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{{Short description|Conceptual model in political economy}} | |||
The '''propaganda model''' is a ] advanced by ] and ] that alleges systemic ] in the ] and seeks to explain them in terms of structural ] ]s. | |||
{{more citations needed|date=March 2023}} | |||
{{Journalism sidebar}} | |||
== Overview == | |||
The '''propaganda model''' is a ] in ] advanced by ] and ] to explain how ] and ]es function in ] ]. The model seeks to explain how populations are manipulated and how ] for economic, social, and political policies, both foreign and domestic, is "manufactured" in the public mind due to this propaganda. The theory posits that the way in which ] media is structured (e.g. through ], ] or government sourcing) creates an inherent ] and therefore acts as propaganda for anti-democratic elements. | |||
] | |||
First presented in their 1988 book '']'', the ''propaganda model'' views the private media as businesses selling a product — readers and audiences (rather than news) — to other businesses (advertisers). The theory postulates five general classes of "filters" that determine the type of news that is presented in news media. These five are: | |||
# ] of the medium | |||
# Medium's ] sources | |||
# ] | |||
# ] | |||
# ] ] | |||
First presented in their 1988 book '']'', the propaganda model views corporate media as businesses interested in the sale of a product—readers and audiences—to other businesses (advertisers) rather than the pursuit of quality ] in service of the public. Describing the media's "societal purpose", Chomsky writes, "... the study of institutions and how they function must be scrupulously ignored, apart from fringe elements or a relatively obscure scholarly literature".{{sfn|Chomsky|1989|p={{pn|date=December 2021}}}} The theory postulates five general classes of "filters" that determine the type of news that is presented in news media. These five classes are: ] of the medium, the medium's ] sources, ], ], and ] or "fear ideology". | |||
The first three (ownership, funding, and sourcing) are generally regarded by the authors as being the most important. | |||
The first three are generally regarded by the authors as being the most important. In versions published after the ] on the United States in 2001, Chomsky and Herman updated the fifth prong to instead refer to the "]" and "]", which they state operates in much the same manner. | |||
Although the model was based mainly on the characterization of ] media, Chomsky and Herman believe the theory is equally applicable to any country that shares the basic economic structure and organizing principles which the model postulates as the cause of media biases. | |||
Although the model was based mainly on the ], Chomsky and Herman believe the theory is equally applicable to any country that shares the basic economic structure and organizing principles that the model postulates as the cause of ]es.<ref name=forumacrh>{{Cite web|url=http://www.zmag.org/forums/chomforumacrh.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070225145314/http://www.zmag.org/forums/chomforumacrh.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=February 25, 2007|title=A selection of Chomsky|date=February 25, 2007}}</ref> Their assessment has been supported by a number of scholars and the propaganda role of the media has since been empirically assessed in ] and ].<ref>{{Cite book |doi = 10.16997/book27|title = The Propaganda Model Today: Filtering Perception and Awareness|year = 2018|last1 = Klaehn|first1 = Jeffery| publisher=University of Westminster Press |editor2-first = Daniel|editor2-last = Broudy|editor1-first = Joan|editor1-last = Pedro-Carañana|isbn = 9781912656165| s2cid=158190603 }}</ref> | |||
== The filters == | |||
== Filters == | |||
=== Ownership === | === Ownership === | ||
The size and ]-seeking imperative of dominant media corporations create a bias. The authors point to how in the early nineteenth century, a radical British press had emerged that addressed the concerns of workers, but excessive ], designed to restrict newspaper ownership to the 'respectable' wealthy, began to change the face of the press. Nevertheless, there remained a degree of diversity. In post World War II Britain, radical or worker-friendly newspapers such as the '']'', '']'', '']'' (all since failed or absorbed into other publications), and the '']'' (at least until the late 1970s) regularly published articles questioning the ] system. The authors posit that these earlier radical papers were not constrained by corporate ownership and therefore, were free to criticize the capitalist system. | |||
] | |||
Herman and Chomsky argue that all mainstream media outlets are embodied in large ]s, which are themselves often part of much larger ] (''e.g.'' ] or ]). Such conglomerates frequently extend beyond traditional media fields, and thus have extensive financial interests that may be endangered when certain information is widely publicized. Thus, according to this reasoning, news items that most endanger the corporate financial interests that own the media will face the most bias and censorship. | |||
Herman and Chomsky argue that since mainstream media outlets are currently either large ]s or part of ] (e.g. ] or ]), the information presented to the public will be biased with respect to these interests. Such conglomerates frequently extend beyond traditional media fields and thus have extensive financial interests that may be endangered when certain information is publicized. According to this reasoning, news items that most endanger the corporate financial interests of those who own the media will face the greatest bias and censorship. | |||
The authors claim that the importance of ownership filter is the fact that corporations are subject to ] control in the context of a ]-oriented ]. The theory then argues that maximizing profit means sacrificing news objectivity, and news sources that ultimately survive must have been fundamentally biased, with regard to news in which they have a conflict of interest. | |||
It then follows that if to maximize profit means sacrificing news objectivity, then the news sources that ultimately survive must be fundamentally biased, with regard to news in which they have a ]. | |||
=== Funding === | |||
=== Advertising === | |||
Since the mainstream media depends heavily on ] revenues to survive, the model suggests that the interests of advertisers come before reporting the news. Chomsky and Herman argue that a newspaper, like any other company, has a product which it offers to its audience (or customer base). In this case, however, the product is composed of the affluent readers who buy the newspaper — who also comprise the educated decision-making sector of the population — while the audience includes the businesses that pay to advertise their goods. According to this "filter", the news itself is nothing more than "filler" to get privileged readers to see the advertisements which makes up the real content, and will thus take whatever form is most conducive to attracting educated decision-makers. Stories that conflict with their "buying mood", it is argued, will tend to be marginalized or excluded, as will information that presents a picture of the world that collides with advertisers' interests. The theory argues that the people buying the newspaper are themselves the product which is sold to the businesses that buy advertising space; the newspaper itself has only a marginal role as the product | |||
The second filter of the propaganda model is funding generated through ]. Most newspapers have to attract advertising in order to cover the costs of production; without it, they would have to increase the price of their newspaper. There is fierce competition throughout the media to attract advertisers; a newspaper which gets less advertising than its competitors is at a serious disadvantage. Lack of success in raising advertising revenue was another factor in the demise of the 'people's newspapers' of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. | |||
The product is composed of the affluent readers who buy the newspaper—who also comprise the educated decision-making sector of the population—while the actual clientele served by the newspaper includes the businesses that pay to advertise their goods. According to this filter, the news is "filler" to get privileged readers to see the advertisements which makes up the content and will thus take whatever form is most conducive to attracting educated decision-makers. Stories that conflict with their "buying mood", it is argued, will tend to be marginalized or excluded, along with information that presents a picture of the world that collides with advertisers' interests. The theory argues that the people buying the newspaper are the product which is sold to the businesses that buy advertising space; the news has only a marginal role as the product. | |||
