4
<title>D.3 How does wealth influence the mass media?</title>
9
<h1>D.3 How does wealth influence the mass media?</h1>
12
In a word, massively. This, in turn, influences the way people see the
13
world and, as a result, the media is a key means by which the general
14
population come to accept, and support, <i>"the arrangements of the social,
15
economic, and political order."</i> The media, in other words <i>"are
16
vigilant guardians protecting privilege from the threat of public
17
understanding and participation."</i> This process ensures that state
18
violence is not necessary to maintain the system as <i>"more subtle
19
means are required: the manufacture of consent, [and] deceiving the
20
masses with 'necessary illusions."</i> [Noam Chomsky, <b>Necessary Illusions</b>,
21
pp. 13-4 and p. 19] The media, in other words, are a key means of
22
ensuring that the dominant ideas within society are those of the
25
Noam Chomsky has helped develop a detailed and sophisticated analyse of
26
how the wealthy and powerful use the media to propagandise in their own
27
interests behind a mask of objective news reporting. Along with Edward
28
Herman, he has developed the <i><b>"Propaganda Model"</b></i> of the media works.
29
Herman and Chomsky expound this analysis in their book <b>Manufacturing
30
Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media</b>, whose main theses we
31
will summarise in this section (unless otherwise indicated all quotes
32
are from this work). We do not suggest that we can present anything other
33
than a summary here and, as such, we urge readers to consult <b>Manufacturing
34
Consent</b> itself for a full description and extensive supporting evidence.
35
We would also recommend Chomsky's <b>Necessary Illusions</b> for a further
36
discussion of this model of the media.
38
Chomsky and Herman's "propaganda model" of the media postulates a set of
39
five <i>"filters"</i> that act to screen the news and other material disseminated
40
by the media. These <i>"filters"</i> result in a media that reflects elite
41
viewpoints and interests and mobilises <i>"support for the special interests
42
that dominate the state and private activity."</i> [<b>Manufacturing Consent</b>,
43
p. xi] These <i>"filters"</i> are: (1) the size, concentrated ownership, owner
44
wealth, and profit orientation of the dominant mass-media firms; (2)
45
advertising as the primary income source of the mass media; (3) the
46
reliance of the media on information provided by government, business, and
47
"experts" funded and approved by these primary sources and agents of
48
power; (4) <i>"flak"</i> (negative responses to a media report) as a means
49
of disciplining the media; and (5) <i>"anticommunism"</i> as a national religion
50
and control mechanism. It is these filters which ensure that genuine
51
objectivity is usually lacking in the media (needless to say, some media,
52
such as Fox news and the right-wing newspapers like the UK's Sun, Telegraph
53
and Daily Mail, do not even try to present an objective perspective).
55
<i>"The raw material of news must pass through successive filters leaving
56
only the cleansed residue fit to print,"</i> Chomsky and Herman maintain.
57
The filters <i>"fix the premises of discourse and interpretation, and the
58
definition of what is newsworthy in the first place, and they explain the
59
basis and operations of what amount to propaganda campaigns."</i> [p. 2] We
60
will briefly consider the nature of these five filters below before
61
refuting two common objections to the model. As with Chomsky and Herman,
62
examples are mostly from the US media. For more extensive analysis, we
63
would recommend two organisations which study and critique the performance
64
of the media from a perspective informed by the "propaganda model." These
65
are the American <b>Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting</b> (FAIR) and the
66
UK based <b>MediaLens</b> (neither, it should be pointed out, are anarchist
69
Before discussing the "propaganda model", we will present a few examples by
70
FAIR to show how the media reflects the interests of the ruling class. War
71
usually provides the most obvious evidence for the biases in the media. For
72
example, Steve Rendall and Tara Broughel analysed the US news media during
73
the first stage of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and found that official voices
74
dominated it <i>"while opponents of the war have been notably underrepresented,"</i>
75
Nearly two-thirds of all sources were pro-war, rising to 71% of US guests.
76
Anti-war voices were a mere 10% of all sources, but just 6% of non-Iraqi
77
sources and 3% of US sources. <i>"Thus viewers were more than six times as
78
likely to see a pro-war source as one who was anti-war; with U.S. guests
79
alone, the ratio increases to 25 to 1."</i> Unsurprisingly, official voices,
80
<i>"including current and former government employees, whether civilian or
81
military, dominated network newscasts"</i> (63% of overall sources). Some
82
analysts did criticise certain aspects of the military planning, but
83
such <i>"the rare criticisms were clearly motivated by a desire to see U.S.
