Please Explain used to be a political documentary that aired on SBS in 2016 and explored the controversy, debate and history of Pauline Hanson. Now it is also the title of a series of videos in which Hanson is a teacher educating other Australian political figures such as Scott Morrison, Peter Dutton and Christian Porter. I watched her teach preferential voting in the same way mummy vloggers explain how to use a Bugaboo pram: apparently trying to be helpful.
Explainer videos have been claimed to be the new infographic. Normally between one and three minutes, these videos are easy to share across online platforms. They are popular whenever people quickly need to learn new skills or adapt to a new piece of technology.
Hanson has added hers to her social media and websites. She is using them to launch her re-election campaign, reconnect with old voters, reach out to new voters, and differentiate. The explainer videos are supposed to help us understand her. They show visually the difference between Hanson and the likes of Barnaby Joyce and Craig Kelly, something which is much easier than making that comparison in writing. The video messages are well-produced, compelling and shareable. They make Hanson an effective communicator.
Hanson’s explainer videos aim to give people a reason to vote for her and, since the content is entertaining, increase the time spent considering that decision. People will not vote for what they do not know. Hanson understands that providing them with that ability is crucial.
Like her senator counterpart however, teacher Hanson often substitutes the real question she is asking us with another, more straightforward one. So instead of fairly considering whether to follow her rightwing populism, she is asking voters whether she has the competence and integrity needed for re-election in comparison to Scott Morrison and associates. If the answer to that question is yes, people are more inclined to listen to her and vote for her.
We often adopt a readiness to obey when dealing with individuals or organisations we consider eligible to influence our decisions on the grounds of their competence and integrity. The likes of doctors, pilots, or plumbers enjoy this form of authority.
However, our inclination to obey authority can also result in painful mistakes.
Certain characteristics are so often associated with authority figures that they may function as signal stimuli, automatically activating our inclination to obey. For example, the “students” address teacher Hanson with “Ms Senator Hanson”, she is the only one wearing distinctively business formal clothing, and she holds a clipboard. She misuses these attributes to convey authority. We are sensitive to such signal stimuli. For instance, we are more likely to accept instructions given by a teacher Hanson (“Bill, put that knife away”, “Craig, no phones in class”, “Sit down, Scott”, “Get out, Scott”) than by an ordinary Hanson.
If we have the feeling that a candidate like Pauline Hanson has competence and integrity that other politicians lack, then she can be highly persuasive. In other words, relative competence and integrity can function as a signal stimulus for authority. It is hardly surprising, then, that advertisers often use supposed authorities.
The concern is that her surprisingly deftly produced content could draw in unsuspecting viewers, and it can be expected that Hanson will dial up the polemic in her next video. In the vacuum of the current political landscape, Hanson aims to paint herself as a moral and skilled teacher. If you look carefully though, you will find that her interpretation of South Park may appear to leave satirists out of a job, but it does not fool anyone: a vote for her remains a vote for xenophobia.
• Dr Tom van Laer is associate professor of narratology at the University of Sydney. He is an expert on the science of how behaviour in reality is changed by stories, such as advertisements, entertainment and social media