=== Sourcing === | === Sourcing === | ||
The third of Herman and Chomsky's five filters relates to the sourcing of mass media news: "The mass media are drawn into a symbiotic relationship with powerful sources of information by economic necessity and reciprocity of interest." Even large media corporations such as the ] cannot afford to place reporters everywhere. They concentrate their resources where news stories are likely to happen: the ], ], ] and other central news "terminals". Although British newspapers may occasionally complain about the "]" of ], for example, they are dependent upon the pronouncements of "the Prime Minister's personal spokesperson" for government news. Business corporations and trade organizations are also trusted sources of stories considered newsworthy. Editors and journalists who offend these powerful news sources, perhaps by questioning the veracity or bias of the furnished material, can be threatened with the denial of access to their media life-blood - fresh news.<ref>{{cite web|last=Cromwell|first=David|author-link=David Cromwell|title=The Propaganda Model: An Overview|year=2002|publisher=excerpted from Private Planet: Corporate Plunder and the Fight Back; chomsky.info|url=http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/2002----.htm|access-date=7 March 2010}}</ref> Thus, the media has become reluctant to run articles that will harm corporate interests that provide them with the resources that they depend upon. | |||
This relationship also gives rise to a "moral division of labor" where "officials have and give the facts" and "reporters merely get them". Journalists are then supposed to adopt an uncritical attitude that makes it possible for them to accept corporate values without experiencing ]. | |||
The third filter concerns the ]'s need for a continuous flow of information to fill their demand for daily news. In an ] economy where consumers demand information on numerous ] events unfolding simultaneously, they argue that this task can only be filled by major business and government sectors that have the necessary material resources. This includes mainly ] and other governmental bodies. Chomsky and Herman then argue that a "symbiotic relationship" arises between the media and parts of government which is sustained by economic necessity and reciprocity of interest. On the one hand, government and news-promoters strive to make it easier for news organizations to buy their services; according to the authors (p. 22), they | |||
=== Flak === | |||
* provide them with facilities in which to gather | |||
The fourth filter is 'flak' (not to be confused with flack which means promoters or publicity agents), described by Herman and Chomsky as 'negative responses to a media statement or program. It may take the form of letters, telegrams, phone calls, petitions, lawsuits, speeches and Bills before Congress and other modes of complaint, threat and punitive action'. Business organizations regularly come together to form flak machines. An example is the US-based ] (GCC), comprising fossil fuel and automobile companies such as Exxon, Texaco and Ford. The GCC was conceived by Burson-Marsteller, one of the world's largest public relations companies, to attack the credibility of climate scientists and 'scare stories' about global warming.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://documents.uow.edu.au/~sharonb/columns/probe11.html|title=The Decline of the Global Climate Coalition|website=documents.uow.edu.au|access-date=2020-06-12|archive-date=2020-08-06|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200806123105/https://documents.uow.edu.au/~sharonb/columns/probe11.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> | |||
* give journalists advance copies of speeches and forthcoming reports | |||
* schedule press conferences at hours well-geared to news deadlines | |||
* write press releases in usable language | |||
* carefully organize their press conferences and "photo opportunity" sessions | |||
For Chomsky and Herman "flak" refers to negative responses to a media statement or program. The term "flak" has been used to describe what Chomsky and Herman see as efforts to discredit organizations or individuals who disagree with or cast doubt on the prevailing assumptions which Chomsky and Herman view as favorable to established power (e.g., "]"). Unlike the first three "filtering" mechanisms—which are derived from analysis of market mechanisms—flak is characterized by concerted efforts to manage public information. | |||
On the other hand, the media becomes reluctant to run articles that will harm corporate interests that provide them with the resources that the media depends upon. | |||
===Anti-Communism and fear=== | |||
This theoretical relationship also gives rise to a "moral division of labor", in which "officials have and give the facts," and "reporters merely get them". Journalists are then supposed to adopt an uncritical attitude that makes it possible for them to accept corporate values without experiencing ]. | |||
{{rquote|right|So I think when we talked about the "fifth filter" we should have brought in all this stuff -- the way artificial fears are created with a dual purpose... partly to get rid of people you don't like but partly to frighten the rest. | |||
Because if people are frightened, they will accept authority.|]<ref>{{cite book |author=Noam Chomsky |title=Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky |editor1=Peter R. Mitchell |editor2=John Schoeffel |name-list-style=amp |place=New York |publisher=The New Press |year=2002 |at=Footnote 35}}</ref>|}} | |||
The fifth and final news filter that Herman and Chomsky identified was 'anti-communism'. ''Manufacturing Consent'' was written during the Cold War. Chomsky updated the model as "fear", often as 'the enemy' or an 'evil dictator' such as ], ], ], ], or ]. This is exemplified in British tabloid headlines of 'Smash Saddam!' and 'Clobba Slobba!'.<ref name="The Propaganda Model: An Overview">{{Cite web|url=https://chomsky.info/2002____/ |title=Noam Chomsky|website=chomsky.info}}</ref> The same is said to extend to mainstream reporting of ]s as ']s'. '']'' ran a series of articles in 1999 accusing activists from the ] ] group ] of stocking up on CS gas and stun guns.<ref name="The Propaganda Model: An Overview"/> | |||
=== Flak === | |||
Anti-ideologies exploit public fear and hatred of groups that pose a potential threat, either real, exaggerated or imagined. ] once posed the primary threat according to the model. Communism and ] were portrayed by their detractors as endangering freedoms of speech, movement, the press and so forth. They argue that such a portrayal was often used as a means to silence voices critical of elite interests. Chomsky argues that since the end of the Cold War (1991), anticommunism was replaced by the "War on Terror", as the major social control mechanism: "Anti-communism has receded as an ideological factor in the Western media, but it is not dead... The 'war on terror' has provided a useful substitute for the Soviet Menace."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://chomsky.info/200911__/|title=The Propaganda Model after 20 Years: Interview with Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky|website=chomsky.info|access-date=2019-04-16}}</ref> Following the events of September 11, 2001, some scholars agree that ] is replacing anti-communism as a new source of public fear.{{sfn|Allan|2010|p=22}} Herman and Chomsky noted, in an interview given in 2009, that the popularity of 'anti-communism' as a news filter is slowly decreasing in favor of other more contemporary ideologies such as 'anti-terrorism'.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://chomsky.info/200911__/|title=The Propaganda Model after 20 Years: Interview with Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky|website=chomsky.info|access-date=2019-04-16}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://ecpr.eu/Filestore/PaperProposal/24f173fa-cf31-4d46-aa2e-8431eb9739e0.pdf|title=Broadcasting Climate Change: State and Media|website=ecpr.eu|access-date=2021-02-11}}</ref> | |||
Chomsky and Herman claim that "flak" refers to negative responses to a media statement or program. The term "flak" has been used to describe what Chomsky and Herman see as targeted efforts to discredit organizations or individuals who disagree with or cast doubt on the prevailing assumptions which Chomsky and Herman view as favorable to established power (''e.g.'', "]"). Unlike the first three "filtering" mechanisms — which are derived from analysis of market mechanisms — flak is characterized by concerted and intentional efforts to manage public information. | |||