84
military efforts succeed."</i> While dissent was quite visible in America,
85
<i>"the networks largely ignored anti-war opinion."</i> FAIR found that just 3%
86
of US sources represented or expressed opposition to the war in spite of
87
the fact more than one in four Americans opposed it. In summary, <i>"none of
88
the networks offered anything resembling proportionate coverage of anti-war
89
voices"</i>. [<i>"Amplifying Officials, Squelching Dissent"</i>, <b>Extra!</b> May/June 2003]
91
This perspective is common during war time, with the media's rule of
92
thumb being, essentially, that to support the war is to be objective,
93
while to be anti-war is to carry a bias. The media repeats the sanitised
94
language of the state, relying on official sources to inform the public.
95
Truth-seeking independence was far from the media agenda and so they made
96
it easier for governments to do what they always do, that is lie. Rather
97
than challenge the agenda of the state, the media simply foisted them
98
onto the general population. Genuine criticism only starts to appear
99
when the costs of a conflict become so high that elements of the ruling
100
class start to question tactics and strategy. Until that happens, any
101
criticism is minor (and within a generally pro-war perspective) and the
102
media acts essentially as the fourth branch of the government rather than
103
a Fourth Estate. The Iraq war, it should be noted, was an excellent example
104
of this process at work. Initially, the media simply amplified elite needs,
105
uncritically reporting the Bush Administration's pathetic "evidence" of
106
Iraqi WMD (which quickly became exposed as the nonsense it was). Only when
107
the war became too much of a burden did critical views start being heard
108
and then only in a context of being supportive of the goals of the operation.
110
This analysis applies as much to domestic issues. For example, Janine Jackson
111
reported how most of the media fell in step with the Bush Administration's
112
attempts in 2006 to trumpet a "booming" U.S. economy in the face of public
113
disbelief. As she notes, there were <i>"obvious reasons [for] the majority of
114
Americans dissent . . . Most American households are not, in fact, seeing
115
their economic fortunes improve. GDP is up, but virtually all the growth has
116
gone into corporate profits and the incomes of the highest economic brackets.
117
Wages and incomes for average workers, adjusted for inflation, are down in
118
recent years; the median income for non-elderly households is down 4.8 percent
119
since 2000 . . .The poverty rate is rising, as is the number of people in
120
debt."</i> Yet <i>"rather than confront these realities, and explore the implications
121
of the White House's efforts to deny them, most mainstream media instead
122
assisted the Bush team's PR by themselves feigning confusion over the gap
123
between the official view and the public mood."</i> They did so by presenting
124
<i>"the majority of Americans' understanding of their own economic situation
125
. . . as somehow disconnected from reality, ascribed to 'pessimism,'
126
ignorance or irrationality . . . But why these ordinary workers, representing
127
the majority of households, should not be considered the arbiters of
128
whether or not 'the economy' is good is never explained."</i> Barring a few
129
exceptions, the media did not <i>"reflect the concerns of average salaried
130
workers at least as much as those of the investor class."</i> Needless to say,
131
which capitalist economists were allowed space to discuss their ideas,
132
progressive economists did not. [<i>"Good News! The Rich Get Richer: Lack of
133
applause for falling wages is media mystery,"</i> <b>Extra!</b>, March/April 2006]
134
Given the nature and role of the media, this reporting comes as no surprise.
136
We stress again, before continuing, that this is a <b>summary</b> of Herman's
137
and Chomsky's thesis and we cannot hope to present the wealth of evidence
138
and argument available in either <b>Manufacturing Consent</b> or <b>Necessary
139
Illusions</b>. We recommend either of these books for more information on and
140
evidence to support the "propaganda model" of the media. Unless otherwise
141
indicated, all quotes in this section of the FAQ are from Herman and
142
Chomsky's <b>Manufacturing Consent</b>.</p>
144
<h2><a name="secd31">D.3.1 How does the structure of the media affect its content?</a></h2>
147
Even a century ago, the number of media with any substantial outreach was
148
limited by the large size of the necessary investment, and this limitation
149
has become increasingly effective over time. As in any well developed
150
market, this means that there are very effective <b>natural</b> barriers to
151
entry into the media industry. Due to this process of concentration, the
152
ownership of the major media has become increasingly concentrated in fewer
153
and fewer hands. As Ben Bagdikian's stresses in his 1987 book <b>Media
154
Monopoly</b>, the 29 largest media systems account for over half of the
155
output of all newspapers, and most of the sales and audiences in
156
magazines, broadcasting, books, and movies. The <i>"top tier"</i> of these --
157
somewhere between 10 and 24 systems -- along with the government and wire
158
services, <i>"defines the news agenda and supplies much of the national and
159
international news to the lower tiers of the media, and thus for the
160
general public."</i> [p. 5] Since then, media concentration has increased,
161
both nationally and on a global level. Bagdikian's 2004 book, <b>The New
162
Media Monopoly</b>, showed that since 1983 the number of corporations
163
controlling most newspapers, magazines, book publishers, movie studios,
164
and electronic media have shrunk from 50 to five global-dimension firms,
165
operating with many of the characteristics of a cartel -- Time-Warner,
166
Disney, News Corporation, Viacom and Germany-based Bertelsmann.
