Talking Back

Cameron Edwards is a foolish young man.

Every Monday night during the ABC’s tweet-back programme Q&A, tweeters interested in politics warm up their smartphones, tablets and laptops, and tweet their responses to the various partisan statements made by the members of the Q&A panel. It’s a rowdy, undisciplined affair with views ranging from the literal middle ground all the way through to the extremes, and surprisingly, it’s usually well-informed, articulate and oftentimes, hilarious.

Iconic Q&A moments were amplified to greatness within the twittersphere: GetUp’s Simon Sheikh fainted on air, an audience member through a shoe at John Howard, Julie Bishop tried to kill a cameraman with her trademark stare, Germaine Greer became obsessed with the Prime Minister’s wardrobe choices. These are one-off, unscripted examples of what can happen on live television, with an equally live “participating” via social media.

Cameron Edward's series of offensive tweets

Last night’s Q&A sparked another twitterstorm, but this time, it had little to do with what was on the television screen and everything to do with what was on the twitterscreen itself. One viewer, a young engineering student at UNSW, chose to tweet a series of incredibly rude tweets addressed to Senator Penny Wong, who had been on the Q&A panel last night.

The viewer was Cameron Edwards, an insulter in the mould of an Alan Jones or Kyle Sandilands. With expertise rarely seen outside Sydney commercial radio, Cameron Edwards succeeded in tweeting a stream of insults directed at Senator Wong’s gender, ethnicity and sexual preference.

An hour or so later, after hundreds of people pointed out the error of his ways and forwarded screen shots of the worst of his tweets to UNSW, a rather embarrassed Cameron Edwards deleted some of the offending tweets, protected his twitter account (so that others cannot get access to his older tweets) and apologised. Today, he has emailed a personal apology to Senator Wong.

Two remarkable events happened here. Firstly, the deluge of disgust at Cameron Edward’s tweet was not organised in any away or affiliated with any group. In fact, the disgust was purely at Cameron Edward’s tweets. It was not arguing the substance of his tweets or supporting Senator Wong; it was just disgust and disbelief that anyone could be so stupid as to tweet those sentiments even once, much less multiple times and using such unacceptable language.

The second remarkable thing was that Cameron Edwards has ‘manned up’, and apologised, more than once. In fairness, his apologies on twitter last night and today lacked gravitas, but that may be nothing more than a reflection of the writer, and his lack of maturity. The apologies sound far more like the embarrassed backpedalling of a boy who has realised that he’s in trouble and he can’t lie his way out of it. I haven’t seen his emailed apology to Ms Wong.

Having said that, this is what is possible. This is why movements like Destroy The Joint exist. Last night, a group of people who are unconnected to each other, except by twitter, used their collective influence to state clearly that abuse is not acceptable in our society. It’s the same theme as White Ribbon Day, the Royal Commission into abuse of children in care, Prime Minister’s Gillard’s speech slamming misogyny, Destroy the Joint and Reclaim the Night. It’s the New Revolutionaries, starting to influence the way society develops.

And no, Cameron – booze isn’t an excuse. If you can’t handle yourself drunk, don’t drink so much. You took responsibility for your offensive tweets; now take responsibility for the sentiment behind them.

Then there is the other half of my night on twitter. A young psychologist named Holly made a poor joke about fat people and cake. She was challenged about whether the joke was appropriate by blogger and commentator Chrys Stevenson. What happened next was like peeling an onion. Holly sounded so superior and so shallow when she eventually confirmed on twitter that she does not accept that there is a psychological element in the causes of obesity. For a psychologist, that’s a fairly naïve approach.

I can’t imagine that many people set out to be obese. I know that I’d be so much happier and healthier if I lost about 40kg. I haven't been able to do that yet. But I am what I am – imperfect - and being fat doesn’t give anyone the right to treat me any differently to how they would treat me if I was a size 10.

The battle with Holly is lost; we’ll get her next time, and if we don’t, it’ll be the time after that.

But we won the battle with Cameron Edwards. His apology may not be the most sincere apology, but I suspect that he has learned a lesson. I hope he's learned that the opinions he expressed and the language he used are not acceptable.

It’s not about point-scoring or popularity or one-upmanship. Nor is it just bad behaviour from yobs; these people are educated, articulate young people who should know better. So why do we engage with people like Cameron Edwards of Holly-the-Psychology-Graduate or Tony Abbott or Alan Jones?

Because as individuals, we are troubled by what we see, and our opinion matters too.

Missed Manners

After my blog post earlier this week in which I compared Liberal parliamentarian Sophie Mirabella to Jane Austen’s delightful Miss Jane Bennet, I’ve been thinking again about standards of behaviour, where they come from, and what they mean. I’ve also been thinking about how Ms Mirabella is actually a mishmash of all of the worst qualities of all five Bennet sisters, but I’ll leave that one for the Austen aficionados. 