== Case examples == | |||
Flak from the powerful can be either ''direct'' or ''indirect''. The direct could include the following hypothetical scenarios: | |||
Following the theoretical exposition of the propaganda model, ''Manufacturing Consent'' contains a large section where the authors seek to test their hypotheses. If the propaganda model is right and the filters do influence media content, a particular form of bias would be expected—one that systematically favors corporate interests. | |||
* Letters or phone calls from the ] to ] or ] | |||
* Inquiries from the ] to major television networks requesting documents used to plan and assemble a program | |||
* Messages from irate executives representing ] agencies or corporate ] to media officials threatening retaliation if not granted on-air reply time. | |||
They also looked at what they perceived as naturally occurring "historical ]s" where two events, similar in their properties but differing in the expected media attitude towards them, are contrasted using objective measures such as coverage of key events (measured in column inches) or editorials favoring a particular issue (measured in number). | |||
The powerful can also work on the media indirectly by: | |||
* Complaints delivered ''en masse'' to their own constituencies (''e.g.'', ], ]) about media bias, | |||
* Generation of mass advertising that does the same, | |||
* By funding ] groups or ] engineered to expose and attack deviations in media coverage that endanger vital ] interests. | |||
* By funding ]s that elect politicians who will be more willing to curb any such media deviations. | |||
===Coverage of "enemy" countries=== | |||
===Anti-Ideologies; substitutes for anti-communism=== | |||
{{quote box|width=30%|align=right|quote= show that all of the ] combined had the support of only 9 percent of the population, but they have 100 percent of ].|source=—]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.uiowa.edu/~cyberlaw/lem02/chomsky1.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150119230506/http://www.uiowa.edu/~cyberlaw/lem02/chomsky1.html|archive-date=19 January 2015|title=Chomsky, Understanding Power}}</ref>}} | |||
Examples of bias given by the authors include the failure of the media to question the ] while greatly emphasizing the ] as an ].{{sfn|Herman|Chomsky|2002|p=252}} | |||
A final filter is anti-ideology. Anti-ideologies exploit public fear and hatred of groups that pose a potential threat, either real or imagined. Communism once posed the primary threat according to the model. ] and ] were portrayed by their detractors as endangering freedoms of speech, movement, press, ''etc.'' They argue that such a portrayal was often used as a means to silence voices critical of elite interests. | |||
Other biases include a propensity to emphasize violent acts such as ] more in enemy or unfriendly countries such as ] while ignoring greater genocide in allied countries such as the ].{{sfn|Herman|Chomsky|2002|p=xx}} This bias is also said to exist in foreign elections, giving favorable media coverage to fraudulent elections in allied countries such as ] and ], while unfavorable coverage is given to legitimate elections in enemy countries such as ].{{sfn|Herman|Chomsky|2002|p=112}} | |||
With the ]'s collapse, proponents of the propaganda model have argued that the functionality and credibility of anti-communism has been fundamentally compromised. Proponents state that new, more functional ] have arisen to take its place. Chomsky and Herman argue that one possible replacement for anti-communism seems to have emerged in the form of "anti-]". | |||
] | |||
== Empirical support == | |||
Chomsky also asserts that the media accurately covered events such as the ] but because of an ideological bias, it acted as pro-government propaganda. In describing coverage of raid on Fallujah General Hospital he stated that '']'', "accurately recorded the battle of Fallujah but it was celebrated... it was a celebration of ongoing war crimes".<ref>{{cite news|title=Chomsky: US won't acknowledge Iraq war crimes|author=Saba Hamedy|url=http://dailyfreepress.com/2010/09/19/chomsky-us-wont-acknowledge-iraq-war-crimes/|newspaper=The Daily Free Press|date=19 September 2010|access-date=6 January 2011}}</ref> The article in question was "". | |||
Following the theoretical exposition of the propaganda model, ''Manufacturing Consent'' contains a large section where the authors seek to test their hypotheses. If the propaganda model is right and the filters do influence media content, a particular form of bias would be expected — one that systematically favors corporate interests. | |||
===Scandals of leaks=== | |||
They also looked at what they perceived as naturally-occurring "historical ]s" where two events, similar in their relevant properties but differing in the expected media attitude towards them, are contrasted using objective measures such as coverage of key events (measured in column inches) or editorials favoring a particular issue (measured in number). | |||
The authors point to biases that are based on only reporting scandals which benefit a section of power, while ignoring scandals that hurt the powerless. The biggest example of this was how the US media greatly covered the ] but ignored the ] exposures. While the Watergate break-in was a political threat to powerful people (]), COINTELPRO harmed average citizens and went as far as political ]. Other examples include coverage of the ] by only focusing on people in power such as ] but omitting coverage of the civilians killed in ] as the result of ]. | |||
In a 2010 interview, Chomsky compared media coverage of the ] and lack of media coverage of a study of ].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHfYtvYRgdk |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211212/WHfYtvYRgdk| archive-date=2021-12-12 |url-status=live|title=Chomsky on the WikiLeaks' Coverage in the Press|website=] }}{{cbignore}}</ref> While there was ample coverage of the Afghan War Diaries there was no American coverage of the Fallujah study,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.medialens.org/2010/beyond-hiroshima-the-non-reporting-of-fallujahs-cancer-catastrophe/|title=BEYOND HIROSHIMA - THE NON-REPORTING OF FALLUJAH'S CANCER CATASTROPHE|date=September 7, 2010}}</ref> in which the health situation in Fallujah was described by the British media as "worse than ]".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/toxic-legacy-of-us-assault-on-fallujah-worse-than-hiroshima-2034065.html|title=Toxic legacy of US assault on Fallujah 'worse than Hiroshima'|date=July 24, 2010|website=The Independent}}</ref> | |||
Finally, the authors examine what points of view they believe are expressed in the media. In one case, the authors examined over fifty of ]'s articles about Nicaragua in the ''New York Times''. They criticize Kinzer for failing to quote a single person in ] who is pro-] and contrast this with polls that Chomsky and Herman cite as reporting a 9% support for all the opposition parties taken together. Based on this example and select others, the authors conclude that such a persistent bias can only be explained by a model like the one they advocate. | |||
== Applications == | == Applications == | ||
{{See also|Media coverage of the Iraq War|Media coverage of climate change}} | |||
Since the publication of ''Manufacturing Consent'', |
Since the publication of ''Manufacturing Consent'', Herman and Chomsky have adopted the theory and have given it a prominent role in their writings, lectures and theoretical frameworks. Chomsky has made extensive use of its explanative power to lend support to his interpretations of mainstream media attitudes towards a wide array of events, including the following: | ||
* ] (1990), the media's failure to report on Saddam's peace offers.{{sfn|Edwards|1998}} | |||
* ] (2003), the media's failure to report on the ]<ref> University of Washington. April 20, 2005.</ref> despite overwhelming public opinion in favor of only invading Iraq with UN authorization.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://news.gallup.com/poll/7195/Support-Invasion-Iraq-Remains-Contingent-UN-Approval.aspx|title=Support for Invasion of Iraq Remains Contingent on U.N. Approval|first=Gallup|last=Inc|date=November 12, 2002|website=Gallup.com}}</ref>{{sfn|Page|2008|p=109}} According to the liberal watchdog group ], there was a disproportionate focus on pro-war sources while total ] sources only made up 10% of the media (with only 3% of US sources being anti-war).<ref>{{cite journal |author1=Steve Rendall |author2=Tara Broughel |name-list-style=amp |year=2003 |title=Amplifying Officials, Squelching Dissent |journal=Extra! |publisher=] |url=http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1145 }}</ref> | |||
