IAMCR 2013 CONFERENCEEmerging Scholars Network

PR, positioning & a carbon tax: applying a new conceptualframework to the analysis of polarised political positions

Deborah WiseSchool of Design, Communication and IT

University of NewcastleCallaghan NSW 2308

Australia

Abstract

This paper examines the role of public relations in constructing mediated forms of communication. Specifically it looks at the useof the social media site, YouTube, by the Australian Government and the Opposition to position the introduction of a carbon price. The study applied James’ public relations positioning framework as a method for conducting a positioning discourse analysis of these texts. It was found that both parties used YouTube to support their positions that a carbon price was good for Australia (Government), or bad for Australia (Opposition). The Government’s supporting storylines were embedded in visionarydiscourses that centred on the financial opportunities that the scheme would offer in terms of new energy technologies. Contrastingly the Opposition’s storylines were embedded in fear discourses that played into community concerns about the global financial crisis, with the crisis used as a rationale for not introducing a carbon tax. These storylines/positions were strongly supported by visual communication, with both Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, self-positioning as authority figures. The Opposition position oftying the carbon tax to the GFC was hugely successful - numerous polls indicating that if an election had been held the Oppositionwould have won convincingly, with a mandate to repeal any carbon price legislation. This project is a work in progress and is

original in that it brings together the complexities inherent in positioning theory and overlays them with public relations perspectives. Research undertaken to date suggests that using thepositioning framework approach to conduct a discourse analysis demonstrates the dynamism of positioning efforts of both sides ina debate, as they each seek to strengthen their own position while destabilising the opposition’s position. From a public relations /strategic communication theoretical perspective, the framework offers a hybrid method of mapping the discourses used in public policy debates, and for conducting a discourse analysisof public relations texts.

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Introduction

Australia has the highest per capita carbon emissions in the OECD

and is one of the highest carbon emitting countries in the world

(Garnaut, 2008). This dubious distinction, together with the

increasing unanimity by governments around the world that action

on climate change is a real and pressing issue, has led to the

two major Australian political parties agreeing that Australia

should reduce its carbon emissions by 5 per cent by 2020.

Nevertheless, despite their apparent bi-partisan agreement, how

to achieve this commitment has been, and remains, a highly

contested political issue.

The dispute over climate change policies came to a head when, in

“the world’s first climate change election” (Burgmann & Baer,

2010), both the Australian Labor Party (ALP) opposition leader,

Kevin Rudd, and the Liberal National Coalition Opposition Prime

Minister, John Howard, took a carbon emissions trading scheme

(ETS) to the electorate at the 2007 Australian Federal election.

Although it was Rudd who (arguably) copied Howard’s election

policy pledge, it was Rudd’s positioning of the ALP as the party

of reform “willing to take climate change seriously…and to place

global interests above short-term national ones” (Macintosh,

Wilkinson, & Dennis, 2010) that captured the electorate’s

imagination. This narrative was not only influential in providing

Labor with a convincing win (and bringing with it an end to

eleven years of conservative government), it also gave the ALP a

clear mandate to act on climate change. Despite this, and since

that time, numerous polls indicate that support for an ETS has

steadily declined, and moreover this trend accelerated when the

current ALP Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, announced her decision

to introduce a carbon pricing scheme to commence in July 2012.

Currently there is little research that explicates why this

dramatic shift in public opinion over action on climate change

has occurred. This paper seeks to contribute to the emerging

literature on this phenomenon.

Aims and objectives

This paper is set against this contextual backdrop of

contemporary Australian politics and examines the use of the

social media video sharing website ‘YouTube’ by the ALP

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Government and the Opposition to position the introduction of an

Australian carbon price or tax. This paper also reports on the

use of the conceptual framework for intentional positioning in

public relations (James, 2010, 2011a; Wise & James, in press) as

a method to guide a discourse analysis of strategic positioning

tactics. It is argued that analysis of this phenomenon using the

positioning framework will provide a better understanding of why

some political communication campaigns and supporting discourses

gain greater traction over others. The study is guided by the

following over-arching research questions:

RQ1 How was a carbon price/tax positioned by Gillard and

Abbott?

RQ2 How was the social media video-sharing website YouTube

used as part of this positioning strategy?