168
These <i>"top-tier companies are large, profit-seeking corporations, owned
169
and controlled by very wealthy people . . . Many of these companies are
170
fully integrated into the financial market"</i> which means that <i>"the pressures
171
of stockholders, directors and bankers to focus on the bottom line are
172
powerful."</i> [p. 5] These pressures have intensified in recent years as media
173
stocks have become market favourites and as deregulation has increased
174
profitability and so the threat of take-overs. These ensure that these
175
<i>"control groups obviously have a special take on the status quo by virtue
176
of their wealth and their strategic position in one of the great institutions
177
of society. And they exercise the power of this strategic position, if only
178
by establishing the general aims of the company and choosing its top
179
management."</i> [p. 8]
181
The media giants have also diversified into other fields. For example GE,
182
and Westinghouse, both owners of major television networks, are huge,
183
diversified multinational companies heavily involved in the controversial
184
areas of weapons production and nuclear power. GE and Westinghouse
185
depend on the government to subsidise their nuclear power and military
186
research and development, and to create a favourable climate for their
187
overseas sales and investments. Similar dependence on the government
190
Because they are large corporations with international investment
191
interests, the major media tend to have a right-wing political bias. In
192
addition, members of the business class own most of the mass media, the
193
bulk of which depends for their existence on advertising revenue (which in
194
turn comes from private business). Business also provides a substantial
195
share of "experts" for news programmes and generates massive "flak." Claims
196
that the media are "left-leaning" are sheer disinformation manufactured by
197
the "flak" organisations described below (in <a href="secD3.html#secd34">section D.3.4<a>). Thus Herman
200
<i>"the dominant media forms are quite large businesses; they are controlled
201
by very wealthy people or by managers who are subject to sharp constraints
202
by owners and other market-profit-oriented forces; and they are closely
203
interlocked, and have important common interests, with other major
204
corporations, banks, and government. This is the first powerful filter
205
that effects news choices."</i> [p. 14]
207
Needless to say, reporters and editors will be selected based upon how
208
well their work reflects the interests and needs of their employers.
209
Thus a radical reporter and a more mainstream one both of the same
210
skills and abilities would have very different careers within the
211
industry. Unless the radical reporter toned down their copy, they are
212
unlikely to see it printed unedited or unchanged. Thus the structure
213
within the media firm will tend to penalise radical viewpoints,
214
encouraging an acceptance of the status quo in order to further a
215
career. This selection process ensures that owners do not need to
216
order editors or reporters what to do -- to be successful they will
217
have to internalise the values of their employers.
220
<h2><a name="secd32">D.3.2 What is the effect of advertising on the mass media?</a></h2>
223
The main business of the media is to sell audiences to advertisers.
224
Advertisers thus acquire a kind of de facto licensing authority, since
225
without their support the media would cease to be economically viable.
226
And it is <b>affluent</b> audiences that get advertisers interested. As
227
Chomsky and Herman put it, the <i>"idea that the drive for large audiences
228
makes the mass media 'democratic' thus suffers from the initial weakness
229
that its political analogue is a voting system weighted by income!"</i> [p.16]
231
As regards TV, in addition to <i>"discrimination against unfriendly
232
media institutions, advertisers also choose selectively among
233
programs on the basis of their own principles. With rare exceptions
234
these are culturally and politically conservative. Large corporate
235
advertisers on television will rarely sponsor programs that engage
236
in serious criticisms of corporate activities."</i> Accordingly, large
237
corporate advertisers almost never sponsor programs that contain
238
serious criticisms of corporate activities, such as negative
239
ecological impacts, the workings of the military-industrial complex,
240
or corporate support of and benefits from Third World dictatorships.
241
This means that TV companies <i>"learn over time that such programs will
242
not sell and would have to be carried at a financial sacrifice, and
243
that, in addition, they may offend powerful advertisers."</i> More
244
generally, advertisers will want <i>"to avoid programs with serious
245
complexities and disturbing controversies that interfere with the
246
'buying mood.'"</i> [p. 17]
248
Political discrimination is therefore structured into advertising
249
allocations by wealthy companies with an emphasis on people with
250
money to buy. In addition, <i>"many companies will always refuse to
251
do business with ideological enemies and those whom they perceive
252
as damaging their interests."</i> Thus overt discrimination adds to the
253
force of the <i>"voting system weighted by income."</i> This has had the
254
effect of placing working class and radical papers at a serious
255
disadvantage. Without access to advertising revenue, even the
256
most popular paper will fold or price itself out of the market.