* ], a 2004 study found that the media gives near equal balance to people who ]<ref>, FAIR</ref> despite only "about one percent" of climate scientists taking this view.{{sfn|Anderegg|Prall|Harold|Schneider|2010}} Chomsky commented that there are "three sides" on climate change (deniers, those who follow the scientific consensus, and people who think that the consensus underestimates the threat from global warming), but in framing the debate the media usually ignore people who say that the scientific consensus is unduly optimistic.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O3cNc2JoMA |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211212/_O3cNc2JoMA| archive-date=2021-12-12 |url-status=live|title=Noam Chomsky and Bill McKibben on Global Warming|website=] |date=2 June 2010 }}{{cbignore}}</ref> | |||
==Reception== | |||
* ] (]) | |||
On the rare occasions the propaganda model is discussed in the ] there is usually a large reaction. In 1988, when Chomsky was interviewed by ], there were 1,000 letters in response, one of the biggest written reactions in the show's history. When he was interviewed by ], the show generated 31,321 call-ins, which was a new record for the station. | |||
* ] (]) | |||
In 1996, when Chomsky was interviewed by ] the producer commented that the response was "astonishing". He commented that "he audience reaction was astonishing... I have never worked on a programme which elicited so many letters and calls".{{sfn|Edwards|1998}} | |||
* ] (]). | |||
In May 2007, Chomsky and Herman spoke at the ] in Canada summarizing developments and responding to criticisms related to the model.<ref name=20years> University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, May 2007</ref> Both authors stated they felt the propaganda model is still applicable (Herman said even more so than when it was introduced), although they did suggest a few areas where they believe it falls short and needs to be extended in light of recent developments.{{sfn|Mullen|2007}} | |||
Herman, seeking to build upon a more institutionalized framework to analyze mainstream media functioning, joined the media watchdog group ], which has as its goal the critique, documentation, and statistical analysis of what it alleges is media bias and censorship since ]. | |||
Chomsky has insisted that while the propaganda role of the media "is intensified by ownership and advertising" the problem mostly lies with "ideological-doctrinal commitments that are part of intellectual life" or ] of the people in power. He compares the media to scholarly literature which he says has the same problems even without the constraints of the propaganda model.<ref>, Frontline</ref> | |||
At the Windsor talk, Chomsky pointed out that ] was primarily responsible for creating the theory although Chomsky supported it. According to Chomsky, he insisted Herman's name appear first on the cover of ''Manufacturing Consent'' because of his primary role researching and developing the theory.<ref name=20years /> | |||
With the emergence of the ] as a cheap and potentially wide-ranging means of communication, a number of independent websites have surfaced which adopt the propaganda model to subject media to close scrutiny. Several examples of these are ], a ]-based site authored by ] and ]. | |||
===Harvard media torture study=== | |||
== Criticism == | |||
{{quote box|width=30%|align=right|quote=From the early 1930s until...2004, the newspapers that covered ] almost uniformly called the practice torture or implied it was torture: ''The New York Times'' characterized it thus in 81.5% (44 of 54) of articles on the subject and the ''Los Angeles Times'' did so in 96.3% of articles (26 of 27). By contrast, from 2002‐2008, the studied newspapers almost never referred to waterboarding as torture.|source=—Desai et al.<ref name="HarvardStudy"></ref>}} | |||
In April 2010, a study conducted by the ] showed that media outlets such as '']'' and '']'' stopped using the term "]" for ] when the US government committed it, from 2002 to 2008.<ref name="HarvardStudy"/> It also noted that the press was "much more likely to call waterboarding torture if a country other than the United States is the perpetrator."<ref name="HarvardStudy"/> The study was similar to media studies done in ''Manufacturing Consent'' for topics such as comparing how the term "genocide" is used in the media when referring to allied and enemy countries. ] said that "We don't need a ] because our media outlets volunteer for the task..." and commented that the media often act as propaganda for the government without coercion.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.salon.com/2010/06/30/media_258/|title=New study documents media's servitude to government|date=June 30, 2010|website=Salon}}</ref> | |||
Critics of Chomsky and Herman's mass media analysis, including author and historian ] of the ] severely disagree with Chomsky and Herman's theories. They see the idea of "Manufacturing Consent" as nothing more than a recycling of the Marxist idea of "]", (as in ]'s '']''), where the masses have been so manipulated that they have neither the perspective or intellect to see beyond the propaganda and require "superior intellects" like Chomsky's to point out to them the real truth. | |||
They also focus on the idea that Chomsky and Herman are so far out of the mainstream political spectrum that they seek to explain their marginalization as a “conspiracy of the elite” to suppress their criticisms, instead of the idea that their philosophy is unacceptable in the mainstream, and therefore ignored by the mainstream population. | |||
===Studies of media outside the United States=== | |||
Arch Puddington, also of the Hoover Institution, claims he sees virtually no empirical evidence in media coverage, specifically regarding the mass media's treatment of Cambodia and East Timor, to back the claims made in ''Manufacturing Consent''. Stephen J. Morris, a critic of Chomsky's position on Cambodia, evaluates Herman and Chomsky's propaganda model by reviewing their analysis of media coverage during the rule of the Khmer Rouge. Chomsky and Herman argue that the "flood of rage and anger directed against the Khmer Rouge" peaking in early 1977, was a concrete example of their "propaganda model" in action. They argued that the media was singling out Cambodia, an enemy of the United States, while under-reporting human rights abuses by American allies such as ] and ]. A study performed by Jamie Frederic Metzl (''Responses to Human Rights Abuses in Cambodia, 1975–80'') analyzes major media reporting on Cambodia and concludes that media coverage on Cambodia was more intense when there were events with an international angle, but had largely disappeared by 1977. Metzl also challenges Chomsky and Herman by claiming that of all the articles published regarding Cambodia, less than one in twenty dealt with the political violence being perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge. | |||
Chomsky has commented in the "ChomskyChat Forum" on the applicability of the Propaganda Model to the media environment of other countries: | |||
<blockquote>That's only rarely been done in any systematic way. There is work on the British media, by a good U of Glasgow media group. And interesting work on British Central America coverage by Mark Curtis in his book ''Ambiguities of Power''. There is work on France, done in Belgium mostly, also a recent book by Serge Halimi (editor of ''Le Monde diplomatique''). There is one very careful study by a Dutch graduate student, applying the methods Ed Herman used in studying US media reaction to elections (El Salvador, Nicaragua) to 14 major European newspapers. ... Interesting results. Discussed a bit (along with some others) in a footnote in chapter 5 of my book ''Deterring Democracy'', if you happen to have that around.<ref name=forumacrh /></blockquote> | |||
For more than a decade, a British-based website ] has examined their domestic broadcasters and liberal press. Its criticisms are featured in the books '']'' (2006)<ref>{{cite news |first=Peter |last=Wilby |title=On the margins |newspaper=New Statesman |date=30 January 2006 |url=http://www.newstatesman.com/200601300049}}</ref> and ''Newspeak in the 21st Century'' (2009).<ref>{{cite news |first=Stephen |last=Poole |title=Non-fiction review roundup |newspaper=The Guardian |date=3 October 2009 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/oct/03/nonfiction-review-roundup-stephen-poole}}</ref> | |||
