File: secD3.html

package info (click to toggle)
anarchism 14.0-3
links: PTS, VCS
area: main
in suites: jessie, jessie-kfreebsd
size: 12,256 kB
ctags: 618
sloc: makefile: 12
file content (690 lines) | stat: -rw-r--r-- 44,247 bytes
parent folder | download | duplicates (2)
<html>
<head>

<title>D.3 How does wealth influence the mass media?</title>

</head>
<body>

<h1>D.3 How does wealth influence the mass media?</h1>

<p>
In a word, massively. This, in turn, influences the way people see the
world and, as a result, the media is a key means by which the general 
population come to accept, and support, <i>"the arrangements of the social,
economic, and political order."</i> The media, in other words  <i>"are 
vigilant guardians protecting privilege from the threat of public
understanding and participation."</i> This process ensures that state 
violence is not necessary to maintain the system as <i>"more subtle 
means are required: the manufacture of consent, [and] deceiving the 
masses with 'necessary illusions."</i> [Noam Chomsky, <b>Necessary Illusions</b>,
pp. 13-4 and p. 19] The media, in other words, are a key means of 
ensuring that the dominant ideas within society are those of the
dominant class.
</p><p>
Noam Chomsky has helped develop a detailed and sophisticated analyse of 
how the wealthy and powerful use the media to propagandise in their own
interests behind a mask of objective news reporting. Along with Edward 
Herman, he has developed the <i><b>"Propaganda Model"</b></i> of the media works. 
Herman and Chomsky expound this analysis in their book <b>Manufacturing 
Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media</b>, whose main theses we 
will summarise in this section (unless otherwise indicated all quotes 
are from this work). We do not suggest that we can present anything other 
than a summary here and, as such, we urge readers to consult <b>Manufacturing 
Consent</b> itself for a full description and extensive supporting evidence. 
We would also recommend Chomsky's <b>Necessary Illusions</b> for a further 
discussion of this model of the media. 
</p><p>
Chomsky and Herman's "propaganda model" of the media postulates a set of
five <i>"filters"</i> that act to screen the news and other material disseminated
by the media. These <i>"filters"</i> result in a media that reflects elite
viewpoints and interests and mobilises <i>"support for the special interests
that dominate the state and private activity."</i> [<b>Manufacturing Consent</b>,
p. xi] These <i>"filters"</i> are: (1) the size, concentrated ownership, owner
wealth, and profit orientation of the dominant mass-media firms; (2)
advertising as the primary income source of the mass media; (3) the
reliance of the media on information provided by government, business, and
"experts" funded and approved by these primary sources and agents of
power; (4) <i>"flak"</i> (negative responses to a media report) as a means 
of disciplining the media; and (5) <i>"anticommunism"</i> as a national religion 
and control mechanism. It is these filters which ensure that genuine 
objectivity is usually lacking in the media (needless to say, some media,
such as Fox news and the right-wing newspapers like the UK's Sun, Telegraph 
and Daily Mail, do not even try to present an objective perspective). 
</p><p>
<i>"The raw material of news must pass through successive filters leaving
only the cleansed residue fit to print,"</i> Chomsky and Herman maintain. 
The filters <i>"fix the premises of discourse and interpretation, and the
definition of what is newsworthy in the first place, and they explain the
basis and operations of what amount to propaganda campaigns."</i> [p. 2] We 
will briefly consider the nature of these five filters below before 
refuting two common objections to the model. As with Chomsky and Herman,
examples are mostly from the US media. For more extensive analysis, we
would recommend two organisations which study and critique the performance 
of the media from a perspective informed by the "propaganda model." These
are the American <b>Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting</b> (FAIR) and the 
UK based <b>MediaLens</b> (neither, it should be pointed out, are anarchist 
organisations).
</p><p>
Before discussing the "propaganda model", we will present a few examples by 
FAIR to show how the media reflects the interests of the ruling class. War
usually provides the most obvious evidence for the biases in the media. For
example, Steve Rendall and Tara Broughel analysed the US news media during 
the first stage of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and found that official voices 
dominated it <i>"while opponents of the war have been notably underrepresented,"</i> 
Nearly two-thirds of all sources were pro-war, rising to 71% of US guests. 