Overview of the introduction of an Australian emissions trading scheme/carbon pricing mechanism

When the ALP defeated the Opposition at the 2007 Federal election

the first commitment made by the incumbent Prime Minister, Kevin

Rudd, was that Australia would act on climate change by

introducing a carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS). In 2010,

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after several failed attempts to get the ETS legislation passed

through the Senate, and after the Copenhagen climate change talks

failed to reach an agreement, Rudd announced the ETS would be

postponed for at least three years. This decision contributed to

a dive in the polls for both the ALP and for Rudd personally,

with a Nielsen poll conducted in June 2010 ("Kevin Rudd's polling

since 2006," 2010) placing the Opposition ahead of the Government

for the first time in more than four years. Shortly thereafter,

in a move that took the nation by surprise, Rudd became one of

the few leaders to be removed by their own party during their

first term as Prime Minister. Australia’s new (and first female)

Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, immediately called a Federal

election seeking an electoral mandate for her Prime Ministership.

Crucially, five days before the Federal election on August 21,

2010, Gillard stated on national TV that: "There will be no

carbon tax under the government I lead."

While it is unclear if Gillard’s statement influenced voter

intentions the 2010 Federal election resulted in a hung

Parliament. Over the following week both Gillard and Abbott

started negotiations with the Greens and independent MP’s in a

contest to form government, however it was Gillard who ultimately

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triumphed by gaining the support of a Greens MP and three

independent MP’s. Central to the agreement with the Australian

Greens Party was the securing of numerous concessions sought by

the Greens that included the formation of a climate change

committee (Rodgers, 2010), and acknowledgement that “reducing

carbon pollution by 2020 will require a carbon price” (Agreement,

n.d.). Shortly thereafter, in September 2010, and against her

earlier vow not to introduce a carbon tax, Gillard established

the Multi-Party Climate Change Committee [The Committee] with the

aim of exploring “options for implementing a carbon price”

(Multi-Party Climate Change Committee). In February 2011 the

Committee announced details of its Climate Change Framework, and

on 10 July 2011, in a nationally televised ‘Address to the

Nation, Gillard outlined her Government’s carbon pricing scheme.

Two months later, on September 13, 2011 the Clean Energy Bill 2011 was

introduced to the Federal Parliament and almost twelve months

later, on July 12, 2012, the carbon price commenced.

YouTube within the mainstream media landscape

YouTube was launched in June 2005 (Burgess & Green, 2009) and

since then has established itself as the world’s third most

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popular website (http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/youtube.com#),

with an estimated 1.3 billion people worldwide watching an

average of 162 YouTube videos per month

(http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Presentations_and_Whitepapers/2

013/The_Past_Present_and_Future_of_Online_Video). In Australia 40

– 56.9 per cent of people regularly connect with YouTube (Chia,

2012) where they spend an average of 2.7 hours per month (across

international markets the average is 4 hours per month)

(http://www.comscoredatamine.com/2010/09/youtube-viewing-hours-

across-markets). The significance of YouTube as a site of

participatory culture, and its centrality within the mainstream

media landscape means that YouTube has become both a conduit

between “individual and collective creativity and meaning

production” and a “mediator between various competing industry-

oriented discourses and ideologies” (Burgess & Green, 2009, p.

37). It is this ‘struggle over authority and control’ (Burgess &

Green, 2009) that is the focus of this research paper.

The role of public relations in constructing mediated forms of communication

Such struggles are also a central concern of public relations

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practitioners who, in their role as “discourse technologists”

“participate in discursive struggles by shaping texts and by

strategically deploying texts which facilitate certain

sociocultural practices and not others” (Motion & Leitch, 1996,

p. 299). Texts in this context are “the spoken or written

artefacts of discursive practices” and can include, amongst

others (and here we might include video recordings), “books,

speeches, interview transcripts, and policy documents” (Motion &

Leitch, 1996, p. 299). Perhaps one of the most obvious usages of

these tactics is in the political sphere where public relations

practitioners’ use audience research to “strategically modify the

discourse practices of targeted discourse consumers” (Roper,

2005, p. 141). The success of these tactics in Australia, and in

many westernised democracies, means that each of the major

political parties fully understands the importance of effective

public relations strategies in gaining public acceptance of their

policies, with public relations practices playing an important

role in terms of managing and shaping political debates (Young,

2007).

However, while video recordings have always been “an important

and specific field of created…public relations media” and were

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once quite distinct from commercial media (Jefkins, 1994, p. 246)

the advent of Web 2.0 and social media sites such as YouTube have

resulted in video recordings becoming a ‘mass’ medium with a

potential global audience. As a result various social media

platforms are increasingly being used by public relations “to

communicate directly with target publics as part of their overall

communication strategy” (Chia , 2012, p. 40). Likewise, in the

political sphere (both in Australia and elsewhere), political

parties are using social media sites as part of their overall

marketing mix (Chen & Smith, 2010). To date there is little

information from a public relations perspective about the

strategy behind the use of these sites by Australian political

parties, or about their specific use of the social media video-

sharing site YouTube.