257
Chomsky and Herman cite the British pro-labour and pro-union
258
<b>Daily Herald</b> as an example of this process. At its peak, the
259
<b>Daily Herald</b> had almost double the readership of <b>The Times</b>,
260
the <b>Financial Times</b> and <b>The Guardian</b> combined, yet even with
261
8.1% of the national circulation it got 3.5% of net advertising
262
revenue and so could not survive on the "free market." As Herman
263
and Chomsky note, a <i>"mass movement without any major media support,
264
and subject to a great deal of active press hostility, suffers a
265
serious disability, and struggles against grave odds."</i> With the
266
folding of the <b>Daily Herald</b>, the labour movement lost its voice
267
in the mainstream media. [pp. 17-8 and pp. 15-16]
269
Thus advertising is an effective filter for news choice (and, indeed,
270
survival in the market).
273
<h2><a name="secd33">D.3.3 Why do the media rely on government and business "experts" for information?</a></h2>
276
As Herman and Chomsky stress, basic economics explains why the mass
277
media <i>"are drawn into a symbiotic relationship with powerful sources
278
of information"</i> as well as <i>"reciprocity of interest."</i> The media need
279
<i>"a steady, reliable flow of raw material of news. They have daily news
280
demands and imperative news schedules that they must meet."</i> They cannot
281
afford to have reporters and cameras at all locations and so economics
282
<i>"dictates that they concentrate their resources where significant news
283
often occurs."</i> [p. 18] This means that bottom-line considerations
284
dictate that the media concentrate their resources where news, rumours
285
and leaks are plentiful, and where regular press conferences are held.
286
The White House, Pentagon, and the State Department, in Washington,
287
D.C., are centres of such activity on a national scale, while city
288
hall and police departments are their local equivalents. In addition,
289
trade groups, businesses and corporations also provide regular stories
290
that are deemed as newsworthy and from credible sources.
292
In other words, government and corporate sources have the great merit
293
of being recognisable and credible by their status and prestige; moreover,
294
they have the most money available to produce a flow of news that the
295
media can use. For example, the Pentagon has a public-information service
296
employing many thousands of people, spending hundreds of millions of
297
dollars every year, and far outspending not only the public-information
298
resources of any dissenting individual or group but the <b>aggregate</b> of
299
such groups. Only the corporate sector has the resources to produce
300
public information and propaganda on the scale of the Pentagon and other
301
government bodies. The Chamber of Commerce, a business collective, had
302
a 1983 budget for research, communications, and political activities of
303
$65 million. Besides the US Chamber of Commerce, there are thousands of
304
state and local chambers of commerce and trade associations also engaged
305
in public relations and lobbying activities. As we noted in <a href="secD2.html">section D.2</a>,
306
the corporate funding of PR is massive. Thus <i>"business corporations and
307
trade groups are also regular purveyors of stories deemed newsworthy.
308
These bureaucracies turn out a large volume of material that meets the
309
demands of news organisations for reliable, scheduled flows."</i> [p. 19]
311
To maintain their pre-eminent position as sources, government and
312
business-news agencies expend much effort to make things easy for
313
news organisations. They provide the media organisations with
314
facilities in which to gather, give journalists advance copies of
315
speeches and upcoming reports; schedule press conferences at hours
316
convenient for those needing to meet news deadlines; write press
317
releases in language that can be used with little editing; and
318
carefully organise press conferences and photo-opportunity sessions.
319
This means that, in effect, <i>"the large bureaucracies of the powerful
320
<b>subsidise</b> the mass media, and gain special access by their
321
contribution to reducing the media's costs of acquiring the raw
322
materials of, and producing, news."</i> [p. 22]
324
This economic dependency also allows corporations and the state to
325
influence the media. The most obvious way is by using their <i>"personal
326
relationships, threats, and rewards to further influence and coerce
327
the media. The media may feel obligated to carry extremely dubious
328
stories and mute criticism in order not to offend sources and disturb
329
a close relationship. It is very difficult to call authorities on whom
330
one depends for daily news liars, even if they tell whoppers."</i> Critical
331
sources may be avoided not only due to the higher costs in finding them
332
and establishing their credibility, but because the established <i>"primary
333
sources may be offended and may even threaten the media with using them."</i>
334
[p. 22] As well as refusing to co-operate on shows or reports which
335
include critics, corporations and governments may threaten the media
336
with loss of access if they ask too many critical questions or delve
337
into inappropriate areas.
339
In addition, <i>"more important, powerful sources regularly take advantage
340
of media routines and dependency to 'manage' the media, to manipulate
341
them into following a special agenda and framework . . . Part of this
342
management process consists of inundating the media with stories, which
343
serve sometimes to foist a particular line and frame on the media . . .