Anti-war voices were a mere 10% of all sources, but just 6% of non-Iraqi 
sources and 3% of US sources. <i>"Thus viewers were more than six times as 
likely to see a pro-war source as one who was anti-war; with U.S. guests 
alone, the ratio increases to 25 to 1."</i> Unsurprisingly, official voices, 
<i>"including current and former government employees, whether civilian or 
military, dominated network newscasts"</i> (63% of overall sources). Some 
analysts did criticise certain aspects of the military planning, but 
such <i>"the rare criticisms were clearly motivated by a desire to see U.S. 
military efforts succeed."</i> While dissent was quite visible in America, 
<i>"the networks largely ignored anti-war opinion."</i> FAIR found that just 3% 
of US sources represented or expressed opposition to the war in spite of 
the fact more than one in four Americans opposed it. In summary, <i>"none of 
the networks offered anything resembling proportionate coverage of anti-war 
voices"</i>. [<i>"Amplifying Officials, Squelching Dissent"</i>, <b>Extra!</b> May/June 2003]
</p><p>
This perspective is common during war time, with the media's rule of 
thumb being, essentially, that to support the war is to be objective, 
while to be anti-war is to carry a bias. The media repeats the sanitised 
language of the state, relying on official sources to inform the public.
Truth-seeking independence was far from the media agenda and so they made
it easier for governments to do what they always do, that is lie. Rather
than challenge the agenda of the state, the media simply foisted them 
onto the general population. Genuine criticism only starts to appear 
when the costs of a conflict become so high that elements of the ruling 
class start to question tactics and strategy. Until that happens, any
criticism is minor (and within a generally pro-war perspective) and the
media acts essentially as the fourth branch of the government rather than
a Fourth Estate. The Iraq war, it should be noted, was an excellent example 
of this process at work. Initially, the media simply amplified elite needs,
uncritically reporting the Bush Administration's pathetic "evidence" of 
Iraqi WMD (which quickly became exposed as the nonsense it was). Only when
the war became too much of a burden did critical views start being heard
and then only in a context of being supportive of the goals of the operation.
</p><p>
This analysis applies as much to domestic issues. For example, Janine Jackson 
reported how most of the media fell in step with the Bush Administration's 
attempts in 2006 to trumpet a "booming" U.S. economy in the face of public 
disbelief. As she notes, there were <i>"obvious reasons [for] the majority of 
Americans dissent . . . Most American households are not, in fact, seeing 
their economic fortunes improve. GDP is up, but virtually all the growth has 
gone into corporate profits and the incomes of the highest economic brackets. 
Wages and incomes for average workers, adjusted for inflation, are down in 
recent years; the median income for non-elderly households is down 4.8 percent 
since 2000 . . .The poverty rate is rising, as is the number of people in 
debt."</i> Yet <i>"rather than confront these realities, and explore the implications 
of the White House's efforts to deny them, most mainstream media instead 
assisted the Bush team's PR by themselves feigning confusion over the gap 
between the official view and the public mood."</i> They did so by presenting 
<i>"the majority of Americans' understanding of their own economic situation 
. . .  as somehow disconnected from reality, ascribed to 'pessimism,' 
ignorance or irrationality . . . But why these ordinary workers, representing 
the majority of households, should not be considered the arbiters of 
whether or not 'the economy' is good is never explained."</i> Barring a few 
exceptions, the media did not <i>"reflect the concerns of average salaried 
workers at least as much as those of the investor class."</i> Needless to say, 
which capitalist economists were allowed space to discuss their ideas, 
progressive economists did not. [<i>"Good News! The Rich Get Richer: Lack of 
applause for falling wages is media mystery,"</i> <b>Extra!</b>, March/April 2006]
Given the nature and role of the media, this reporting comes as no surprise.
</p><p>
We stress again, before continuing, that this is a <b>summary</b> of Herman's
and Chomsky's thesis and we cannot hope to present the wealth of evidence
and argument available in either <b>Manufacturing Consent</b> or <b>Necessary
Illusions</b>. We recommend either of these books for more information on and
evidence to support the "propaganda model" of the media. Unless otherwise 
indicated, all quotes in this section of the FAQ are from Herman and 
Chomsky's <b>Manufacturing Consent</b>.</p> 

