work when they undermine the dominant ideas in the existing narrative rather than chipping away around the edge. So how do we convince community by undermining narrative from inside?
That job has already started with community conversation about leadership and whether Morrison is doing enough to protect people. His holiday blew up his own narrative by undermining his legitimacy as a leader. This legitimacy is damaged - now it’s time to undermine it further.
We do this by explaining to the fire bug crowd that Morrison is failing to protect them in their time of need. Don’t mention climate change. Just talk about the results of climate change. Drought. Bush fires. This is our new reality - people can see that for themselves.
Again, right wing voters are already focused on protection and leadership - national security and crime. So, when you say to them ‘Morrison is failing to lead the nation through a crisis and isn’t protecting the community from the result of drought and bush fires’ that resonates.
There’s no need to talk about climate change science, to try to correct the back burning lies, to give stats about fire bugs. These people are scared and are looking to protect themselves, so point out to Morrison that he’s failed to do this.
By undermining Morrison, you get climate change action without mentioning climate change. How? Once he has been completely delegitimised as a leader, he loses the next election and we get climate change action.
Morrison and the Lib Nats are never going to take the action needed - they will spin and dodge to pretend they are, but their worldviews and relationship with mining interests mean they will continue to reject the need to do anything meaningful.
The left need to get better at getting what we want by countering right wing narratives from within those stories, rather than from outside. I hope this info was helpful - give it a go and let me know if you get a good result. End.
