Paying the Piper, Calling the Tune

Spanish democracy is hobbled by un- or anti-democratic practices. This hold for all levels of government; today's example is municipal, and the practice is that of advertising good vibes. To promote a city to its own citizenry is tantamount to promoting the view that it is well governed, and its governors worthy of extensions to their tenure in office. Sell the city to itself and you sell the mayor to the city. Thus the following advertisement in La Vanguardia on 22 February 2010:

A full page ad to celebrate a fifth-place showing in a ranking drawn up by a British business magazine. The same story had been reported by the same paper two days earlier, at no expense:

What on the 20th was informative was pure spin by the 22nd; what had been the press acting freely became a sort of media-sized mood pill. Here's the kicker: the footer on the 2oth attributes the chart to FDI Magazine. But the original charts used a different colour scheme:

They also used proper English spelling, while the City of Barcelona has chosen "european" over "European". Why the new colours and typeface? They match the City's on-going feel good advertising campaigns, such as

Branding a city to draw tourists is innocuous: tourists don't vote. Branding a city in a city, for the benefit of the citizens, is not a hallmark of open and transparent government. Democracy is not predicated on moods. It requires that citizens be informed and able to judge policy rationally. Tweaking the public's mood with public money, as a recession deepens and lengthens, is self-serving and wasteful. It favours the re-election of the party in power. Media buying on the scale practised by the public sector in Spain lessens media independence, as government--in this case that of the city--assumes a dual role as object of scrutiny and revenue stream.