<h2><a name="secd31">D.3.1 How does the structure of the media affect its content?</a></h2>

<p>
Even a century ago, the number of media with any substantial outreach was
limited by the large size of the necessary investment, and this limitation
has become increasingly effective over time. As in any well developed 
market, this means that there are very effective <b>natural</b> barriers to
entry into the media industry. Due to this process of concentration, the
ownership of the major media has become increasingly concentrated in fewer
and fewer hands. As Ben Bagdikian's stresses in his 1987 book <b>Media
Monopoly</b>, the 29 largest media systems account for over half of the
output of all newspapers, and most of the sales and audiences in
magazines, broadcasting, books, and movies. The <i>"top tier"</i> of these --
somewhere between 10 and 24 systems -- along with the government and wire
services, <i>"defines the news agenda and supplies much of the national and
international news to the lower tiers of the media, and thus for the
general public."</i> [p. 5] Since then, media concentration has increased, 
both nationally and on a global level. Bagdikian's 2004 book, <b>The New 
Media Monopoly</b>, showed that since 1983 the number of corporations 
controlling most newspapers, magazines, book publishers, movie studios, 
and electronic media have shrunk from 50 to five global-dimension firms, 
operating with many of the characteristics of a cartel -- Time-Warner, 
Disney, News Corporation, Viacom and Germany-based Bertelsmann.  
</p><p>
These <i>"top-tier companies are large, profit-seeking corporations, owned 
and controlled by very wealthy people . . . Many of these companies are
fully integrated into the financial market"</i> which means that <i>"the pressures 
of stockholders, directors and bankers to focus on the bottom line are 
powerful."</i> [p. 5] These pressures have intensified in recent years as media 
stocks have become market favourites and as deregulation has increased 
profitability and so the threat of take-overs. These ensure that these 
<i>"control groups obviously have a special take on the status quo by virtue 
of their wealth and their strategic position in one of the great institutions
of society. And they exercise the power of this strategic position, if only 
by establishing the general aims of the company and choosing its top 
management."</i> [p. 8]
</p><p>
The media giants have also diversified into other fields. For example GE,
and Westinghouse, both owners of major television networks, are huge,
diversified multinational companies heavily involved in the controversial
areas of weapons production and nuclear power. GE and Westinghouse
depend on the government to subsidise their nuclear power and military
research and development, and to create a favourable climate for their
overseas sales and investments. Similar dependence on the government
affect other media. 
</p><p>
Because they are large corporations with international investment
interests, the major media tend to have a right-wing political bias. In
addition, members of the business class own most of the mass media, the
bulk of which depends for their existence on advertising revenue (which in
turn comes from private business). Business also provides a substantial
share of "experts" for news programmes and generates massive "flak." Claims
that the media are "left-leaning" are sheer disinformation manufactured by 
the "flak" organisations described below (in <a href="secD3.html#secd34">section D.3.4<a>). Thus Herman 
and Chomsky:
</p><p><blockquote>
<i>"the dominant media forms are quite large businesses; they are controlled
by very wealthy people or by managers who are subject to sharp constraints
by owners and other market-profit-oriented forces; and they are closely
interlocked, and have important common interests, with other major
corporations, banks, and government. This is the first powerful filter
that effects news choices."</i> [p. 14]
</blockquote></p><p>
Needless to say, reporters and editors will be selected based upon how
well their work reflects the interests and needs of their employers.
Thus a radical reporter and a more mainstream one both of the same
skills and abilities would have very different careers within the
industry. Unless the radical reporter toned down their copy, they are
unlikely to see it printed unedited or unchanged. Thus the structure
within the media firm will tend to penalise radical viewpoints,
encouraging an acceptance of the status quo in order to further a
career. This selection process ensures that owners do not need to
order editors or reporters what to do -- to be successful they will
have to internalise the values of their employers.
</p>

<h2><a name="secd32">D.3.2 What is the effect of advertising on the mass media?</a></h2>

<p>
The main business of the media is to sell audiences to advertisers. 
Advertisers thus acquire a kind of de facto licensing authority, since
without their support the media would cease to be economically viable. 
And it is <b>affluent</b> audiences that get advertisers interested. As 
Chomsky and Herman put it, the <i>"idea that the drive for large audiences 
makes the mass media 'democratic' thus suffers from the initial weakness 
that its political analogue is a voting system weighted by income!"</i> [p.16] 
</p><p>
As regards TV, in addition to <i>"discrimination against unfriendly
media institutions, advertisers also choose selectively among 
programs on the basis of their own principles. With rare exceptions
these are culturally and politically conservative. Large corporate
advertisers on television will rarely sponsor programs that engage
in serious criticisms of corporate activities."</i> Accordingly, large 
corporate advertisers almost never sponsor programs that contain 
serious criticisms of corporate activities, such as negative 
ecological impacts, the workings of the military-industrial complex, 
or corporate support of and benefits from Third World dictatorships. 
This means that TV companies <i>"learn over time that such programs will 
not sell and would have to be carried at a financial sacrifice, and 
that, in addition, they may offend powerful advertisers."</i> More 
generally, advertisers will want <i>"to avoid programs with serious 
complexities and disturbing controversies that interfere with the 
'buying mood.'"</i> [p. 17]
</p><p>
Political discrimination is therefore structured into advertising
allocations by wealthy companies with an emphasis on people with 
money to buy. In addition, <i>"many companies will always refuse to 
do business with ideological enemies and those whom they perceive 
as damaging their interests."</i> Thus overt discrimination adds to the 
force of the <i>"voting system weighted by income."</i> This has had the 
effect of placing working class and radical papers at a serious 
disadvantage. Without access to advertising revenue, even the 
most popular paper will fold or price itself out of the market. 
Chomsky and Herman cite the British pro-labour and pro-union 
<b>Daily Herald</b> as an example of this process. At its peak, the 
<b>Daily Herald</b> had almost double the readership of <b>The Times</b>, 
the <b>Financial Times</b> and <b>The Guardian</b> combined, yet even with 
8.1% of the national circulation it got 3.5% of net advertising 
revenue and so could not survive on the "free market." As Herman 
and Chomsky note, a <i>"mass movement without any major media support, 
and subject to a great deal of active press hostility, suffers a 
serious disability, and struggles against grave odds."</i> With the 
folding of the <b>Daily Herald</b>, the labour movement lost its voice 
in the mainstream media. [pp. 17-8 and pp. 15-16]
</p><p>
Thus advertising is an effective filter for news choice (and, indeed,
survival in the market).
</p>