Positioning and public relations

Positioning was historically associated with military campaigns

(Baert, 2012) and is also often referred to in marketing

literature where it is used in connection with the four ‘P’s’ of

price, product, placement and promotion (see, for example, Ries

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& Trout, 2001). Positioning theory (as opposed to positioning) is

a social constructionist perspective (Harré & van Langenhove,

1999; Slocum Bradley, 2010a; Wood & Kroger, 2000) that originated

from Foucaldian influenced feminists where the concern was

“altering the positions of women in society” (Boxer, 2003). More

recently the social psychological research of Harré and van

Langenhove (1999), Harré (2004, 2009, 2012), Moghaddam, Harré and

Lee (2008); and Slocum- Bradley (2008, 2010, 2010a) has been

highly influential in furthering understanding of positioning in

social interactions between individuals, groups, and even

nations. At the core of positioning theory, and central to these

authors’ understanding, is the concept of a dynamic positioning

triangle as an analytical framework from which to map the

transient nature of positioning in terms of the “actors

positions, the social force of what they say and do, and the

storylines that are instantiated in the sayings and doings of

each episode” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 10). James’

(2010, 2011a) conceptual intentional positioning framework for

public relations similarly adopts a positioning triangle model

but the framework has been developed to take into account the

strategic nature of public relations campaigns.

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(See appendix ii: Positioning triangle domain)

James defines positioning in public relations contexts as “the

strategic attempt to stake out and occupy a site of intentional

representation in the contested space where meanings are

constructed, contested and reconstructed” (2011a, p.7). In

addition to the positioning framework, positioning theory also

stresses how individuals or individual exemplars have rights and

duties that are jointly constituted through discourse (James,

2011; Wise & James, in press). Discourse in this sense is taken

to mean “the use of language and other symbols and signs to

generate meaning, such as through talk, gestures and images”

(Slocum-Bradley, 2010b, p. 80) and is related to public relations

in that an entity undertaking a public relations program must

have the right, or construct the right, to discursively take a

particular position (Wise & James, in press). From a public

relations perspective this concept is critical as it suggests

that an individual (or an individual speaking on behalf of an

organisation) must first construct the right to position in a

particular way if the positioning strategy is to succeed.

Data selection

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The sampling procedure used in the study is purposive in that the

samples were selected on the grounds they were illustrative of

the phenomena the researcher was seeking to examine. Primarily

this centred on the premise that the use of a social media video

sharing service such as YouTube by the ALP and the Opposition,

whether the purpose was to air a policy/position and/or a

response about a proposed policy or position, was a strategic

decision likely made by a public/relations/ corporate

communications professional. These specialists would have a key

input in a) decisions about filming the speech in the first

instance and b) any decisions about the channel(s) selected to

air these video recordings in the second.

Only those video recordings that were delivered between 9 July

2011 (when Prime Minister Gillard formally announced her

government’s intention to put a price on carbon), and 13

September 2011 (when Gillard introduced the Clean Energy Bill

2011 to the Federal Parliament), were included in the study. This

time frame was considered appropriate because it was during this

period that both parties publicly established their respective

positions regarding the introduction of a carbon price/ tax. The

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search criteria was then narrowed to only include video

recordings that a) had been uploaded to either Gillard’s,

Abbott’s, the ALP or Opposition website, or a YouTube channel

linked to either of these sites and b) a corresponding transcript

that had been uploaded to either Gillard’s or Abbott’s official

website (http://www.pm.gov.au; http://www.tonyabbott.com.au).

These websites were selected on the grounds that as the official

sites and YouTube channels of the two major Australian political

parties/politicians, a public relations/corporate communication

practitioner would have likely played a key role in any decisions

regarding the uploading of video recordings and/or transcripts to

these sites.

Data sample: Julia Gillard

A search of the Prime Minister’s official website

(http://www.pm.gov.au) for speech transcripts returned three

speech transcripts for July, three for August, and four for

September (n=10). A further search (to only include video

transcripts) returned one transcript for the month of July, none

for August, and one for September [n=12]. Of these (n=12) three

fell outside of the study period and were not included in the

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study. The remaining (n=9) speech and video transcripts were then

used to guide a search of the Prime Minister’s official website,

the linked YouTube channel ‘PM Gillard’

(http://www.youtube.com/user/PMGillard), and the Australian Labor

Party YouTube channel

(http://www.youtube.com/user/australianlabor).