Studies have also expanded the propaganda model to examine news media in the ]{{sfnm |1a1=Hearns-Branaman |1y=2009 |2a1=Hearns-Branaman |2y=2015}} and for film production in Hollywood.{{sfn|Alford|2009}} | |||
Bruce Sharp , and Sophal Ear argue that Chomsky has shown little respect to ]'s criterion of induction: that scientific theories must be falsifiable. So Sharp argues that Chomsky and Herman prematurely assume their theory is true and seek only evidence to support it rather than looking at other theories, or for evidence that contradicts the theory. For example, it is undeniable that the media spent more time covering the Khmer Rouge atrocities in Cambodia than those in East Timor, but it is possible that this was (at least partly) because journalists were already in the region of Cambodia (i.e. Vietnam) and found it easy to interview refugees from the Khmer Rouge, whereas it was more difficult to access East Timor. Sharp points out that Chomsky and Herman sideline the fact that fatalities in Cambodia were far higher (in the millions) than in East Timor (estimated at 200,000), which might provide another explanation for the differences in media coverage. | |||
====''News of the World''==== | |||
== Related organizations == | |||
{{Main|News of the World phone hacking affair}} | |||
In July 2011, the journalist ], then working for the BBC, pointed out that the ] threw light on close links between the press and politicians. However, he argued that the closure of the mass-circulation newspaper '']'', which took place after the scandal broke, conformed only partly to the propaganda model. He drew attention to the role of ], saying that "large corporations pulled their advertising" because of the "scale of the social media response" (a response which was mainly to do with the newspaper's behaviour towards ], although Mason did not go into this level of detail).<ref name=PMason>"", BBC.</ref> | |||
Mason praised '']'' for having told the truth about the phone-hacking, but expressed doubt about the financial viability of the newspaper. | |||
<blockquote>One part of the Chomsky doctrine has been proven by exception. He stated that newspapers that told the truth could not make money. ''The Guardian''...is indeed burning money and may run out of it in three years' time.<ref name=PMason /></blockquote> | |||
==Criticism== | |||
=== ''The Anti-Chomsky Reader'' === | |||
Eli Lehrer of the ] criticized the theory in '']''. According to Lehrer, the fact that papers like ''The New York Times'' and ''The Wall Street Journal'' have disagreements is evidence that the media is not a monolithic entity. Lehrer also believes that the media cannot have a corporate bias because it reports on and exposes ]. Lehrer asserts that the model amounts to a Marxist conception of right-wing ].{{sfn|Lehrer|2004}} | |||
Herman and Chomsky have asserted that the media "is not a solid monolith" but that it represents a debate between powerful interests while ignoring perspectives that challenge the "fundamental premises" of all these interests.{{sfn|Herman|Chomsky|2002|p=Ix}} For instance, during the Vietnam War there was disagreement among the media over tactics, but the broader issue of the legality and legitimacy of the war was ignored (see ]). Chomsky has said that while the media are against corruption, they are not against society legally empowering corporate interests which is a reflection of the powerful interests that the model would predict.<ref> ''The Big Idea'', 1996</ref> The authors have also said that the model does not seek to address "the effects of the media on the public" which might be ineffective at shaping ].{{sfn|Herman|Chomsky|2002|p=xii}} Edward Herman has said "critics failed to comprehend that the propaganda model is about how the media work, not how effective they are".<ref>" {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040603191844/http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/20031209.htm |date=2004-06-03 }}" Edward Herman</ref> | |||
===''Inroads: A Journal of Opinion''=== | |||
Gareth Morley argues in an article in ''Inroads: A Journal of Opinion'' that widespread coverage of ]i mistreatment of protesters as compared with little coverage of similar (or much worse) events in sub-Saharan Africa is poorly explained.{{sfn|Morley|2003}} This was in response to Chomsky's assertion that in testing the Model, examples should be carefully paired to ] reasons for discrepancies not related to political bias.{{sfn|Chomsky|1989|p=152}} Chomsky himself cites the examples of government mis-treatment of protesters and points out that general coverage of the two areas compared should be similar, raising the point that they are not: news from Israel (in any form) is far more common than news from sub-Saharan Africa. Morley considers this approach dubiously empirical.{{sfn|Morley|2003}} | |||
===''The New York Times'' review=== | |||
Writing for ''The New York Times'', the historian ] criticized the book ''Manufacturing Consent'' for overstating its case, in particular with regards to reporting on Nicaragua and not adequately explaining how a powerful propaganda system would let military aid to the Contra rebels be blocked.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/06/books/whose-news.html?scp=1&sq=Manufacturing+consent&st=nyt | work=The New York Times | title=Whose News? | first1=Walter | last1=Laferber | date=6 November 1988}}</ref> Herman responded in a letter by stating that the system was not "all powerful" and that LaFeber did not address their main point regarding Nicaragua. LaFeber replied that: | |||
<blockquote>Mr. Herman wants to have it both ways: to claim that leading American journals "mobilize bias" but object when I cite crucial examples that weaken the book's thesis. If the news media are so unqualifiedly bad, the book should at least explain why so many publications (including my own) can cite their stories to attack President Reagan's Central American policy.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/11/books/l-news-and-propaganda-307488.html?scp=2&sq=Manufacturing+consent&st=nyt | work=The New York Times | title=News and Propaganda | date=11 December 1988 | access-date=22 May 2010}}</ref></blockquote> | |||
Chomsky responds to LaFeber's reply in '']'': | |||
<blockquote>What is more, a propaganda model is not weakened by the discovery that with careful and critical reading, material could be unearthed in the media that could be used by those that objected to "President Reagan's Central American policy" on grounds of principle, opposing not its failures but its successes: the near destruction of Nicaragua and the blunting of the popular forces that threatened to bring democracy and social reform to El Salvador, among other achievements.{{sfn|Chomsky|1989|pp=148–151}}</blockquote> | |||
==See also== | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | * ] | ||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | * ] | ||
* ] | * ] | ||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
** ] | |||
* ] | |||
== |
==References== | ||
===Notes=== | |||
{{Reflist|colwidth=30em}} | |||
===Bibliography=== | |||
# Chomsky, Noam. ''Understanding Power: the Indispensable Chomsky''. New York: the New Press, 2002. | |||
{{refbegin|30em|indent=yes}} | |||
# Herman, ..... and Chomsky, Noam. ''Manufacturing Consent: the Political Economy of the Mass Media''. New York: Pantheon Books, 1988. | |||
* {{cite journal | |||
# The myth of the liberal media, Documentary, 1997. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8782509076175388309 | |||
|last=Alford | |||
# Herman, Edward S. ',' ''Against All Reason'', December 9, 2003. | |||
|first=Matthew | |||
# Klaehn, Jeffery (ed.) ''Filtering the News: Essays on Herman and Chomsky's Propaganda Model''. Edinburgh: Black Rose, 2005. | |||
|year=2009 | |||
# ----. ', ''European Journal of Communication'', Volume 17(2) | |||
|title=A Propaganda Model for Hollywood | |||
# Sharp, Bruce ' | |||
|journal= Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture | |||
# {{note label|lelay|7|a}} | |||
|volume=6 | |||
# {{note label|truthout|8|b}} http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/38/9671 | |||
|issue=2 | |||
|pages=144–156 | |||
|issn=1744-6716 | |||
|doi=10.16997/wpcc.128 | |||
|url=https://www.westminsterpapers.org/jms/article/download/wpcc.128/125 | |||
|doi-access=free | |||
}} | |||
* {{cite book | |||
|last=Allan | |||
|first=Stuart | |||
|year=2010 | |||
|title=News Culture | |||
|edition=3rd | |||
|location=Maidenhead, England | |||
|publisher=Open University Press | |||
|isbn=978-0-335-23900-9 | |||
}} | |||
* {{cite journal | |||
|last1=Anderegg | |||
|first1=William R. L. | |||
|last2=Prall | |||
|first2=James W. | |||