<h2><a name="secd33">D.3.3 Why do the media rely on government and business "experts" for information?</a></h2>

<p>
As Herman and Chomsky stress, basic economics explains why the mass
media <i>"are drawn into a symbiotic relationship with powerful sources
of information"</i> as well as <i>"reciprocity of interest."</i> The media need
<i>"a steady, reliable flow of raw material of news. They have daily news
demands and imperative news schedules that they must meet."</i> They cannot
afford to have reporters and cameras at all locations and so economics
<i>"dictates that they concentrate their resources where significant news
often occurs."</i> [p. 18] This means that bottom-line considerations 
dictate that the media concentrate their resources where news, rumours 
and leaks are plentiful, and where regular press conferences are held. 
The White House, Pentagon, and the State Department, in Washington, 
D.C., are centres of such activity on a national scale, while city 
hall and police departments are their local equivalents. In addition,
trade groups, businesses and corporations also provide regular stories
that are deemed as newsworthy and from credible sources.
</p><p>
In other words, government and corporate sources have the great merit 
of being recognisable and credible by their status and prestige; moreover, 
they have the most money available to produce a flow of news that the 
media can use. For example, the Pentagon has a public-information service 
employing many thousands of people, spending hundreds of millions of 
dollars every year, and far outspending not only the public-information 
resources of any dissenting individual or group but the <b>aggregate</b> of 
such groups. Only the corporate sector has the resources to produce 
public information and propaganda on the scale of the Pentagon and other 
government bodies. The Chamber of Commerce, a business collective, had 
a 1983 budget for research, communications, and political activities of 
$65 million. Besides the US Chamber of Commerce, there are thousands of 
state and local chambers of commerce and trade associations also engaged 
in public relations and lobbying activities. As we noted in <a href="secD2.html">section D.2</a>,
the corporate funding of PR is massive. Thus <i>"business corporations and 
trade groups are also regular purveyors of stories deemed newsworthy. 
These bureaucracies turn out a large volume of material that meets the 
demands of news organisations for reliable, scheduled flows."</i> [p. 19]
</p><p>
To maintain their pre-eminent position as sources, government and
business-news agencies expend much effort to make things easy for 
news organisations. They provide the media organisations with 
facilities in which to gather, give journalists advance copies of 
speeches and upcoming reports; schedule press conferences at hours 
convenient for those needing to meet news deadlines; write press 
releases in language that can be used with little editing; and 
carefully organise press conferences and photo-opportunity sessions. 
This means that, in effect, <i>"the large bureaucracies of the powerful 
<b>subsidise</b> the mass media, and gain special access by their 
contribution to reducing the media's costs of acquiring the raw 
materials of, and producing, news."</i> [p. 22]
</p><p>
This economic dependency also allows corporations and the state to
influence the media. The most obvious way is by using their <i>"personal
relationships, threats, and rewards to further influence and coerce
the media. The media may feel obligated to carry extremely dubious
stories and mute criticism in order not to offend sources and disturb
a close relationship. It is very difficult to call authorities on whom
one depends for daily news liars, even if they tell whoppers."</i> Critical
sources may be avoided not only due to the higher costs in finding them
and establishing their credibility, but because the established <i>"primary
sources may be offended and may even threaten the media with using them."</i>
[p. 22] As well as refusing to co-operate on shows or reports which 
include critics, corporations and governments may threaten the media
with loss of access if they ask too many critical questions or delve 
into inappropriate areas. 
</p><p>
In addition, <i>"more important, powerful sources regularly take advantage 
of media routines and dependency to 'manage' the media, to manipulate 
them into following a special agenda and framework . . . Part of this
management process consists of inundating the media with stories, which
serve sometimes to foist a particular line and frame on the media . . .
and at other times to chase unwanted stories off the front page or out
of the media altogether."</i> [p. 23]
</p><p>
The dominance of official sources would, of course, be weakened by the
existence of highly respectable unofficial sources that gave dissident
views with great authority. To alleviate this problem, the power elite
uses the strategy of <i>"co-opting the experts"</i> -- that is, putting them on
the payroll as consultants, funding their research, and organising think
tanks that will hire them directly and help disseminate the messages deemed
essential to elite interests. "Experts" on TV panel discussions and news
programs are often drawn from such organisations, whose funding comes
primarily from the corporate sector and wealthy families -- a fact that
is, of course, never mentioned on the programs where they appear. This
allows business, for example, to sell its interests as objective and
academic while, in fact, they provide a thin veneer to mask partisan 
work which draws the proper conclusions desired by their pay masters.
</p><p>
This process of creating a mass of experts readily available to the media
<i>"has been carried out on a deliberate and a massive scale."</i> These ensure
that <i>"the corporate viewpoint"</i> is effectively spread as the experts work 
is <i>"funded and their outputs . . . disseminated to the media by a 
sophisticated propaganda effort. The corporate funding and clear 
ideological purpose in the overall effort had no discernible effect 
on the credibility of the intellectuals so mobilised; on the contrary,
the funding and pushing of their ideas catapulted them into the press."</i>
[p. 23 and p. 24]
</p>

