Spin, Political

Context

The provider of spin is often a surrogate for a political candidate and is known in the vernacular as a spin doctor; however, a candidate may provide self-spin.

Although spin is often delivered to appear as ad-libbed and conversational, spin is systematically conceived to maximize effectiveness. Spin statements range from having biased, misleading, and selective use of facts, to employing well-established and highly effective propaganda techniques that intentionally exploit a TA's psychological vulnerabilities. Spin's key characteristic is deceptiveness.

There are several types of spin as formally defined, and the nature of spin has evolved from a postdebate phenomenon during the Bush-Dukakis 1988 presidential election, to the current, culturally embedded idea of spin to mean a deceptive, self-serving explanation, usually in reaction to a politician's gaffe.

Following each Bush-Dukakis debate, each campaign's spin doctors gathered in large rooms or halls known as spin alley so that the press could report on each campaign's spin on the debate. Initially, spin sessions like these were televised, but by the 2004 election, most of the major networks stopped covering them because they felt they had little news value. However, spin sessions are now accessible through social media.

Of particular interest when considering political spin are two of its aforementioned aspects: (1) the spin doctor is most always known to the TA as a biased source lacking in the authority and credibility typically characteristic of the persuasive source and (2) spin can be persuasive even though the target audience has eyewitnessed the activity or event that the spin doctor is spinning about, that is, the TA can evaluate the veridicality of the spin doctor's statements (and thus pay no attention to it) because they can make their own judgment about the event in question.)

The Nature of Spin Content

Most fundamentally, spin content (or spin) can be conceived as the dissemination of one-sided, biased, deceptive conclusions, or a form of white propaganda in which the identity of the propagandist (spin doctor) is known, as are his or her intentions. Most concretely, in the televised debate context, spin is the answers to television interview [Page 865]questions posed by journalists. They are seldom direct answers and often bear no relationship to the questions that elicited them. Generally, spin is interpretations, conclusions, and repetitive praise of the candidate, and criticism, warranted or not, of the opposition candidate.

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