344
and at other times to chase unwanted stories off the front page or out
345
of the media altogether."</i> [p. 23]
347
The dominance of official sources would, of course, be weakened by the
348
existence of highly respectable unofficial sources that gave dissident
349
views with great authority. To alleviate this problem, the power elite
350
uses the strategy of <i>"co-opting the experts"</i> -- that is, putting them on
351
the payroll as consultants, funding their research, and organising think
352
tanks that will hire them directly and help disseminate the messages deemed
353
essential to elite interests. "Experts" on TV panel discussions and news
354
programs are often drawn from such organisations, whose funding comes
355
primarily from the corporate sector and wealthy families -- a fact that
356
is, of course, never mentioned on the programs where they appear. This
357
allows business, for example, to sell its interests as objective and
358
academic while, in fact, they provide a thin veneer to mask partisan
359
work which draws the proper conclusions desired by their pay masters.
361
This process of creating a mass of experts readily available to the media
362
<i>"has been carried out on a deliberate and a massive scale."</i> These ensure
363
that <i>"the corporate viewpoint"</i> is effectively spread as the experts work
364
is <i>"funded and their outputs . . . disseminated to the media by a
365
sophisticated propaganda effort. The corporate funding and clear
366
ideological purpose in the overall effort had no discernible effect
367
on the credibility of the intellectuals so mobilised; on the contrary,
368
the funding and pushing of their ideas catapulted them into the press."</i>
372
<h2><a name="secd34">D.3.4 How is "flak" used as a means of disciplining the media?</a></h2>
375
<i>"Flak"</i> is a term used by Herman and Chomsky to refer <i>"to negative responses
376
to a media statement or program."</i> Such responses may be expressed as phone
377
calls, letters, telegrams, e-mail messages, petitions, lawsuits, speeches,
378
bills before Congress, or <i>"other modes of complaint, threat, or punishment."</i>
379
Flak may be generated centrally, by organisations, or it may come from the
380
independent actions of individuals (sometimes encouraged to act by media
381
hacks such as right-wing talk show hosts or newspapers). <i>"If flak is
382
produced on a large-scale, or by individuals or groups with substantial
383
resources, it can be both uncomfortable and costly to the media."</i> [p. 26]
385
This is for many reasons. Positions need to be defended within and outwith
386
an organisation, sometimes in front of legislatures and (perhaps) in the
387
courts. Advertisers are very concerned to avoid offending constituencies
388
who might produce flak, and their demands for inoffensive programming exerts
389
pressure on the media to avoid certain kinds of facts, positions, or programs
390
that are likely to call forth flak. This can have a strong deterrence factor,
391
with media organisations avoiding certain subjects and sources simply to
392
avoid having to deal with the inevitable flak they will receive from the
393
usual sources. The ability to produce flak <i>"is related to power,"</i> as it
394
is expensive to generate on scale which is actually effective. [p. 26]
395
Unsurprisingly, this means that the most effective flak comes from business
396
and government who have the funds to produce it on a large scale.
398
The government itself is <i>"a major producer of flak, regularly assailing,
399
threatening, and 'correcting' the media, trying to contain any deviations
400
from the established line in foreign or domestic policy."</i> However, the
401
right-wing plays a major role in deliberately creating flak. For example,
402
during the 1970s and 1980s, the corporate community sponsored the
403
creation of such institutions as the American Legal Foundation, the
404
Capital Legal Foundation, the Media Institute, the Center for Media and
405
Public Affairs, and Accuracy in Media (AIM), which may be regarded as
406
organisations designed for the specific purpose of producing flak.
407
Freedom House is an older US organisation which had a broader design but
408
whose flak-producing activities became a model for the more recent
409
organisations. The Media Institute, for instance, was set up in 1972 and
410
is funded by wealthy corporate patrons, sponsoring media monitoring projects,
411
conferences, and studies of the media. The main focus of its studies and
412
conferences has been the alleged failure of the media to portray business
413
accurately and to give adequate weight to the business point of view, but
414
it also sponsors works which "expose" alleged left-wing bias in the mass
415
media. [p. 28 and pp. 27-8]
417
And, it should be noted, while the flak machines <i>"steadily attack the media,
418
the media treats them well. They receive respectful attention, and their
419
propagandistic role and links to a large corporate program are rarely
420
mentioned or analysed."</i> [p. 28] Indeed, such attacks <i>"are often not
421
unwelcome, first because response is simple or superfluous; and second,
422
because debate over this issue helps entrench the belief that the media
423
are . . . independent and objective, with high standards of professional
424
integrity and openness to all reasonable views"</i> which is <i>"quite acceptable
425
to established power and privilege -- even to the media elites themselves,
426
who are not averse to the charge that they may have gone to far in pursuing
427
their cantankerous and obstreperous ways in defiance of orthodoxy and
428
power."</i> Ultimately, such flak <i>"can only be understood as a demand that
429
the media should not even reflect the range of debate over tactical
430
questions among the dominant elites, but should serve only those segments
431
that happen to manage the state at a particular moment, and should do so
432
with proper enthusiasm and optimism about the causes -- noble by
433
definition -- in which state power is engaged."</i> [Chomsky, <b>Necessary
434
Illusions</b>, p. 13 and p. 11]
437
<h2><a name="secd35">D.3.5 Why is "anticommunism" used as control mechanism?</a></h2>
440
The final filter which Herman and Chomsky discuss is the ideology of
441
anticommunism. "Communism" is of course regarded as the ultimate evil
442
by the corporate rich, since the ideas of collective ownership of
443
productive assets <i>"threatens the very root of their class position
444
and superior status."</i> As the concept is <i>"fuzzy,"</i> it can be widely
445
applied and <i>"can be used against anybody advocating policies that
446
threaten property interests."</i> [p. 29] Hence the attacks on
447
third-world nationalists as "socialists" and the steady expansion
448
of "communism" to apply to any form of socialism, social democracy,
449
reformism, trade unionism or even "liberalism" (i.e. any movement
450
which aims to give workers more bargaining power or allow ordinary
451
citizens more voice in public policy decisions).