|last3=Harold | |||
|first3=Jacob | |||
|last4=Schneider | |||
|first4=Stephen H. | |||
|author4-link=Stephen Schneider (scientist) | |||
|year=2010 | |||
|title=Expert Credibility in Climate Change | |||
|journal= Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America | |||
|volume=107 | |||
|issue=27 | |||
|pages=12107–12109 | |||
|doi=10.1073/pnas.1003187107 | |||
|pmid=20566872 | |||
|pmc=2901439 | |||
|doi-access=free | |||
|bibcode=2010PNAS..10712107A | |||
}} | |||
* {{cite book|last=Chomsky|first=Noam|author-link=Noam Chomsky|year=1989|title=Necessary Illusions: Thought Control In Democratic Societies|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t5yVao-mv8sC|publisher=] |isbn=978-0-89608-366-0}} ( {{ISBN|978-0-88784-574-1}}) | |||
* {{cite book | |||
|last=Edwards | |||
|first=David | |||
|author-link=David Edwards (journalist) | |||
|year=1998 | |||
|chapter=Where Egos Dare | |||
|chapter-url=http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/1998----.htm | |||
|title=The Compassionate Revolution: Radical Politics and Buddhism | |||
|location=Totnes, England | |||
|publisher=Green Books | |||
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150523072222/http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/1998----.htm | |||
|archive-date=23 May 2015 | |||
|via=Chomsky.info | |||
}} | |||
* {{cite journal | |||
|last=Hearns-Branaman | |||
|first=Jesse Owen | |||
|year=2009 | |||
|title=A Political Economy of News Media in the People's Republic of China | |||
|journal= Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture | |||
|volume=6 | |||
|issue=2 | |||
|pages=119–143 | |||
|issn=1744-6716 | |||
|doi=10.16997/wpcc.127 | |||
|doi-access=free | |||
}} | |||
* {{cite book | |||
|last=Hearns-Branaman | |||
|first=Jesse Owen | |||
|year=2015 | |||
|title=A Political Economy of News in China: Manufacturing Harmony | |||
|location=Lanham, Maryland | |||
|publisher=Lexington Books | |||
|isbn=978-0-7391-8292-5 | |||
}} | |||
* {{cite book | |||
|last1=Herman | |||
|first1=Edward S. | |||
|author1-link=Edward S. Herman | |||
|last2=Chomsky | |||
|first2=Noam | |||
|author2-link=Noam Chomsky | |||
|year=2002 | |||
|title=Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media | |||
|edition=2nd | |||
|location=New York | |||
|publisher=Pantheon Books | |||
|isbn=978-0-375-71449-8 | |||
|title-link=Manufacturing Consent | |||
}} | |||
* {{cite book | |||
|last=Lehrer | |||
|first=Eli | |||
|year=2004 | |||
|chapter=Chomsky and the Media: A Kept Press and a Manipulated People | |||
|editor1-last=Collier | |||
|editor1-first=Peter | |||
|editor1-link=Peter Collier (political author) | |||
|editor2-last=Horowitz | |||
|editor2-first=David | |||
|editor2-link=David Horowitz | |||
|title=The Anti-Chomsky Reader | |||
|location=San Francisco | |||
|publisher=Encounter Books | |||
|pages=67–87 | |||
|isbn=978-1-893554-97-9 | |||
|title-link=The Anti-Chomsky Reader | |||
}} | |||
* {{cite journal | |||
|last=Morley | |||
|first=Gareth | |||
|year=2003 | |||
|url=http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Manufacturing+dissent:+Noam+Chomsky+and+the+Crisis+of+the+Western...-a0127013020 | |||
|title=Manufacturing Dissent: Noam Chomsky and the Crisis of the Western Left | |||
|journal=Inroads: A Journal of Opinion | |||
|issue=12 | |||
|pages=84ff | |||
|issn=1188-746X | |||
|access-date=18 July 2017 | |||
|via=The Free Library | |||
}} | |||
* {{cite journal | |||
|last=Mullen | |||
|first=Andy | |||
|year=2007 | |||
|title=Twenty Years of Propaganda? Critical Discussions and Evidence of the Ongoing Relevance of the Herman and Chomsky Propaganda Model | |||
|url=http://www.fifth-estate-online.co.uk/comment/twentyyearsofpropaganda.html | |||
|journal=Fifth-Estate-Online | |||
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071116221146/http://www.fifth-estate-online.co.uk/comment/twentyyearsofpropaganda.html | |||
|archive-date=16 November 2007 | |||
|access-date=18 July 2017 | |||
}} | |||
* {{cite book | |||
|last=Page | |||
|first=Benjamin I. | |||
|author-link=Benjamin Page | |||
|date=2008 | |||
|title=The Foreign Policy Disconnect: What Americans Want from Our Leaders but Don't Get | |||
|publisher=University of Chicago Press | |||
|isbn=978-0-226-64459-2 | |||
}} | |||
{{refend}} | |||
==External links== | |||
* by Edward S. Herman, 1996 | |||
* by David Cromwell, 2002 | |||
* {{cite journal |first=Jeffery |last=Klaehn |title=A Critical Review and Assessment of Herman and Chomsky's Propaganda Model |journal=European Journal of Communication |volume=17 |issue=2 |pages=147–182 |year=2002 |doi=10.1177/0267323102017002691 |s2cid=51778637 }} As | |||
* by Edward S. Herman, 2003 | |||
* by Jeffery Klaehn, 2008 | |||
* {{cite journal |title=The Herman-Chomsky Propaganda Model Twenty Years On |journal=Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture |volume=6 |issue=2 |year=2009 |url=http://www.westminsterpapers.org/18/volume/6/issue/2/}} | |||
* {{cite journal |first=John W. |last=Robertson |title=The Propaganda Model in 2011: Stronger Yet Still Neglected in UK Higher Education? |journal=Synaesthesia: Communication Across Cultures |issn=1883-5953 |volume=1 |issue=1 |year=2011 |url=http://www.synaesthesiajournal.com/uploads/7/3/4/7/73473431/robertson_v1_n1.pdf}} | |||
* {{cite journal |first=Joan |last=Pedro |title=The Propaganda Model in the Early 21st Century: Part I |journal=International Journal of Communication |volume=5 |pages=1865–1905 |year=2011 |issn=1932-8036 |url=http://ijoc.org/ojs/index.php/ijoc/article/view/785/666 |access-date=2011-12-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111229050947/http://ijoc.org/ojs/index.php/ijoc/article/view/785/666 |archive-date=2011-12-29 |url-status=dead }} | |||
* at ] | |||
* {{cite book |first1=Edward S. |last1=Herman |first2=Noam |last2=Chomsky |title=Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Kv_-bvCqgrEC&pg=PP1 |year=2010 |publisher=Random House |isbn=978-1-4070-5405-6 }} | |||
===Online videos=== | |||
* , The Propaganda Model, 1992 | |||
* | |||
* | |||
* , ''The Big Idea'', 1996 | |||
* . ] exhibition: ''Propaganda, Power and Persuasion''. March 19, 2003. | |||
* Noam Chomsky: | |||
{{Censorship}} | |||
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Latest revision as of 14:21, 5 October 2024
Conceptual model in political economyThis article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Propaganda model" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (March 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
The propaganda model is a conceptual model in political economy advanced by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky to explain how propaganda and systemic biases function in corporate mass media. The model seeks to explain how populations are manipulated and how consent for economic, social, and political policies, both foreign and domestic, is "manufactured" in the public mind due to this propaganda. The theory posits that the way in which corporate media is structured (e.g. through advertising, concentration of media ownership or government sourcing) creates an inherent conflict of interest and therefore acts as propaganda for anti-democratic elements.
First presented in their 1988 book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, the propaganda model views corporate media as businesses interested in the sale of a product—readers and audiences—to other businesses (advertisers) rather than the pursuit of quality journalism in service of the public. Describing the media's "societal purpose", Chomsky writes, "... the study of institutions and how they function must be scrupulously ignored, apart from fringe elements or a relatively obscure scholarly literature". The theory postulates five general classes of "filters" that determine the type of news that is presented in news media. These five classes are: ownership of the medium, the medium's funding sources, sourcing, flak, and anti-communism or "fear ideology".
The first three are generally regarded by the authors as being the most important. In versions published after the 9/11 attacks on the United States in 2001, Chomsky and Herman updated the fifth prong to instead refer to the "War on Terror" and "counter-terrorism", which they state operates in much the same manner.
Although the model was based mainly on the media of the United States, Chomsky and Herman believe the theory is equally applicable to any country that shares the basic economic structure and organizing principles that the model postulates as the cause of media biases. Their assessment has been supported by a number of scholars and the propaganda role of the media has since been empirically assessed in Western Europe and Latin America.