So what is the ultimate authority on manners? Who arbitrates good behaviour and differentiates it from poor behaviour? How are these standards communicated through a community, and how are they enforced?
Should we defer to the teachings of American Judith Martin, better known as Miss Manners? I’d mention her age, and suggest that perhaps her preferred style might be out of vogue, but I’m sure she wouldn’t approve of me talking about a lady’s age.

"You can deny all you want that there is etiquette, and a lot of people do in everyday life. But if you behave in a way that offends the people you're trying to deal with, they will stop dealing with you...There are plenty of people who say, 'We don't care about etiquette, but we can't stand the way so-and-so behaves, and we don't want him around!' Etiquette doesn't have the great sanctions that the law has. But the main sanction we do have is in not dealing with these people and isolating them because their behaviour is unbearable."

 
Australia has our own maven of manners, the indomitable Miss June Dally-Watkins. Around the same age as Miss Manners, Miss Dally-Watkins started Australia's first finishing school for young ladies in the 1950s, and still makes occasional media appearances to talk about etiquette, deportment and 'shoulds'. There are many many 'shoulds' in the world of manners, yet probably many more should-nots.

I have no idea what Miss Dally-Watkins would think of Ms Mirabella's performance on QandA, but I have a fair idea what she thinks of Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O. I'd guess she would dismiss Vile Kyle as absolutely beneath her contempt. His entire existence is a should-not. 

Jackie O would attract fierce criticism for tolerating Kyle's appalling behaviour, and for associating with him. The contrast is even more dramatic against the backdrop of Jackie O's gig hosting Channel Ten's Australian Princess, a reality show in which a selection of less-than-genteel young ladies were transformed into pretentious young ladies with near perfect manners. This was dramatic irony at its best.

But these are, of course, personal judgments, made with only my own sense of etiquette to guide me. There are some authorities which have to make official determinations: ACMA has found Kyle Sandilands to have crossed their line, and has imposed additional conditions on 2DAY-FM's broadcasting licence in an attempt to control Kyle's personal imperative to shock. 

Clearly, 2DAY-FM management has been willing to overlook Kyle's disregard of social standards to keep the money flowing.  They have implemented their own safety measures to ensure Kyle can be 'dumped' before anything too offensive goes to air, but against what standards do they measure  'too offensive'?So desperate are they to keep Kyle on air, they have taken ACMA's decision to the Appeals Tribunal today to have he conditions diluted. The SMH reported: 

Southern Cross Austereo's barrister, Richard Cobden, SC, said in response to Sandilands's behaviour, the broadcaster had taken ''remedial action'' to prevent further breaches, including a 30-second delay and two censors to warn him if he was likely to cross the line. All staff involved in producing and presenting programs had undergone training and Sandilands had been counselled.

But Richard Lancaster, SC, for the authority, said the watchdog wanted the condition to apply 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The condition states ''program content must not offend generally accepted standards of decency … having regard to the demographic characteristics of the audience of the relevant program''.

Wouldn't it be cheaper and simpler to employ a radio host who can be both entertaining and controversial, and can also be trusted to use common sense to censor himself? Or is Kyle's risky on-air behaviour the key to his success?

My friend Jillian suggested that one of the factors that determine standards is celebrity: if enough influential celebrities exhibit a certain behaviour, it can transition quickly from fringe to mainstream. Just look at the way glasses frames have changed over the past 40 years, or trace the origin of almost any fad you care to name, from miniskirts to destination weddings. 

Standards do change: Are the repeated behaviours of Kyle and Jackie O - Kyle crossing the line, and Jackie giggling - influencing standards and behaviours in their audience? Do young male listeners think its okay to call women "fat slags" when they disagree with them? Are  women learning that the appropriate response to hearing a man call a woman names is to emit an embarrassed giggle?

That's the only argument I would need to reject 2DAY-FM's appeal and uphold ACMA's ruling.

Technology is playing a larger role too. Social media provides the means for people to indulge in behaviours - often abusive - that they wouldn't dream of trying in a real life situation. Federal MP Andrew Laming (@AndrewLamingMP) has a reputation for questionable use of Twitter and Facebook, being provocative, at times rude. Failed Sydney politician Mark Sharma (vos2135) is abusive on Twitter, although he cleans up his act during any campaign in which he's a candidate. Dare to contribute an opinion under the #auspol hashtag and you should expect to be attacked for it, by people you don't know. 

In one of the truly great moments of Twitter irony, Rupert Murdoch complained how hard it was to have a civil conversation on Twitter, amidst all of the ignorant, viscious abuse. Is this a sign of social decay, Murdoch asks. Thousands of responses included suggestions about the risks of stones and glass houses, that pot and kettle have met, and that finally, Rupert is reaping what he has sown. 

And I'm still no closer to understanding standards of behaviour, other than to suggest that in most cases these days, the majority rules. Miss Manners, ACMA and even 5S are all about imposing external standards. I'd like to think that we each have our internal gauge of what is acceptable.

In the absence of anything better, The Golden Rule (Do Unto Others) seems appropriate. It's a rule, a guideline, a commandment in every major religion, it has credibility in psychology and sociology, and it's common sense if you don't try to complicate it. 

Let's all try that one for a while.


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