453
Hence the ideology of anticommunism has been very useful, because it can
454
be used to discredit anybody advocating policies regarded as harmful to
455
corporate interests. It also helps to divide the Left and labour movements,
456
justifies support for pro-US fascist regimes abroad as "lesser evils" than
457
communism, and discourages liberals from opposing such regimes for fear of
458
being branded as heretics from the national religion. This process has been
459
aided immensely by the obvious fact that the "communist" regimes (i.e.
460
Stalinist dictatorships) have been so terrible.
462
Since the collapse of the USSR and related states in 1989, the utility
463
of anticommunism has lost some of its power. Of course, there are still
464
a few official communist enemy states, like North Korea, Cuba, and China,
465
but these are not quite the threat the USSR was. North Korea and Cuba
466
are too impoverished to threaten the world's only super-power (that so
467
many Americans think that Cuba was ever a threat says a lot about the
468
power of propaganda). China is problematic, as Western corporations now
469
have access to, and can exploit, its resources, markets and cheap labour.
470
As such, criticism of China will be mooted, unless it starts to hinder
471
US corporations or become too much of an economic rival.
473
So we can still expect, to some degree, abuses or human rights violations
474
in these countries are systematically played up by the media while similar
475
abuses in client states are downplayed or ignored. Chomsky and Herman
476
refer to the victims of abuses in enemy states as <b>worthy victims,</b> while
477
victims who suffer at the hands of US clients or friends are <b>unworthy
478
victims.</b> Stories about worthy victims are often made the subject of
479
sustained propaganda campaigns, to score political points against
480
enemies. For example:
482
<i>"If the government of corporate community and the media feel that a story
483
is useful as well as dramatic, they focus on it intensively and use it to
484
enlighten the public. This was true, for example, of the shooting down by
485
the Soviets of the Korean airliner KAL 007 in early September 1983, which
486
permitted an extended campaign of denigration of an official enemy and
487
greatly advanced Reagan administration arms plans."
489
"In sharp contrast, the shooting down by Israel of a Libyan civilian
490
airliner in February 1973 led to no outcry in the West, no denunciations
491
for 'cold-blooded murder,' and no boycott. This difference in treatment
492
was explained by the <b>New York Times</b> precisely on the grounds of
493
utility: 'No useful purpose is served by an acrimonious debate over the
494
assignment of blame for the downing of a Libyan airliner in the Sinai
495
peninsula last week.' There <b>was</b> a very 'useful purpose' served by
496
focusing on the Soviet act, and a massive propaganda campaign ensued."</i>
499
As noted, since the end of the Cold War, anti-communism has not been
500
used as extensively as it once was to mobilise support for elite crusades.
501
Other enemies have to be found and so the "Drug War" or "anti-terrorism"
502
now often provide the public with "official enemies" to hate and fear.