Filters
Ownership
The size and profit-seeking imperative of dominant media corporations create a bias. The authors point to how in the early nineteenth century, a radical British press had emerged that addressed the concerns of workers, but excessive stamp duties, designed to restrict newspaper ownership to the 'respectable' wealthy, began to change the face of the press. Nevertheless, there remained a degree of diversity. In post World War II Britain, radical or worker-friendly newspapers such as the Daily Herald, News Chronicle, Sunday Citizen (all since failed or absorbed into other publications), and the Daily Mirror (at least until the late 1970s) regularly published articles questioning the capitalist system. The authors posit that these earlier radical papers were not constrained by corporate ownership and therefore, were free to criticize the capitalist system.
Herman and Chomsky argue that since mainstream media outlets are currently either large corporations or part of conglomerates (e.g. Westinghouse or General Electric), the information presented to the public will be biased with respect to these interests. Such conglomerates frequently extend beyond traditional media fields and thus have extensive financial interests that may be endangered when certain information is publicized. According to this reasoning, news items that most endanger the corporate financial interests of those who own the media will face the greatest bias and censorship.
It then follows that if to maximize profit means sacrificing news objectivity, then the news sources that ultimately survive must be fundamentally biased, with regard to news in which they have a conflict of interest.
Advertising
The second filter of the propaganda model is funding generated through advertising. Most newspapers have to attract advertising in order to cover the costs of production; without it, they would have to increase the price of their newspaper. There is fierce competition throughout the media to attract advertisers; a newspaper which gets less advertising than its competitors is at a serious disadvantage. Lack of success in raising advertising revenue was another factor in the demise of the 'people's newspapers' of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The product is composed of the affluent readers who buy the newspaper—who also comprise the educated decision-making sector of the population—while the actual clientele served by the newspaper includes the businesses that pay to advertise their goods. According to this filter, the news is "filler" to get privileged readers to see the advertisements which makes up the content and will thus take whatever form is most conducive to attracting educated decision-makers. Stories that conflict with their "buying mood", it is argued, will tend to be marginalized or excluded, along with information that presents a picture of the world that collides with advertisers' interests. The theory argues that the people buying the newspaper are the product which is sold to the businesses that buy advertising space; the news has only a marginal role as the product.
Sourcing
The third of Herman and Chomsky's five filters relates to the sourcing of mass media news: "The mass media are drawn into a symbiotic relationship with powerful sources of information by economic necessity and reciprocity of interest." Even large media corporations such as the BBC cannot afford to place reporters everywhere. They concentrate their resources where news stories are likely to happen: the White House, the Pentagon, 10 Downing Street and other central news "terminals". Although British newspapers may occasionally complain about the "spin-doctoring" of New Labour, for example, they are dependent upon the pronouncements of "the Prime Minister's personal spokesperson" for government news. Business corporations and trade organizations are also trusted sources of stories considered newsworthy. Editors and journalists who offend these powerful news sources, perhaps by questioning the veracity or bias of the furnished material, can be threatened with the denial of access to their media life-blood - fresh news. Thus, the media has become reluctant to run articles that will harm corporate interests that provide them with the resources that they depend upon.
This relationship also gives rise to a "moral division of labor" where "officials have and give the facts" and "reporters merely get them". Journalists are then supposed to adopt an uncritical attitude that makes it possible for them to accept corporate values without experiencing cognitive dissonance.
Flak
The fourth filter is 'flak' (not to be confused with flack which means promoters or publicity agents), described by Herman and Chomsky as 'negative responses to a media statement or program. It may take the form of letters, telegrams, phone calls, petitions, lawsuits, speeches and Bills before Congress and other modes of complaint, threat and punitive action'. Business organizations regularly come together to form flak machines. An example is the US-based Global Climate Coalition (GCC), comprising fossil fuel and automobile companies such as Exxon, Texaco and Ford. The GCC was conceived by Burson-Marsteller, one of the world's largest public relations companies, to attack the credibility of climate scientists and 'scare stories' about global warming.
For Chomsky and Herman "flak" refers to negative responses to a media statement or program. The term "flak" has been used to describe what Chomsky and Herman see as efforts to discredit organizations or individuals who disagree with or cast doubt on the prevailing assumptions which Chomsky and Herman view as favorable to established power (e.g., "The Establishment"). Unlike the first three "filtering" mechanisms—which are derived from analysis of market mechanisms—flak is characterized by concerted efforts to manage public information.
Anti-Communism and fear
So I think when we talked about the "fifth filter" we should have brought in all this stuff -- the way artificial fears are created with a dual purpose... partly to get rid of people you don't like but partly to frighten the rest. Because if people are frightened, they will accept authority.
— Noam Chomsky
The fifth and final news filter that Herman and Chomsky identified was 'anti-communism'. Manufacturing Consent was written during the Cold War. Chomsky updated the model as "fear", often as 'the enemy' or an 'evil dictator' such as Colonel Gaddafi, Paul Biya, Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, or Vladimir Putin. This is exemplified in British tabloid headlines of 'Smash Saddam!' and 'Clobba Slobba!'. The same is said to extend to mainstream reporting of environmentalists as 'eco-terrorists'. The Sunday Times ran a series of articles in 1999 accusing activists from the non-violent direct action group Reclaim The Streets of stocking up on CS gas and stun guns.
Anti-ideologies exploit public fear and hatred of groups that pose a potential threat, either real, exaggerated or imagined. Communism once posed the primary threat according to the model. Communism and socialism were portrayed by their detractors as endangering freedoms of speech, movement, the press and so forth. They argue that such a portrayal was often used as a means to silence voices critical of elite interests. Chomsky argues that since the end of the Cold War (1991), anticommunism was replaced by the "War on Terror", as the major social control mechanism: "Anti-communism has receded as an ideological factor in the Western media, but it is not dead... The 'war on terror' has provided a useful substitute for the Soviet Menace." Following the events of September 11, 2001, some scholars agree that Islamophobia is replacing anti-communism as a new source of public fear. Herman and Chomsky noted, in an interview given in 2009, that the popularity of 'anti-communism' as a news filter is slowly decreasing in favor of other more contemporary ideologies such as 'anti-terrorism'.
Case examples
Following the theoretical exposition of the propaganda model, Manufacturing Consent contains a large section where the authors seek to test their hypotheses. If the propaganda model is right and the filters do influence media content, a particular form of bias would be expected—one that systematically favors corporate interests.
They also looked at what they perceived as naturally occurring "historical control groups" where two events, similar in their properties but differing in the expected media attitude towards them, are contrasted using objective measures such as coverage of key events (measured in column inches) or editorials favoring a particular issue (measured in number).
Coverage of "enemy" countries
—Noam Chomskyshow that all of the opposition parties in Nicaragua combined had the support of only 9 percent of the population, but they have 100 percent of Stephen Kinzer.
Examples of bias given by the authors include the failure of the media to question the legality of the Vietnam War while greatly emphasizing the Soviet–Afghan War as an act of aggression.
Other biases include a propensity to emphasize violent acts such as genocide more in enemy or unfriendly countries such as Kosovo while ignoring greater genocide in allied countries such as the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. This bias is also said to exist in foreign elections, giving favorable media coverage to fraudulent elections in allied countries such as El Salvador and Guatemala, while unfavorable coverage is given to legitimate elections in enemy countries such as Nicaragua.
Chomsky also asserts that the media accurately covered events such as the Battle of Fallujah but because of an ideological bias, it acted as pro-government propaganda. In describing coverage of raid on Fallujah General Hospital he stated that The New York Times, "accurately recorded the battle of Fallujah but it was celebrated... it was a celebration of ongoing war crimes". The article in question was "Early Target of Offensive Is a Hospital".