The Prime Minister’s official website and the ‘PM Gillard’

YouTube channel both contain 47 video recordings. A search the PM

Gillard channel using the search term ‘carbon’ returned eight

videos. Of these only one (‘A plan for a clean energy future’)

fitted within the study’s research parameters. A search of the

Australian Labor YouTube channel using the search term ‘carbon’

returned 123 videos. Of these ‘Julia Gillard Address to the

Nation: Securing a Clean Energy Future’ (Gillard, 2011b); ‘Julia

Gillard National Press Club Address Price on Carbon’(Gillard,

2011c); and ‘Julia Gillard: Clean Energy Bill’ (Gillard, 2011d)

fitted the research criteria. The video ‘Julia Gillard Address to

the Nation…’ (Gillard, 2011b) is the same as “A plan for a clean

energy future’ (found on the PM Gillard channel) and it was

therefore decided, for reasons of consistency, to only include

those versions that had been uploaded to the Australian Labor

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YouTube channel (n=3).

Data sample: Tony Abbott

A search of Abbott’s official website

(http://www.tonyabbott.com.au/) returned 97 speech/video

transcripts and of these 13 fell within the study timeframe

(n=13). Video recordings of Abbott were then selected on the same

grounds as those used to determine the selection of video

recordings of Gillard. A search of Abbott’s official website

(http://www.tonyabbott.com.au) returned 73 video recordings. A

further search using the search term ‘carbon’ returned one video:

Address to the Nation- The Carbon Tax. Some of the videos on

Abbott’s website were linked to Abbott’s YouTube channel

‘MrTAbbott1’ (http://www.youtube.com/user/MrTAbbott1) however as

these were all uploaded outside of the study period none were

included in the study. Many of the videos on Abbott’s website

were linked to Liberal Party TV – the official YouTube channel of

the Liberal Party of Australia

(http://www.youtube.com/user/LiberalPartyTV). A search of this

site and entering the search term ‘carbon’ returned 177 videos.

An individual search found fifteen fitted within the study

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timeframe however four were not of Abbott and eight did not have

corresponding transcripts that had been uploaded to Abbott’s

website. The remaining three videos (n=3): Leader of the

Opposition’s Address to the Nation (Abbott 2011a); Tony Abbott –

No Carbon Tax Rally (Abbott, 2011b) and Tony Abbott - Carbon Tax

- Convoy of No Confidence (Abbott, 2011c) were included in the

study.

Summary of data included in the study

The following six video recordings (n=3 and n=3 respectively),

together with the corresponding video or speech transcripts (n=3

and n=3), form the corpus of the study and are listed in

chronological order as follows:

July 10, 2011

Julia Gillard Address to the Nation: Securing a Clean EnergyFuture [Video recording] (Gillard, 2011a)

Transcript of Address to the Nation (Gillard, 2011b)

July 10, 2011

Leader of the Opposition's Address to the Nation [Video recording] (Abbott, 2011a)

Address to the Nation [Transcript] (Abbott, 2011b)

July 14, 2011

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Julia Gillard National Press Club Address: Price on Carbon [Video recording] (Gillard, 2011c)

"A great clean energy future, a great reform agenda", Address to the National Press Club, Canberra [Transcript] (Gillard, 2011d)

August 15, 2011

Tony Abbott- No Carbon Tax Rally [Video recording] (Abbott, 2011c)

Address to the No Carbon Tax Rally, Canberra [Transcript] (Abbott, 2011d)

August 21, 2011

Tony Abbott - Carbon Tax - Convoy of No Confidence [Video recording] (Abbott, 2011e)

Address to the Convoy of No Confidence Rally, Canberra [Transcript] (Abbott, 2011f)

September 13, 2011

Julia Gillard: Clean Energy Bill [Video recording] (Gillard,2011e)

Introduction of the Clean Energy Bill 2011, Canberra [Transcript] (Gillard, 2011f)

Findings and analysis

When using the public relations positioning framework to conduct

a positioning discourse analysis the first consideration concerns

the positioning goal(s) of the entity that has commissioned the

public relations activity. The video-recording transcripts of

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Gillard suggested a goal of positioning the ALP as the legitimate

Government. In contrast the video-recording transcripts of Abbott

suggested a goal of positioning the ALP as the illegitimate

government and, conversely, the Opposition as the legitimate

(rightful) government.

