By Sadeen Fayad and Sarah Sabra | Staff Writers
The PSPA Society devised the “Political Communications discussion” event to answer the question “How to properly communicate a reformist political agenda to the public before elections”. A panel of important figures in the field of politics and media were present. Dr. Michel Douaihy, a professor of Political science in AUB and a candidate for 2022 elections in North Lebanon Zgharta, and Suzanne Houssari, the Communications manager at the Issam Fares Institute.
Politics
Dr. Michel Douaihy provided a brief overview of his experience as a member of “Shamaluna” and as a candidate. “Shamaluna” is a politically independent alliance of different geographic areas in North Lebanon, making it more likely to succeed in the elections since the areas belong to the same constituency. This coalition was intendedly established independently without any cooperation from other political figures because it aims to face traditional political parties that have been ruling for over 30 years. He focused on dealing with politics in a different light and understanding that a variety of opinions helps people who are voting understand and acquire new ideologies. He went against the idea of being called the “Civil society” and wanting to be seen as a political group with a political plan and a political ideology.
Dr. Douaihy went on to talk about power dynamics; he stated that we as people need to return the power and political decisions to our hands, and “Shamaluna” did that by the creation of primary elections for the first time in the history of Lebanese elections, which threatened a lot of political groups, by making people who support different political parties wonder about political accountability and clarity. In addition, this emphasized on the idea of people having individual decisions rather than submitting to decisions of political groups .
Media
Ms. Suzanne Houssari emphasized on the fact that the Lebanese media is similar to any governmental institution that suffers from clientelism. After the Lebanese civil war, press laws were amended in a manner that limits the establishment of any new television channels amid a very complex bureaucratic process of acquiring the needed license. This has led to the media being controlled by a political elite that cover certain issues that only benefit the ruling class. New media such as social media is playing a huge role in investigative journalism and gives a cheap yet effective platform to communicate agendas of politically independent groups, such as Shamaluna. However, television channels still play a crucial role in diffusing political content to citizens. The main evidence to that was the October 17 2019 revolution that was manipulated by the media through portraying selective factions of protestors that might not represent the whole country’s demands.
Dr. Douaihy took a lead in the discussion to add that independent groups have been struggling to voice out their agendas amid lack of financial support and the mental influence of mass media on citizens. Traditional media aims to depress citizens through indirect intimidation that makes change seem almost impossible, which is false. Media channels use statistical methods such as polling which is inaccurate since silent voters, people who don’t voice out their political opinion yet are willing to change the system, exist. In addition, there has been a shift in people’s political opinion, where even citizens that are affiliated with traditional political parties started asking for accountability. This serves as a transitional period that is needed for political reform.
Change does not happen immediately, it is a process that “might take more than 10 years”. This event highlighted the importance of voting and underlined the negative effect of the white paper vote, which decreases the chances of independent groups being able to cause change.