503
Thus the Drug War was the excuse for the Bush administration's invasion
504
of Panama, and "fighting narco-terrorists" has more recently been the
505
official reason for shipping military hardware and surveillance equipment
506
to Mexico (where it's actually being used against the Zapatista rebels
507
in Chiapas, whose uprising is threatening to destabilise the country and
508
endanger US investments). After 9/11, terrorism became the key means of
509
forcing support for policies. The mantra <i>"you are either with us or with
510
the terrorists"</i> was used to bolster support and reduce criticism for both
511
imperial adventures as well as a whole range of regressive domestic
514
Whether any of these new enemies will prove to be as useful as anticommunism
515
remains to be seen. It is likely, particularly given how "communism" has
516
become so vague as to include liberal and social democratic ideas, that it
517
will remain the bogey man of choice -- particularly as many within the
518
population both at home and abroad continue to support left-wing ideas
519
and organisations. Given the track record of neo-liberalism across the
520
globe, being able to tar its opponents as "communists" will remain a
524
<h2><a name="secd36">D.3.6 Isn't the "propaganda model" a conspiracy theory?</a></h2>
527
No, far from it. Chomsky and Herman explicitly address this charge
528
in <b>Manufacturing Consent</b> and explain why it is a false one:
530
<i>"Institutional critiques such as we present in this book are commonly
531
dismissed by establishment commentators as 'conspiracy theories,' but
532
this is merely an evasion. We do not use any kind of 'conspiracy'
533
hypothesis to explain mass-media performance. In fact, our treatment is
534
much closer to a 'free market' analysis, with the results largely an
535
outcome of the workings of market forces."</i> [p. xii]
537
They go on to suggest what some of these "market forces" are. One of the
538
most important is the weeding-out process that determines who gets the
539
journalistic jobs in the major media: <i>"Most biased choices in the media
540
arise from the preselection of right-thinking people, internalised
541
preconceptions, and the adaptation of personnel to the constraints of
542
ownership, organisation, market, and political power."</i> This is the
543
key, as the model <i>"helps us to understand how media personnel
544
adapt, and are adapted, to systemic demands. Given the imperatives
545
of corporate organisation and the workings of the various filters,
546
conformity to the needs and interests of privileged sectors is
547
essential to success."</i> This means that those who do not display
548
the requisite values and perspectives will be regarded as irresponsible
549
and/or ideological and, consequently, will not succeed (barring a
550
few exceptions). In other words, those who <i>"adapt, perhaps quite
551
honestly, will then be able to assert, accurately, that they perceive
552
no pressures to conform. The media are indeed free . . . for those
553
who have internalised the required values and perspectives."</i> [p. xii
556
In other words, important media employees learn to internalise the values
557
of their bosses: <i>"Censorship is largely self-censorship, by reporters and
558
commentators who adjust to the realities of source and media organisational
559
requirements, and by people at higher levels within media organisations who
560
are chosen to implement, and have usually internalised, the constraints
561
imposed by proprietary and other market and governmental centres of power."</i>
562
But, it may be asked, isn't it still a conspiracy theory to suggest that
563
media leaders all have similar values? Not at all. Such leaders <i>"do similar
564
things because they see the world through the same lenses, are subject to
565
similar constraints and incentives, and thus feature stories or maintain
566
silence together in tacit collective action and leader-follower behaviour."</i>
569
The fact that media leaders share the same fundamental values does not
570
mean, however, that the media are a solid monolith on all issues. The
571
powerful often disagree on the tactics needed <i>"to attain generally shared
572
aims, [and this gets] reflected in media debate. But views that challenge
573
fundamental premises or suggest that the observed modes of exercise of
574
state power are based on systemic factors will be excluded from the mass
575
media even when elite controversy over tactics rages fiercely."</i> [p. xii]
576
This means that viewpoints which question the legitimacy of elite aims or
577
suggest that state power is being exercised in elite interests rather than
578
the "national" interest will be excluded from the mass media. As such, we
579
would expect the media to encourage debate within accepted bounds simply
580
because the ruling class is not monolithic and while they agree on keeping
581
the system going, they disagree on the best way to do so.
583
Therefore the "propaganda model" has as little in common with a "conspiracy
584
theory" as saying that the management of General Motors acts to maintain
585
and increase its profits. As Chomsky notes, <i>"[t]o confront power is costly
586
and difficult; high standards of evidence and argument are imposed, and
587
critical analysis is naturally not welcomed by those who are in a position
588
to react vigorously and to determine the array of rewards and punishments.
589
Conformity to a 'patriotic agenda,' in contrast, imposes no such costs."</i>
590
This means that <i>"conformity is the easy way, and the path to privilege and
591
prestige . . . It is a natural expectation, on uncontroversial assumptions,
592
that the major media and other ideological institutions will generally
593
reflect the perspectives and interests of established power."</i>
594
[<b>Necessary Illusions</b>, pp. 8-9 and p. 10]
597
<h2><a name="secd37">D.3.7 Isn't the model contradicted by the
598
media reporting government and business failures?</a></h2>
601
As noted above, the claim that the media are "adversarial" or (more
602
implausibly) that they have a "left-wing bias" is due to right-wing PR
603
organisations. This means that some "inconvenient facts" are occasionally
604
allowed to pass through the filters in order to give the <b>appearance</b> of
605
"objectivity" -- precisely so the media can deny charges of engaging in
606
propaganda. As Chomsky and Herman put it: <i>"the 'naturalness' of these
607
processes, with inconvenient facts allowed sparingly and within the proper
608
framework of assumptions, and fundamental dissent virtually excluded from
609
the mass media (but permitted in a marginalised press), makes for a
610
propaganda system that is far more credible and effective in putting over
611
a patriotic agenda than one with official censorship."</i> [p. xiv]
613
To support their case against the "adversarial" nature of the media,
614
Herman and Chomsky look into the claims of such right-wing media PR
615
machines as Freedom House. However, it is soon discovered that <i>"the
616
very examples offered in praise of the media for their independence,
617
or criticism of their excessive zeal, illustrate exactly the opposite."</i>
618
Such flak, while being worthless as serious analysis, does help to
619
reinforce the myth of an "adversarial media" and so is taken seriously
620
by the media. By saying that both right and left attack them, the media
621
presents themselves as neutral, balanced and objective -- a position
622
which is valid only if both criticisms are valid and of equal worth.