The second core domain is the ‘purpose positioning domain’ in which

positioning is undertaken for the purposes of ingratiation,

intimidation, self-promotion, exemplification, facilitation or

supplication (James, 2010). The positioning purpose suggested in

Gillard’s video transcripts was primarily that of positioning for

the purposes of exemplification or in other words the desire was

to be seen as going above and beyond or of taking the moral

higher ground relative to Abbott. Abbott’s positioning purpose

was similarly exemplification however this was mostly achieved by

pointing out the failures of Gillard and the ALP relative to the

successes of the Opposition.

Purpose positioning domain 

Self Promotion

Exemplification

Ingratiation

Intimidation

Supplication

Facilitation

Abbott 7 8 11 1 0 14

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Gillard 5 9 5 0 0 0

The third core domain is the ‘positioning type domain’ in which

entities can deliberately self-position; be forced into self-

positioning; engage in deliberate positioning of others, or be

forced into positioning others. Both Abbott and Gillard used

their speeches to deliberately self position themselves and their

respective parties. They also deliberately positioned one another

and one another’s opposing political parties, and were variously

forced into adopting different positions. There was no evidence

of being forced into positioning others. One of the most often

used positioning strategies was Abbott’s deliberate positioning

of the Prime Minister as a liar because she had previously said

she would not introduce a carbon tax. Gillard, despite this

positioning, maintained a self position of doing what is right

for Australia by introducing a carbon price. Both Abbott and

Gillard also consistently self-positioned as being able to

lead/provide the better Government for Australia.

Positioning type domain

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Positioning type domain Gillard Abbott

Situations of self-positioning 9 14Situations of forced self-positioning

4 6

Situations of deliberate positioning of others

6 14

Situations of forced positioningof others

0 0

The fourth and final domain is the positioning triangle domain in which

the actual and the desired position(s) of an entity and its

stakeholders; the speech act/action used to declare a desired

outcome; and the discourses and narratives or storylines used to

support and achieve the position declared in the speech

acts/actions, must all align. (See appendix ii: positioning

triangle domain)

In terms of their respective positions Gillard’s position was

that a carbon price was good or positive for Australia while

Abbott’s position was that a carbon tax was negative or bad for

Australia. For example Gillard stated, “I see a great clean

energy future for our great country” (Gillard, 2011b) while

Abbott adopted the contrary position stating, “this carbon tax is

a bad idea because everything will cost more” (Abbott, 2011b).

The supporting narratives or storylines used to support these

positions primarily centred on the financial opportunities that

such a scheme would offer in terms of new technologies for the

delivery of energy and with it the creation of new jobs

(Gillard), or alternatively that the imposition of a carbon tax

on industry would not only cost jobs but these added costs would

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be passed on to individual consumers (Abbott). These storylines

were underpinned by discourses of having a vision for Australia

(Gillard) or discourses of fear for Australia’s future (Abbott).

Central to these storylines and positions were speech acts.

Searle (1979) proposes that there are a limited number of basic

things that individuals do with language: “we tell people how

things are” (assertives); “we try to get them to do things”

(directives), “we commit ourselves to doing things”

(commissives); “we express our feelings and attitudes”

(expressives) “and we bring about changes through our utterances”

(declarations) (p.29). Moreover, we “often, we do more than one

of these at once in the same utterance” (Searle, 1979, p. 29).

For example Gillard’s statement that, “I will be introducing

historic legislation to put a price on carbon and accelerate our

transition to a low carbon economy” (13 September 2011) is both a

declaration (I will…) and a commissive in that she is committing

her Government to a particular course of action. Similarly

Abbott’s statement that, “I want to give you this absolutely

categorical assurance on behalf of the Coalition I lead: we will

oppose the carbon tax in opposition and we will rescind it in

government” (Abbott, 2011b) is both a commissive and an

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assertion. In both instances the speakers are establishing their

positions not through their utterances but through the power of

their illocutions to do or achieve something. However, while the

illocutionary force of an utterance “determines how content is

supposed to relate to the world” (Searle, 1979, pp. 4-13) the

success or not of a speech act depends not on the strength of the

utterance relative to its context, but rather is contingent upon

the position of the speaker to perform the act (Searle &

Vanderveken, 1985). This ties into the local moral order or the

specific rights, duties, and obligations of speakers to “ascribe

rights and claim them” for themselves and to “place duties on

others” (Moghaddam & Harré, 2010, p.3).