<h2><a name="secd34">D.3.4 How is "flak" used as a means of disciplining the media?</a></h2>

<p>
<i>"Flak"</i> is a term used by Herman and Chomsky to refer <i>"to negative responses 
to a media statement or program."</i> Such responses may be expressed as phone 
calls, letters, telegrams, e-mail messages, petitions, lawsuits, speeches, 
bills before Congress, or <i>"other modes of complaint, threat, or punishment."</i>
Flak may be generated centrally, by organisations, or it may come from the 
independent actions of individuals (sometimes encouraged to act by media 
hacks such as right-wing talk show hosts or newspapers). <i>"If flak is 
produced on a large-scale, or by individuals or groups with substantial 
resources, it can be both uncomfortable and costly to the media."</i> [p. 26]
</p><p>
This is for many reasons. Positions need to be defended within and outwith
an organisation, sometimes in front of legislatures and (perhaps) in the
courts. Advertisers are very concerned to avoid offending constituencies 
who might produce flak, and their demands for inoffensive programming exerts
pressure on the media to avoid certain kinds of facts, positions, or programs 
that are likely to call forth flak. This can have a strong deterrence factor,
with media organisations avoiding certain subjects and sources simply to
avoid having to deal with the inevitable flak they will receive from the
usual sources. The ability to produce flak <i>"is related to power,"</i> as it 
is expensive to generate on scale which is actually effective. [p. 26] 
Unsurprisingly, this means that the most effective flak comes from business 
and government who have the funds to produce it on a large scale. 
</p><p>
The government itself is <i>"a major producer of flak, regularly assailing,
threatening, and 'correcting' the media, trying to contain any deviations
from the established line in foreign or domestic policy."</i> However, the 
right-wing plays a major role in deliberately creating flak. For example, 
during the 1970s and 1980s, the corporate community sponsored the 
creation of such institutions as the American Legal Foundation, the 
Capital Legal Foundation, the Media Institute, the Center for Media and 
Public Affairs, and Accuracy in Media (AIM), which may be regarded as 
organisations designed for the specific purpose of producing flak. 
Freedom House is an older US organisation which had a broader design but 
whose flak-producing activities became a model for the more recent 
organisations. The Media Institute, for instance, was set up in 1972 and 
is funded by wealthy corporate patrons, sponsoring media monitoring projects,
conferences, and studies of the media. The main focus of its studies and
conferences has been the alleged failure of the media to portray business
accurately and to give adequate weight to the business point of view, but
it also sponsors works which "expose" alleged left-wing bias in the mass 
media. [p. 28 and pp. 27-8]
</p><p>
And, it should be noted, while the flak machines <i>"steadily attack the media,
the media treats them well. They receive respectful attention, and their 
propagandistic role and links to a large corporate program are rarely 
mentioned or analysed."</i> [p. 28] Indeed, such attacks <i>"are often not 
unwelcome, first because response is simple or superfluous; and second, 
because debate over this issue helps entrench the belief that the media
are . . . independent and objective, with high standards of professional
integrity and openness to all reasonable views"</i> which is <i>"quite acceptable
to established power and privilege -- even to the media elites themselves,
who are not averse to the charge that they may have gone to far in pursuing
their cantankerous and obstreperous ways in defiance of orthodoxy and
power."</i> Ultimately, such flak <i>"can only be understood as a demand that 
the media should not even reflect the range of debate over tactical 
questions among the dominant elites, but should serve only those segments
that happen to manage the state at a particular moment, and should do so 
with proper enthusiasm and optimism about the causes -- noble by 
definition -- in which state power is engaged."</i> [Chomsky, <b>Necessary 
Illusions</b>, p. 13 and p. 11]
</p>

