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Whew. I just spent an hour listening to one of Australia's top Right Wing shock jocks.
It's part of a campaign to listen to his program, note down his advertisers, and then contact them and remind them that a fortnight ago, he recommended Australia's (male) Prime Minister "sock it to" New Zealand's (female) Prime Minister for speaking up in criticism of Australia's lack of movement towards ending the absolute reign of coalfired power stations at a conference of South Pacific/Oceania nations.
It's not the first time his language has been calculated to incite, and it won't be the last. But he's still employed, still listened to, still lionised by conservative groups. A simple message for simple minds who want the whitewashed 'old days' back when everything was good and there was none of this modern complexity.
I listened and noted down advertisers for an hour and a half - 7:30am-9am. The list is rather less than it was a week ago. Being politely contacted by the members of a FB group with over 50K of followers and asked why they support a guy whose language promotes violence against women tends to make advertising with him somewhat less attractive. And so far over 70 companies have indicated they won't be advertising with him, which is a good start. There are still quite a few that are advertising, though - I got 27 whose adverts were played, and 5 whose adverts were read out by Jones himself. There were some charities that were mentioned or advertised and some one-off shows at various local clubs, but those aren't
What interests me more than the advertisers, though, is the persistent dogwhistling, complete with 'keywords' that doubtless have been built-up over the last few decades he's been on the air: rants against the Greens political party, and any politician with connections to them, emphasis on Labor and their present investigation by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) for money that might have come through Chinese investors - and the term Chinese and Chinese investors is again one of those dogwhistles presently very popular in conservative media. The idea of 'taxpayer money' going to things that his listeners don't like was huge - also, multiple callbacks to the idea of bludgers and public servants and welfare queens being the ones who are causing trouble for 'hardworking Australians'.
There was a lot of "we absolutely believe that people have the right to xxxx" (specifically: be transgender, or protest peacefully) but the caveat tended to be "but only under certain conditions that maintain the current status quo". It's a really effective way of saying "sure, you can be whatever, but only in the spaces that we allow you to be in" which gives people the idea that you're on their side, but only so long as they don't inconvenience/discomfort you.
I listened to 15 minutes of the next program - the radio anchor is not a 'shock jock' per se, but in the short span of time which I listened, he repeated a couple of the talking points and I have no doubt that had I listened longer, he'd have gone through them all.
Basically, the Dogwhistle is strong with this radio channel...
It's part of a campaign to listen to his program, note down his advertisers, and then contact them and remind them that a fortnight ago, he recommended Australia's (male) Prime Minister "sock it to" New Zealand's (female) Prime Minister for speaking up in criticism of Australia's lack of movement towards ending the absolute reign of coalfired power stations at a conference of South Pacific/Oceania nations.
It's not the first time his language has been calculated to incite, and it won't be the last. But he's still employed, still listened to, still lionised by conservative groups. A simple message for simple minds who want the whitewashed 'old days' back when everything was good and there was none of this modern complexity.
I listened and noted down advertisers for an hour and a half - 7:30am-9am. The list is rather less than it was a week ago. Being politely contacted by the members of a FB group with over 50K of followers and asked why they support a guy whose language promotes violence against women tends to make advertising with him somewhat less attractive. And so far over 70 companies have indicated they won't be advertising with him, which is a good start. There are still quite a few that are advertising, though - I got 27 whose adverts were played, and 5 whose adverts were read out by Jones himself. There were some charities that were mentioned or advertised and some one-off shows at various local clubs, but those aren't
What interests me more than the advertisers, though, is the persistent dogwhistling, complete with 'keywords' that doubtless have been built-up over the last few decades he's been on the air: rants against the Greens political party, and any politician with connections to them, emphasis on Labor and their present investigation by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) for money that might have come through Chinese investors - and the term Chinese and Chinese investors is again one of those dogwhistles presently very popular in conservative media. The idea of 'taxpayer money' going to things that his listeners don't like was huge - also, multiple callbacks to the idea of bludgers and public servants and welfare queens being the ones who are causing trouble for 'hardworking Australians'.
There was a lot of "we absolutely believe that people have the right to xxxx" (specifically: be transgender, or protest peacefully) but the caveat tended to be "but only under certain conditions that maintain the current status quo". It's a really effective way of saying "sure, you can be whatever, but only in the spaces that we allow you to be in" which gives people the idea that you're on their side, but only so long as they don't inconvenience/discomfort you.
I listened to 15 minutes of the next program - the radio anchor is not a 'shock jock' per se, but in the short span of time which I listened, he repeated a couple of the talking points and I have no doubt that had I listened longer, he'd have gone through them all.
Basically, the Dogwhistle is strong with this radio channel...
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