Shouts from the desert

With the release on Monday of Jonestown, the unauthorised biography of flamboyant radio personality Alan Jones, the Sydney Morning Herald is running a series of three extracts beginning today. The book has already been very controversial, with the ABC having declined to publish it based on fears of a defamation suit - an unlikely risk given that the author has more than satisfied the requirement of the political speech defence, and that Alan Jones simply cannot afford to risk having a court rule that any of the facts in the book are true.

The book is being celebrated in many circles by people who are thrilled about the possibility of Jones' manipulation of his audience being publicly documented, however their jubilation is misplaced. Those who listen to Alan Jones are unlikely to read it, and if public revelation of the way he manipulates his audience were to have any impact on it, that would have already happened after the Cash for Comments scandal.

The audience of Alan Jones is divided into two camps. The first camp is comprised of those who listen in order to be offended. These people will research the true facts on their own initiative and listen to hear how he misrepresents the truth. They are already aware of his manipulation - they know that he often presents "facts" that are entirely fabricated and suppresses true facts (or if notorious, denies them) that go against the view he is presenting. People in this camp do not need a book to tell them what Jones is doing.

The second camp consists of the Jones believers. Many believers will preface their opinions with "Alan Jones said..." - three words that serve as a cue to more rational people that it is pointless saying anything further. A believer is entirely immune to rational argument and to the presentation of genuine facts. Indeed the Jones believer feels threatened by alternative viewpoints. If presented with an alternative argument they will either shut down so that they do not hear it, or in the worst cases will shout down the argument, usually with a mocking tone in their voice. In the latter case the Jones believer may believe they have "won" the argument, not realising that there actions have prevented there from being an argument in the first place. This can be frustrating to a more rational person - ignorance arising from lack of opportunity is one thing, but self-imposed ignorance is extremely disheartening - however it is an exercise in futility to attempt to redress this situation. A person cannot be convinced if they refuse to hear.

A mistake often made by more enlightened people is to infer that listening to Alan Jones causes people to adopt his views and to shut out any attempt to displace them. On the contrary, a Jones believer listens to him because they feel threatened by views that disagree with their own - they listen to Alan Jones because his basic views agree with their own prejudices. He can only lead his faithful followers within narrow bounds, and if he strays too far from the basic views of his adherents, he will lose them.

The core views defining the Alan Jones faithful are these:

• that people who are poor, unemployed or indigenous have only themselves to blame for the fact that they are not wealthy;
• that crime is (apparently perpetually) on the rise, and that tougher laws - meaning tougher sentencing - are the best way to reduce crime;
• that society is in a state of moral decay and laws should attempt to enforce others to adhere to a "traditional" morality; and
• ironically, that the existence of homosexuality is a threat to them - a member of the Alan Jones faithful is likely to be a horrible homophobe who would like homosexuality to be re-criminalised.

It is true that by staying within these bounds Jones can influence his faithful - for instance, by convincing them that a particular politician is more likely to promote these values, he can also convince them that things the politician does that do not directly contradict these core beliefs are right. However it is a myth that he substantially affects fundamental community opinion - he merely attracts those whose prejudices match his views and who prefer to only hear the side of the story that agrees with those prejudices.

My prediction: Jonestown will not affect Alan Jones or his audience in the least.