<h2><a name="secd35">D.3.5 Why is "anticommunism" used as control mechanism?</a></h2>

<p>
The final filter which Herman and Chomsky discuss is the ideology of
anticommunism. "Communism" is of course regarded as the ultimate evil 
by the corporate rich, since the ideas of collective ownership of 
productive assets <i>"threatens the very root of their class position 
and superior status."</i> As the concept is <i>"fuzzy,"</i> it can be widely 
applied and <i>"can be used against anybody advocating policies that
threaten property interests."</i> [p. 29] Hence the attacks on 
third-world nationalists as "socialists" and the steady expansion 
of "communism" to apply to any form of socialism, social democracy, 
reformism, trade unionism or even "liberalism" (i.e. any movement 
which aims to give workers more bargaining power or allow ordinary 
citizens more voice in public policy decisions).
</p><p>
Hence the ideology of anticommunism has been very useful, because it can
be used to discredit anybody advocating policies regarded as harmful to
corporate interests. It also helps to divide the Left and labour movements, 
justifies support for pro-US fascist regimes abroad as "lesser evils" than 
communism, and discourages liberals from opposing such regimes for fear of 
being branded as heretics from the national religion. This process has been 
aided immensely by the obvious fact that the "communist" regimes (i.e. 
Stalinist dictatorships) have been so terrible.
</p><p>
Since the collapse of the USSR and related states in 1989, the utility 
of anticommunism has lost some of its power. Of course, there are still 
a few official communist enemy states, like North Korea, Cuba, and China,
but these are not quite the threat the USSR was. North Korea and Cuba 
are too impoverished to threaten the world's only super-power (that so 
many Americans think that Cuba was ever a threat says a lot about the 
power of propaganda). China is problematic, as Western corporations now
have access to, and can exploit, its resources, markets and cheap labour.
As such, criticism of China will be mooted, unless it starts to hinder
US corporations or become too much of an economic rival.
</p><p>
So we can still expect, to some degree, abuses or human rights violations 
in these countries are systematically played up by the media while similar
abuses in client states are downplayed or ignored. Chomsky and Herman
refer to the victims of abuses in enemy states as <b>worthy victims,</b> while
victims who suffer at the hands of US clients or friends are <b>unworthy
victims.</b> Stories about worthy victims are often made the subject of
sustained propaganda campaigns, to score political points against
enemies. For example:
</p><p><blockquote>
<i>"If the government of corporate community and the media feel that a story
is useful as well as dramatic, they focus on it intensively and use it to
enlighten the public. This was true, for example, of the shooting down by
the Soviets of the Korean airliner KAL 007 in early September 1983, which
permitted an extended campaign of denigration of an official enemy and
greatly advanced Reagan administration arms plans."
</p><p>
"In sharp contrast, the shooting down by Israel of a Libyan civilian
airliner in February 1973 led to no outcry in the West, no denunciations
for 'cold-blooded murder,' and no boycott. This difference in treatment
was explained by the <b>New York Times</b> precisely on the grounds of
utility: 'No useful purpose is served by an acrimonious debate over the
assignment of blame for the downing of a Libyan airliner in the Sinai
peninsula last week.' There <b>was</b> a very 'useful purpose' served by
focusing on the Soviet act, and a massive propaganda campaign ensued."</i>
[p. 32]
</blockquote></p><p>
As noted, since the end of the Cold War, anti-communism has not been 
used as extensively as it once was to mobilise support for elite crusades. 
Other enemies have to be found and so the "Drug War" or "anti-terrorism" 
now often provide the public with "official enemies" to hate and fear. 
Thus the Drug War was the excuse for the Bush administration's invasion 
of Panama, and "fighting narco-terrorists" has more recently been the 
official reason for shipping military hardware and surveillance equipment 
to Mexico (where it's actually being used against the Zapatista rebels 
in Chiapas, whose uprising is threatening to destabilise the country and 
endanger US investments). After 9/11, terrorism became the key means of
forcing support for policies. The mantra <i>"you are either with us or with
the terrorists"</i> was used to bolster support and reduce criticism for both 
imperial adventures as well as a whole range of regressive domestic 
policies.
</p><p>
Whether any of these new enemies will prove to be as useful as anticommunism
remains to be seen. It is likely, particularly given how "communism" has 
become so vague as to include liberal and social democratic ideas, that it
will remain the bogey man of choice -- particularly as many within the 
population both at home and abroad continue to support left-wing ideas 
and organisations. Given the track record of neo-liberalism across the 
globe, being able to tar its opponents as "communists" will remain a 
useful tool.
</p>

