A recent Detroit News article revealed how much effort the Mayor and Police Chief are putting in to make us think constant surveillance is normal. At first glance the article seems to be a simple story about urban gardens and community efforts to create beauty and places for children to play. 

But the story of putting high definition cameras in a local Warrendale urban garden is deeply troubling. The article explains that garden creator, Barb Matney, has pursued getting cameras for her garden because she thinks it will make the space safer for kids. Matney is quoted in the story saying, "It's really important to me that, say someone lives four houses from the park, (that) they can send their kids down and not worry about it," Matney said. "Not that it's being watched 24/7 — I know it's not. But if something does happen here, I know it's all recorded and can be taken care of."

I am sure Matney is a thoughtful, responsible neighbor and has made this decision to increase her relationships with the police department because she trusts their intentions. She is the president of the South Warrendale Neighborhood Watch Radio Patrol and probably has good relationships with her local precinct, as do many folks involved in local organizing.

But the story raises far more serious questions about what is happening in our city. My own suspicion as a person who has studied propaganda for most of my academic life, is that whatever Matney’s motives, the writing and publishing of this story are intended to normalize surveillance and undercut critical questions about the use of cameras, ring door bells, facial recognition, and constant surveillance. 

The story represents two common propaganda tricks. The first trick is the use of association. This is a powerful tool where two items, ideas, or people are paired together in a story or image. The positive feelings someone has toward the main item, idea, or person are then subconsciously transferred to the secondary one.  This is why celebrity endorsements are so powerful for products and are a persistent part of the consumer landscape. It also explains why corporations pay a lot of money for “product placement.” So, an article pairing urban gardens and concern for children with high definition cameras becomes a way to associate high definition cameras, at the subconscious level, with child safety and good things.

The second technique is more dangerous. It is the intentional creation of cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance means taking something people love and attaching it to something people feel very negative about.  The mere act of bringing these two items in line with each other creates a psychological state called dissonance, an internal tension that demands resolution. This resolution is almost always predictable in that our strong preference for one thing forces us to diminish our concern for the other.  Think about candidate endorsements. One of the main reasons candidates seek major organizational endorsements is to create dissonance that will work in their favor. So if your union endorses someone you don’t like, you are much more willing to reexamine your position toward the candidate and likely to find some reason to explain how your union position has some merit. You reduce your suspicion of candidate X in order to reduce the dissonance. The hidden point of this story is to get us to reduce our suspicions of surveillance because we know urban gardens are a key aspect of restoring neighborhoods.

The folks in Warrendale would be far better off and create a much healthier neighborhood if they took down the fence around their garden, got rid of the cameras, and invited neighbors to sit outside in green chairs.

Stories like this one don’t magically appear. All of us need to think about what Ms. Matney acknowledged, cameras don’t stop bad things from happening. But people can and do. We should not be putting efforts into “taking care of things” after a tragedy. We need to nurture relationships of safety and respect that prevent “bad things” from happening. Green chairs, not green lights are key to real community safety for all of us.