Abbott Gillard

Goal Domain To position the Opposition as the better party/government

To position the ALP as the better party/government

Positioning Type Domain Self positioning, deliberate other positioning, forced positioning

Self positioning, deliberate other positioning, forced positioning

Positioning Purpose Domain

Exemplification Exemplification

Positioning Triangle A carbon tax is bad A carbon price is good

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Domain: Position for Australia for Australia

Positioning Triangle Domain: Speech/act action

Address to the Nation

Address to the No Carbon Tax Rally, Canberra

Address to the Convoy of No Confidence Rally, Canberra

Address to the Nation

National Press Club Address: Price on Carbon

Introduction of the Clean Energy Bill 2011 to the Federal Parliament

Positioning Triangle Domain: Discourses/storylines used to support the position taken

A carbon tax will cause electricity prices to rise for consumers [economic discourse at an individual level]

The costs associatedwith the carbon tax will cause Australian industries and businesses to close [economic discourse at a national level]

Australia (in a globalised context) cannot risk a carbontax at a time of global financial crisis [economic discourse at an international level]

‘Big polluters will pay’ [economic discourse at an individual level]

A carbon price will fund the developmentof new ‘clean’ energy technologies and businesses [economic discourse at a national level]

Australia (in a globalised context) cannot afford to notintroduce a carbon price [economic discourse at an international level]

Analysis of the YouTube recordings of Gillard and Abbott

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A further way in which Gillard and Abbott enacted their positions

was through the choice of particular venues/events and audiences

for each social episode. For example Julia Gillard’s ‘Address to

the Nation’ (Gillard, 2011b) was filmed by the Australian

Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), and was televised nationally at

6.30 pm on Sunday night (prime viewing time) across two free to

air television channels, the subscriber TV channel ‘Sky’, and on

three federally funded public television channels

(http://www.tvtonight.com.au/2011/07/abc-seven-nine-carbon-tax-

announcements.html). On some of these channels a segment

dedicated to analysis followed the Prime Minister’s announcement,

and it was reported that Abbott demanded that he be given equal

airtime for his response (Hurst, 2011). However, while there is

no retrospective evidence that he succeeded in this aim it is

possible that parts of his video package (see Abbott, 2011a) were

used in these analysis segments.

What are notable in both of these episodes are the differences

between the settings in which they were enacted. Both Gillard’s

and Abbott’s ‘Addresses to the Nation’ commence with a soft focus

background image of Parliament House overlayed with the

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Australian Coat of Arms and beneath this the (underlined) text

“Address to the Nation”. However, while Abbott is obviously

sitting in an office it is less obvious where Gillard is

situated. Red flowers, photos and various nick-knacks (none of

which are in clear focus apart from the flowers) highlighted by

punches of aqua and yellow and bare spaces on a wall of wooden

irregular shelving suggest this is an office, but could equally

be a suburban lounge room. Gillard is filmed sitting, but at a

distance that permits these background paraphernalia to be framed

within each shot. To Gillard’s left there is a (casually?) draped

and barely discernable Australian flag, and she is dressed in

black with a white open necked jacket and earrings that sometimes

twinkle when they hit the light. Gillard often smiles slightly

whilst talking and overall the discourses suggested are

femininity, informality, and openness. This relatively ‘soft’

enactment of a major policy decision was a discursive tactic

possibly designed to ‘soften the blow’ of the introduction of a

carbon price for everyday Australians many of whom were already

wary of the scheme due to the global financial crisis.

In contrast Abbott sits much closer to the camera and doesn’t

smile suggesting a discourse of earnestness as opposed to

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Gillard’s informality. Also different is the use of the

Australian flag which features prominently to Abbott’s right, and

although both leaders have bookshelves as backgrounds Abbott’s

shelves are regular and contain nothing apart from matching blue-

bound books without any bare spaces. The books, the flag, and

Abbott’s striped tie are all the same or similar tones of blue (a

cultural symbol of maleness and conservative politics) and this

suggests, when taken in combination, an overall discourse of

professionalism, masculinity, conservatism, and authority, and

this is in keeping with the often assertive speech acts enacted

in Abbott’s speech. Abbott’s more forceful positioning in this

context comparative to Gillard may also be because, in the

preceding months, Abbott had constructed the moral right to self

position as opposing a carbon tax whereas Gillard had not

constructed the right to impose a carbon price.

Gillard’s address to the National Press Club (Gillard 2011c,

2011d) was also recorded and broadcast on television by the ABC.