<h2><a name="secd36">D.3.6 Isn't the "propaganda model" a conspiracy theory?</a></h2>

<p>
No, far from it. Chomsky and Herman explicitly address this charge 
in <b>Manufacturing Consent</b> and explain why it is a false one: 
</p><p><blockquote>
<i>"Institutional critiques such as we present in this book are commonly 
dismissed by establishment commentators as 'conspiracy theories,' but 
this is merely an evasion. We do not use any kind of 'conspiracy'
hypothesis to explain mass-media performance. In fact, our treatment is
much closer to a 'free market' analysis, with the results largely an
outcome of the workings of market forces."</i> [p. xii]
</blockquote></p><p>
They go on to suggest what some of these "market forces" are. One of the
most important is the weeding-out process that determines who gets the
journalistic jobs in the major media: <i>"Most biased choices in the media
arise from the preselection of right-thinking people, internalised
preconceptions, and the adaptation of personnel to the constraints of
ownership, organisation, market, and political power."</i> This is the 
key, as the model <i>"helps us to understand how media personnel 
adapt, and are adapted, to systemic demands. Given the imperatives 
of corporate organisation and the workings of the various filters, 
conformity to the needs and interests of privileged sectors is 
essential to success."</i> This means that those who do not display 
the requisite values and perspectives will be regarded as irresponsible
and/or ideological and, consequently, will not succeed (barring a
few exceptions). In other words, those who <i>"adapt, perhaps quite 
honestly, will then be able to assert, accurately, that they perceive 
no pressures to conform. The media are indeed free . . . for those 
who have internalised the required values and perspectives."</i> [p. xii
and p. 304]
</p><p>
In other words, important media employees learn to internalise the values 
of their bosses: <i>"Censorship is largely self-censorship, by reporters and 
commentators who adjust to the realities of source and media organisational 
requirements, and by people at higher levels within media organisations who 
are chosen to implement, and have usually internalised, the constraints
imposed by proprietary and other market and governmental centres of power."</i> 
But, it may be asked, isn't it still a conspiracy theory to suggest that 
media leaders all have similar values? Not at all. Such leaders <i>"do similar 
things because they see the world through the same lenses, are subject to 
similar constraints and incentives, and thus feature stories or maintain 
silence together in tacit collective action and leader-follower behaviour."</i> 
[p. xii]
</p><p>
The fact that media leaders share the same fundamental values does not
mean, however, that the media are a solid monolith on all issues. The
powerful often disagree on the tactics needed <i>"to attain generally shared
aims, [and this gets] reflected in media debate. But views that challenge
fundamental premises or suggest that the observed modes of exercise of
state power are based on systemic factors will be excluded from the mass
media even when elite controversy over tactics rages fiercely."</i> [p. xii]
This means that viewpoints which question the legitimacy of elite aims or 
suggest that state power is being exercised in elite interests rather than 
the "national" interest will be excluded from the mass media. As such, we 
would expect the media to encourage debate within accepted bounds simply 
because the ruling class is not monolithic and while they agree on keeping 
the system going, they disagree on the best way to do so.
</p><p>
Therefore the "propaganda model" has as little in common with a "conspiracy 
theory" as saying that the management of General Motors acts to maintain 
and increase its profits. As Chomsky notes, <i>"[t]o confront power is costly
and difficult; high standards of evidence and argument are imposed, and 
critical analysis is naturally not welcomed by those who are in a position 
to react vigorously and to determine the array of rewards and punishments.
Conformity to a 'patriotic agenda,' in contrast, imposes no such costs."</i>
This means that <i>"conformity is the easy way, and the path to privilege and
prestige . . . It is a natural expectation, on uncontroversial assumptions,
that the major media and other ideological institutions will generally 
reflect the perspectives and interests of established power."</i> 
[<b>Necessary Illusions</b>, pp. 8-9 and p. 10]
</p>

<h2><a name="secd37">D.3.7 Isn't the model contradicted by the 
media reporting government and business failures?</a></h2>

