Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows a political direct mail consultant in southern California, USA, explaining how a 'process of elimination’ is used to establish particular groups in society prior to specific targeting with political mail-outs. Frank explains that southern California has a large gay population and finding these people is important to a political campaign because they have 'special concerns’. Frank describes how households comprising heterosexual couples, people with the same surnames and people with large age differences are eliminated from the mailing list.

Educational value points

• The 'process of elimination’ referred to by Frank is called microtargeting, a technique of targeting specific interest groups that was developed in America in the 1970s. Through the use of direct mail, phone calls, the Internet, television and radio, microtargeting can be directed to smaller 'niche’ audiences than unspecific distribution. The audience targeted is more likely to have an inclination towards the product being marketed.

• The process of establishing particular interest groups is made possible by large databases that store information about individual citizens. The information taken from these databases allows commercial businesses and political parties to target individuals using a variety of methods such as direct mail-outs, television, radio, the Internet and phone calls.

• The clip highlights how, by a series of exclusions, individuals likely to have particular interests can be selected. Accessing information from databases in order to make these exclusions raises privacy concerns. Privacy problems can occur when personal details such as health, criminal justice, financial, genetic and location information are stored on a database and easily accessible.

• Since the clip was made in 1992 computer technology has evolved. The storage capacity and speed of computers is now much greater than in 1992 and the use of the Internet has become more widespread. The storage of information has become more effective allowing government agencies and commercial corporations greater scope when using microtargeting techniques.

• The filmmaking techniques used in the clip provide a sense of foreboding and apprehension. Frank is literally depicted as a 'shady character’, explaining his technique with half his face in shadow. The sombre actors who are used to demonstrate the 'elimination process’ are filmed from above and look rather like chess pieces that, once eliminated, disappear from the screen. The music played throughout the clip has a very slow beat and melancholy air.

• The clip was written and directed by Bill Bennett (1953–). Bennett has been writing and directing for film and television since the early 1980s and some of his credits include Shipwrecked (1984), Kiss Or Kill (1997) and The Nugget (2002).

• Beyond Productions produced the documentary You Have No Secrets (1992). Beyond Productions was established in Australia in 1984 and specialises in making factual programs for an international market.

Interview with Frank, a political direct mail consultant in southern California.
Frank Here in Southern California, we have a huge Jewish ethnic and Hispanic ethnic population, and Asian population. We also have a large gay population. And finding these people is very important to a campaign, because they have special concerns. Gays are a perfect example of – and we find gay people by a process of elimination. For instance, we’ll go into an area that we think has some gay people, and eliminate all of the hetero couples.

As Frank talks, the image switches to a crowd of people. As he describes eliminating people from his survey, people disappear from the crowd, accompanied by an electronic beeping sound.
Frank Mr and Mrs Mary Jones, we’ll get rid of them. Also we’ll get rid of Mary and Bill Jones or Mary Smith and Bill Jones, hetero couples living together. We’ll get rid of the same-name couples like mother-daughter, father-son, or father-daughter, mother-son. What we’re left with, then, are people of the same sex. And we’ll also get rid of them that have the same last name, and then working farther down, what we’ll do is get rid of people where the age range is greater than 20 years. So now we’ve found same-sex people with similar ages, after getting rid of all of the hetero couples. And what you’re left with are all the very likely gay people, and a bunch of single people. Well, the truth is that you could call the single people likely gay or at least receptive to gay issues, because they live in an area that’s highly gay, and they’re very likely to be gay themselves in a household where the other person is not registered.