623
This is not the case, as Herman and Chomsky prove, both in terms of
624
evidence and underlying aims and principles. Ultimately, the attacks
625
by the right on the media are based on the concern <i>"to protect state
626
authority from an intrusive public"</i> and so <i>"condemn the media for lack
627
of sufficient enthusiasm in supporting official crusades."</i> In other
628
words, that the <i>"existing level of subordination to state authority
629
is often deemed unsatisfactory."</i> [p. xiv and p. 301] The right-wing
630
notion that the media are "liberal" or "left-wing" says far more
631
about the authoritarian vision and aims of the right than the reality
634
Therefore the "adversarial" nature of the media is a myth, but this
635
is not to imply that the media does not present critical analysis.
636
Herman and Chomsky in fact argue that the <i>"mass media are not a solid
637
monolith on all issues."</i> and do not deny that it does present facts
638
(which they do sometimes themselves cite). This <i>"affords the
639
opportunity for a classic <b>non sequitur</b>, in which the citations of
640
facts from the mainstream press by a critic of the press is offered
641
as a triumphant 'proof' that the criticism is self-refuting, and that
642
media coverage of disputed issues is indeed adequate."</i> But, as they
643
argue, <i>"[t]hat the media provide some facts about an issue . . . proves
644
absolutely nothing about the adequacy or accuracy of that coverage. The
645
mass media do, in fact, literally suppress a great deal . . . But even
646
more important in this context is the question given to a fact - its
647
placement, tone, and repetitions, the framework within which it is
648
presented, and the related facts that accompany it and give it meaning
649
(or provide understanding) . . . there is no merit to the pretence that
650
because certain facts may be found by a diligent and sceptical researcher,
651
the absence of radical bias and de facto suppression is thereby
652
demonstrated."</i> [p. xii and pp xiv-xv]
654
As they stress, the media in a democratic system is different from one
655
in a dictatorship and so they <i>"do not function in the manner of the
656
propaganda system of a totalitarian state. Rather, they permit --
657
indeed, encourage -- spirited debate, criticism, and dissent, as long
658
as these remain faithfully within the system of presuppositions and
659
principles that constitute an elite consensus, a system so powerful
660
as to be internalised largely without awareness."</i> Within this context,
661
<i>"facts that tend to undermine the government line, if they are properly
662
understood, can be found."</i> Indeed, it is <i>"possible that the volume of
663
inconvenient facts can expand, as it did during the Vietnam War, in
664
response to the growth of a critical constituency (which included
665
elite elements from 1968). Even in this exceptional case, however,
666
it was very rare for news and commentary to find their way into the
667
mass media if they failed to conform to the framework of established
668
dogma (postulating benevolent U.S aims, the United States responding
669
to aggression and terror, etc.)"</i> While during the war and after,
670
<i>"apologists for state policy commonly pointed to the inconvenient
671
facts, the periodic 'pessimism' of media pundits, and the debates over
672
tactics as showing that the media were 'adversarial' and even 'lost'
673
the war,"</i> in fact these <i>"allegations are ludicrous."</i> [p. 302 and p. xiv]
674
A similar process, it should be noted, occurred during the invasion
675
and occupation of Iraq.
677
To summarise, as Chomsky notes <i>"what is essential is the power to
678
set the agenda."</i> This means that debate <i>"cannot be stilled, and indeed,
679
in a properly functioning system of propaganda, it should not be,
680
because it has a system-reinforcing character if constrained within
681
proper bounds. What is essential is to set the bounds firmly.
682
Controversy may rage as long as it adheres to the presuppositions
683
that define the consensus of elites, and it should furthermore be
684
encourages within these bounds, this helping to establish these
685
doctrines as the very condition of thinkable thought while reinforcing
686
the belief that freedom reigns."</i> [<b>Necessary Illusions</b>, p. 48]
b'\\ No newline at end of file'
added
removed
html/secD3.html