<p>
As noted above, the claim that the media are "adversarial" or (more
implausibly) that they have a "left-wing bias" is due to right-wing PR
organisations. This means that some "inconvenient facts" are occasionally
allowed to pass through the filters in order to give the <b>appearance</b> of
"objectivity" -- precisely so the media can deny charges of engaging in
propaganda. As Chomsky and Herman put it: <i>"the 'naturalness' of these
processes, with inconvenient facts allowed sparingly and within the proper
framework of assumptions, and fundamental dissent virtually excluded from
the mass media (but permitted in a marginalised press), makes for a
propaganda system that is far more credible and effective in putting over
a patriotic agenda than one with official censorship."</i> [p. xiv]
</p><p>
To support their case against the "adversarial" nature of the media, 
Herman and Chomsky look into the claims of such right-wing media PR 
machines as Freedom House. However, it is soon discovered that <i>"the 
very examples offered in praise of the media for their independence, 
or criticism of their excessive zeal, illustrate exactly the opposite."</i> 
Such flak, while being worthless as serious analysis, does help to 
reinforce the myth of an "adversarial media" and so is taken seriously 
by the media. By saying that both right and left attack them, the media 
presents themselves as neutral, balanced and objective -- a position 
which is valid only if both criticisms are valid and of equal worth. 
This is not the case, as Herman and Chomsky prove, both in terms of 
evidence and underlying aims and principles. Ultimately, the attacks 
by the right on the media are based on the concern <i>"to protect state 
authority from an intrusive public"</i> and so <i>"condemn the media for lack 
of sufficient enthusiasm in supporting official crusades."</i> In other 
words, that the <i>"existing level of subordination to state authority 
is often deemed unsatisfactory."</i> [p. xiv and p. 301] The right-wing 
notion that the media are "liberal" or "left-wing" says far more 
about the authoritarian vision and aims of the right than the reality 
of the media.
</p><p>
Therefore the "adversarial" nature of the media is a myth, but this
is not to imply that the media does not present critical analysis.
Herman and Chomsky in fact argue that the <i>"mass media are not a solid
monolith on all issues."</i> and do not deny that it does present facts 
(which they do sometimes themselves cite). This <i>"affords the 
opportunity for a classic <b>non sequitur</b>, in which the citations of
facts from the mainstream press by a critic of the press is offered 
as a triumphant 'proof' that the criticism is self-refuting, and that 
media coverage of disputed issues is indeed adequate."</i> But, as they 
argue, <i>"[t]hat the media provide some facts about an issue . . . proves 
absolutely nothing about the adequacy or accuracy of that coverage. The 
mass media do, in fact, literally suppress a great deal . . . But even
more important in this context is the question given to a fact - its
placement, tone, and repetitions, the framework within which it is
presented, and the related facts that accompany it and give it meaning
(or provide understanding) . . . there is no merit to the pretence that
because certain facts may be found by a diligent and sceptical researcher,
the absence of radical bias and de facto suppression is thereby 
demonstrated."</i> [p. xii and pp xiv-xv]
</p><p>
As they stress, the media in a democratic system is different from one
in a dictatorship and so they <i>"do not function in the manner of the 
propaganda system of a totalitarian state. Rather, they permit -- 
indeed, encourage -- spirited debate, criticism, and dissent, as long
as these remain faithfully within the system of presuppositions and 
principles that constitute an elite consensus, a system so powerful 
as to be internalised largely without awareness."</i> Within this context, 
<i>"facts that tend to undermine the government line, if they are properly
understood, can be found."</i> Indeed, it is <i>"possible that the volume of
inconvenient facts can expand, as it did during the Vietnam War, in 
response to the growth of a critical constituency (which included 
elite elements from 1968). Even in this exceptional case, however, 
it was very rare for news and commentary to find their way into the
mass media if they failed to conform to the framework of established 
dogma (postulating benevolent U.S aims, the United States responding 
to aggression and terror, etc.)"</i> While during the war and after, 
<i>"apologists for state policy commonly pointed to the inconvenient
facts, the periodic 'pessimism' of media pundits, and the debates over 
tactics as showing that the media were 'adversarial' and even 'lost'
the war,"</i> in fact these <i>"allegations are ludicrous."</i> [p. 302 and p. xiv]
A similar process, it should be noted, occurred during the invasion
and occupation of Iraq.
</p><p>
To summarise, as Chomsky notes <i>"what is essential is the power to
set the agenda."</i> This means that debate <i>"cannot be stilled, and indeed,
in a properly functioning system of propaganda, it should not be, 
because it has a system-reinforcing character if constrained within
proper bounds. What is essential is to set the bounds firmly. 
Controversy may rage as long as it adheres to the presuppositions 
that define the consensus of elites, and it should furthermore be
encourages within these bounds, this helping to establish these 
doctrines as the very condition of thinkable thought while reinforcing
the belief that freedom reigns."</i> [<b>Necessary Illusions</b>, p. 48]
</p>

</html>
</body>