The National Press Club is based in the Australian capital city

of Canberra and its members primarily consist of journalists but

may also include academics, public servants, business people and

members of the wider public and as such is a public forum known

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for its discussion and debate on major political and public

policy issues. On this occasion the most notable discourses are

professionalism and authority and this is due to Gillard’s choice

of attire (a dark blue buttoned up suit that mimics the dress

code of the majority male audience) and the fact that she is

standing on a stage in front of a lectern with a microphone. It

is likely that the enactment of these professional and

authoritative discourses in this context were a discursive ploy

intended to convey a business like determination to act on

climate change for the betterment of Australia. These discourses

also support the commissive and assertive speech acts that

constitute much of Gillard’s address.

Gillard’s final speech introducing the Clean Energy Bill 2011 (Gillard,

2011e; 2011f) to the Federal Parliament was broadcast across a

range of media that included each of the major television

channels and newspapers. On this occasion Gillard is again

standing as opposed to sitting and she is addressing the Speaker

of the House and the Opposition Members of Parliament (including

Abbott) sitting opposite. Gillard’s clothing – a black skirt with

a white jacket open apart from a button at her midriff- reveals a

bright red shirt beneath. Red is associated with passion and with

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the left side of politics – red also being the primary colour

used in Labor’s logo. However what is most noticeable is

Gillard’s erect posture as she stands on the floor of the

Parliament and this suggests a discourse of authority and of

power that lends gravitas to her enactment of what is an

important (for the ALP and Gillard) directive speech act.

The anti-carbon tax rally attended by Abbott was also held in

Canberra and drew a crowd of approximately 5000- 6000 people

(although organisers claimed 10,000 people attended) that arrived

in buses from Sydney, rural NSW and Victoria. Various

conservative luminaries addressed the rally however it was Abbott

who was the obvious star with the crowd chanting “Tony, Tony,

Tony” (Abbott stars at anti-carbon tax rally, 2010). At this

rally, as with a previous rally held in March, some of the crowd

held placards that stated “Ditch the Witch” and other slogans

vilifying the Prime Minister. The video of Abbott at this rally

shows little of this contextual information (and arguably it has

been significantly edited to omit some of the signage present

which is known to have personally attacked Prime Minister Gillard

e.g. calling her a witch and a bitch in various contexts) so we

are left with an image of Abbott dressed conservatively in a

27

black suit, white shirt, and black, grey and white striped tie

holding a microphone in front of a banner with red signage on a

white background. Abbott’s attire immediately sets him apart from

the crowd, as most are dressed casually as one might expect given

the context of a rally. The microphone he is holding has signage

for a local ‘light and sound’ business which connotes that the

event is community funded. Abbott appears relaxed and smiles in

places however it is towards the video’s end that the most

surprising event occurs. It is at this point that Abbott bends

down and pulls a man from the crowd to share the stage with him.

Abbott commences speaking and the man becomes visibly upset and

overcome with emotion- so much so that another man comes on stage

to physically support him. Abbott appears bemused by this turn of

events and smiles at the crowd and at the man. The discourse

suggested by Abbott’s actions and appearance is not one of being

the audience’s equal (he is very obviously the star of the event

and never actually descends off the stage) but one of being

willing to bend down and ‘be on their side’. This discourse

reinforces Abbott’s storyline of understanding the (economic)

pressures facing ‘ordinary’ Australians and also supports many of

the expressive speech acts enacted by Abbott in this episode.

28

Abbott’s ‘Address to the No Carbon Tax Rally’ (Abbott, 2011e,

2011f) was again held in Canberra and, while relatively smaller

with 300 people on the lawn outside Parliament and “200 vehicles

from all over Australia” rolling “around Canberra blowing their

horns” (Willingham, 2011), the spectacle of the trucks and the

rally itself were broadcast by the major media players. Abbott

was again separated in stature from the crowd by his dress – this

time wearing a dark grey suit, white shirt and red and white

striped tie. Behind Abbott are professional cameras and on his

right is a prominent and controversial radio journalist, and

known supporter of conservative politics, Alan Jones. As he

speaks the Australian flag sometimes appears flapping in the

breeze. Abbott sometimes smiles whilst talking and appears

relaxed – his frequent use of hand gestures suggesting he is

talking ‘off the cuff’ and this suggests a discourse of frankness

but also one of authority. Given the media furore after his

previous speech at the ‘No carbon tax’ rally a few days

previously Abbott’s authoritarian discourse suggests an attempt

to enact a more serious albeit friendly self position. These

discourses also support the assertive and commissive speech acts

that comprised much of Abbott’s address.

