Stoking Expectations: Public Relations and the Politics of “Bogans”

Abstract

“Publics” for public relations are more than receivers or transmitters of messages; they are targeted and constructed categories for social control. Working in tandem are fixed ideas about their “nature” and, as a corollary, the characteristics and problems with which they are associated and the ways they socially behave (Demetrious 2013). This chapter examines the rise “boganism” as a contemporary “public” and argues that its stigmatic associations have implications for political discourse and policy making in Australian society.

In exploring these ideas, the chapter tracks transformations of meaning associated with the term. It asks if, and if so, how, the “Bogan” spectacle is politically active and classist, and if governments and corporations are invoking it to polarise and garner support for contentious social debates, such as refugee policy. Finally, it asks if the idea of “Bogan,” in its contemporary digitised Australian context contributes to the creation of a social space in which narrow ideologies are cultivated by a form of “identity” public relations.