Last week, Alan Jones made some comments which the vast majority of
people, including myself, found to be in very poor taste. Speaking
at a Young Liberal's function in Sydney, Jones claimed
"The old man recently died a few weeks ago of shame. To think that he had a daughter who told lies every time she stood for parliament."
Putting aside the hateful and derogatory nature of the comments, what I'm interested most in is the after-math. In particular, the wave of anger that swept from the social community towards Alan Jones and 2GB. No quicker had the comments been revealed, #boycott2GB and #sackalanjones were trending Australia wide on Twitter. As of 3:30pm EST, the Sack Alan Jones facebook group had 6,721 likes.
As Mercedes-Benz joined a long line of sponsors pulling out of their commitment to Jones' show, the question remains: Would companies like Mercedes, make the same decision if not for the impact social media has had on the incident? I'd argue 'no', for a few reasons.
A) Perception is everything. Associations between sponsor and brand have never meant more and when the calibre of an esteemed organisation such as Mercedes is being called into question, they have to act.
B) A multiple of social media platforms is fantastic when things are going well, but in times of crisis they amplify the issue to the point where something has to give. Criticism was being leveled at Jones, 2GB and the show's sponsors from all angles. It was only a matter of time before they relented to public pressure and discontinued their financial support. In the past, newspapers and news bulletins may run with the story for a day or so, but presently, the backlash has almost trumped the incident. When news organisations start reporting on the groundswell of social media anger, then all parties concerned are in danger.
C) Clearly, the most important point in all of this is that the incident would never have made front page news if not for the advancements in portable technologies, such as recorders on phones. Yes, recording devices were present decades ago, but they weren't as compact, indistinguishable and finely tuned as they are today. Coupled with the fact that the clip can then be uploaded to YouTube for all to see, means a private setting is rarely that.
This is clearly a huge story which shows no signs of abating, perhaps Jones will be sacked within the coming days, but at this point its only speculation. How do you think a scandal like this would be handled 30 years ago? Would this be a scandal at all? Comment and let me know!
Thank you for the interesting post. I completely agree with the points you made. We are seeing time and time again that no matter what you do in this digital age, nothing goes unnoticed. Even with the Charlotte Dawson incident and others similar to it, everyone now has an opportunity to voice their discontent, opinions and thoughts. It will be interesting to see what happens on the coming days.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment Lisa. It seems Jones' apology wasn't seen as genuine enough, and the social media community has risen again to demand he apologise on air and in a respectable manner. Until he relents, it seems as if he won't exit the public discourse. Maybe this is a strategy. Maybe he's trying to keep himself in the news. I guess thats what a shock-jock aims for anyway.
DeleteGreat post. I completely agree that the progress of technology has forced everybody into the public sphere. However, that being said it is interesting that 'shock-jocks' such as Alan Jones have not yet realised that comments they make will have an impact, after all it is what radio stations want.
ReplyDeleteI think the difference between now and 30 years ago, is the repeatability of comments such as this throughout all aspects of our life...not just through social media, but even mainstream media. Our lives have become more visual and more centred around audio content, and new technologies have developed in order to facilitate this trend, and therefore make such comments more accessible. Although I think it is a very good point, that the age of social media has more easily enabled people to publicly voice their discontent...maybe 30 years ago this would have been slower and implemented through letters to the editor, or calls to talk-back radio.
Yeah, exactly. It gets you thinking what kind of things would have been said 30 years ago, in 'private settings', that never made the light of day. The sooner public figures realise that the concept of being 'off-the-record' is diminishing, the quicker they avoid such scandals.
ReplyDeleteRepeatability is a key issue, because the media seems to feed off the public's response. With a platform like Twitter, there is a quantifiable dimension to what is being said. 2GB can monitor what is said about them online to the absolute second. And when people online catch a hint of a scandal, the chance of it going viral increases dramatically.
I like the subject you raise max; to the point and insightful - nothing falls on deaf ears. The sponsors in my opinion acted correctly, they cannot be associated with someone who is being publicly scrutinised. It'll be interesting to see the 2gb ratings at the end of the month.
ReplyDeleteAs of this morning, the whole Alan Jones featured no advertisors. Is this a win for consumers? Or do we just get more of Jones? I guess the option is always there to just tune out!
ReplyDelete