29

Discussion

Abbott’s strategy of positioning the carbon tax as being bad for

Australia and Australians by causing job losses and price

increases in a range of everyday items, and linking this to the

existing attitudes of many Australians who believed they were at

economic risk because of the global financial crisis was, in

terms of discursive positioning, hugely successful. Indeed,

numerous polls indicated that if an election had been held during

the study period the Opposition would have won convincingly, and

moreover would have had a clear mandate to repeal the carbon

pricing legislation. One reason for the success of this strategy

is that “in attempting to ensure that a particular image is held

by an individual, public relations practitioners must articulate

this image with a pre- existing attitude or experience which

predisposes the individual to accept that image” (Motion &

Leitch, 1996, p. 300). Abbott’s use of economic risk discourses

appears to have succeeded in over-riding previous societal values

about doing what is right for the environment (i.e. by acting on

climate change).

Conversely Gillard’s strategy of positioning the carbon price as

30

being good for Australia and Australians by creating jobs and

boosting the economy was far less successful. By again applying

Motion and Leitch’s (1996) premise, it is possible to suppose

that this may be because the pre-existing attitudes or

experiences of most Australians at the time meant they knew

little about what ‘clean energy’ technologies actually were, and

Gillard’s economic opportunity discourses failed to gain traction

in the public opinion stakes primarily because of the success of

Abbott’s positioning strategy. It is also impossible to overlook

Gillard’s pre-election commitment to not introduce a carbon price

should she be re-elected. This discursive ‘pre-positioning’

episode meant that Gillard more or less locked herself in to

taking a particular position and her failure to do so, and the

subsequent and successful positioning of her as a liar by Abbott,

played and continues to play a substantial part in her lack of

popularity with the majority of the Australian electorate. This

episode also demonstrates the importance of an entity either

having the right, or constructing that right, to adopt a

particular position or the position will fail.

The study also found that both of the political

parties/politicians made extensive use of video recordings, with

31

many of these recordings uploaded to not only their individual

websites, but also their official YouTube channels (see tables 1

and 2 for an overview of YouTube usage and viewing statistics).

This finding supports other recent research into the use of

social media and demonstrates that from an organisational

standpoint, the growing use of video sharing sites such as

YouTube is important in struggles for power and control. Abbott’s

use of this visual medium was much more strategic in terms of

getting out and about with ‘everyday’ Australians. Gillard, as

perhaps befits a Prime Minister, was much more restricted in

terms of where she spoke and the discourses available to her. It

is also unarguably the situation that both politicians’ genders

came into play in these episodes. For example whereas Gillard

self-positioned visually as feminine in her Address to the

Nation, Abbott’s discourse was overtly masculine in his reply.

Further research is needed to understand the importance of these

discourses within these contexts.

Conclusion

32

Applying James’ framework as a method to guide a discourse

analysis of public relations texts was useful in that it

encouraged a systematic analysis according to four core domains.

This allowed a repeated and in-depth analysis of the texts, and

it also ensured that texts were examined on a variety of levels

thereby overcoming one of the criticisms of discourse analysis as

methodology- namely that it lacks a coherent framework to guide

the analysis. The use of YouTube video recordings to conduct a

visual discourse analysis of these various social episodes

underlined the importance of visual communication in the digital

age, especially in a public relations context. This research is a

work in progress however research undertaken to date in this and

a previous study (Wise & James, in press) suggests that using the

positioning framework to conduct a discourse analysis

demonstrates the dynamism of positioning efforts of both sides in

a debate, as they each seek to strengthen their own position

while destabilising the opposition’s position. As such the

framework could conceivably provide a new method for undertaking

a discourse analysis of public relations texts.

33

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Table 1: website statistics

Website Totalvideos

Videos/ carbon

Subscribe

rs

Site views

http://www.pm.gov.au 47 8 Unknown Unknown

http://www.youtube.com/user/

PMGillard

47 8 487 62,706

http://www.youtube.com/user/

australianlabor

319 123 2,364 1,552,437

http://www.tonyabbott.com.au/ 73 1 Unknown Unknown

38

http://www.youtube.com/user/

MrTAbbott1

29 4 19 9979

http://www.youtube.com/user/

LiberalPartyTV

239 177 2,772 2,068,5

28

Table 2: YouTube views per video

Video title Video views

Julia Gillard Address to the Nation: Securing a Clean EnergyFuture

2185

Julia Gillard National Press Club Address: Price on Carbon 2660

Julia Gillard: Clean Energy Bill 854

Leader of the Opposition's Address to the Nation 2701

Tony Abbott- No Carbon Tax Rally 2646

Tony Abbott – Carbon Tax- Convoy of No Confidence 1115

39

Appendix i: positioning triangle domain

40