Scandals of leaks
The authors point to biases that are based on only reporting scandals which benefit a section of power, while ignoring scandals that hurt the powerless. The biggest example of this was how the US media greatly covered the Watergate Scandal but ignored the COINTELPRO exposures. While the Watergate break-in was a political threat to powerful people (Democrats), COINTELPRO harmed average citizens and went as far as political assassination. Other examples include coverage of the Iran–Contra affair by only focusing on people in power such as Oliver North but omitting coverage of the civilians killed in Nicaragua as the result of aid to the contras.
In a 2010 interview, Chomsky compared media coverage of the Afghan War Diaries and lack of media coverage of a study of severe health problems in Fallujah. While there was ample coverage of the Afghan War Diaries there was no American coverage of the Fallujah study, in which the health situation in Fallujah was described by the British media as "worse than Hiroshima".
Applications
See also: Media coverage of the Iraq War and Media coverage of climate changeSince the publication of Manufacturing Consent, Herman and Chomsky have adopted the theory and have given it a prominent role in their writings, lectures and theoretical frameworks. Chomsky has made extensive use of its explanative power to lend support to his interpretations of mainstream media attitudes towards a wide array of events, including the following:
- Gulf War (1990), the media's failure to report on Saddam's peace offers.
- Iraq invasion (2003), the media's failure to report on the legality of the war despite overwhelming public opinion in favor of only invading Iraq with UN authorization. According to the liberal watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, there was a disproportionate focus on pro-war sources while total anti-war sources only made up 10% of the media (with only 3% of US sources being anti-war).
- Global warming, a 2004 study found that the media gives near equal balance to people who deny climate change despite only "about one percent" of climate scientists taking this view. Chomsky commented that there are "three sides" on climate change (deniers, those who follow the scientific consensus, and people who think that the consensus underestimates the threat from global warming), but in framing the debate the media usually ignore people who say that the scientific consensus is unduly optimistic.
Reception
On the rare occasions the propaganda model is discussed in the mainstream media there is usually a large reaction. In 1988, when Chomsky was interviewed by Bill Moyers, there were 1,000 letters in response, one of the biggest written reactions in the show's history. When he was interviewed by TV Ontario, the show generated 31,321 call-ins, which was a new record for the station. In 1996, when Chomsky was interviewed by Andrew Marr the producer commented that the response was "astonishing". He commented that "he audience reaction was astonishing... I have never worked on a programme which elicited so many letters and calls".
In May 2007, Chomsky and Herman spoke at the University of Windsor in Canada summarizing developments and responding to criticisms related to the model. Both authors stated they felt the propaganda model is still applicable (Herman said even more so than when it was introduced), although they did suggest a few areas where they believe it falls short and needs to be extended in light of recent developments.
Chomsky has insisted that while the propaganda role of the media "is intensified by ownership and advertising" the problem mostly lies with "ideological-doctrinal commitments that are part of intellectual life" or intellectual culture of the people in power. He compares the media to scholarly literature which he says has the same problems even without the constraints of the propaganda model.
At the Windsor talk, Chomsky pointed out that Edward S. Herman was primarily responsible for creating the theory although Chomsky supported it. According to Chomsky, he insisted Herman's name appear first on the cover of Manufacturing Consent because of his primary role researching and developing the theory.
Harvard media torture study
—Desai et al.From the early 1930s until...2004, the newspapers that covered waterboarding almost uniformly called the practice torture or implied it was torture: The New York Times characterized it thus in 81.5% (44 of 54) of articles on the subject and the Los Angeles Times did so in 96.3% of articles (26 of 27). By contrast, from 2002‐2008, the studied newspapers almost never referred to waterboarding as torture.
In April 2010, a study conducted by the Harvard Kennedy School showed that media outlets such as The New York Times and Los Angeles Times stopped using the term "torture" for waterboarding when the US government committed it, from 2002 to 2008. It also noted that the press was "much more likely to call waterboarding torture if a country other than the United States is the perpetrator." The study was similar to media studies done in Manufacturing Consent for topics such as comparing how the term "genocide" is used in the media when referring to allied and enemy countries. Glenn Greenwald said that "We don't need a state-run media because our media outlets volunteer for the task..." and commented that the media often act as propaganda for the government without coercion.
Studies of media outside the United States
Chomsky has commented in the "ChomskyChat Forum" on the applicability of the Propaganda Model to the media environment of other countries:
That's only rarely been done in any systematic way. There is work on the British media, by a good U of Glasgow media group. And interesting work on British Central America coverage by Mark Curtis in his book Ambiguities of Power. There is work on France, done in Belgium mostly, also a recent book by Serge Halimi (editor of Le Monde diplomatique). There is one very careful study by a Dutch graduate student, applying the methods Ed Herman used in studying US media reaction to elections (El Salvador, Nicaragua) to 14 major European newspapers. ... Interesting results. Discussed a bit (along with some others) in a footnote in chapter 5 of my book Deterring Democracy, if you happen to have that around.
For more than a decade, a British-based website Media Lens has examined their domestic broadcasters and liberal press. Its criticisms are featured in the books Guardians of Power (2006) and Newspeak in the 21st Century (2009).
Studies have also expanded the propaganda model to examine news media in the People's Republic of China and for film production in Hollywood.
News of the World
Main article: News of the World phone hacking affairIn July 2011, the journalist Paul Mason, then working for the BBC, pointed out that the News International phone hacking scandal threw light on close links between the press and politicians. However, he argued that the closure of the mass-circulation newspaper News of the World, which took place after the scandal broke, conformed only partly to the propaganda model. He drew attention to the role of social media, saying that "large corporations pulled their advertising" because of the "scale of the social media response" (a response which was mainly to do with the newspaper's behaviour towards Milly Dowler, although Mason did not go into this level of detail).
Mason praised The Guardian for having told the truth about the phone-hacking, but expressed doubt about the financial viability of the newspaper.
One part of the Chomsky doctrine has been proven by exception. He stated that newspapers that told the truth could not make money. The Guardian...is indeed burning money and may run out of it in three years' time.
Criticism
The Anti-Chomsky Reader
Eli Lehrer of the American Enterprise Institute criticized the theory in The Anti-Chomsky Reader. According to Lehrer, the fact that papers like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have disagreements is evidence that the media is not a monolithic entity. Lehrer also believes that the media cannot have a corporate bias because it reports on and exposes corporate corruption. Lehrer asserts that the model amounts to a Marxist conception of right-wing false consciousness.
Herman and Chomsky have asserted that the media "is not a solid monolith" but that it represents a debate between powerful interests while ignoring perspectives that challenge the "fundamental premises" of all these interests. For instance, during the Vietnam War there was disagreement among the media over tactics, but the broader issue of the legality and legitimacy of the war was ignored (see Coverage of "enemy" countries). Chomsky has said that while the media are against corruption, they are not against society legally empowering corporate interests which is a reflection of the powerful interests that the model would predict. The authors have also said that the model does not seek to address "the effects of the media on the public" which might be ineffective at shaping public opinion. Edward Herman has said "critics failed to comprehend that the propaganda model is about how the media work, not how effective they are".
Inroads: A Journal of Opinion
Gareth Morley argues in an article in Inroads: A Journal of Opinion that widespread coverage of Israeli mistreatment of protesters as compared with little coverage of similar (or much worse) events in sub-Saharan Africa is poorly explained. This was in response to Chomsky's assertion that in testing the Model, examples should be carefully paired to control reasons for discrepancies not related to political bias. Chomsky himself cites the examples of government mis-treatment of protesters and points out that general coverage of the two areas compared should be similar, raising the point that they are not: news from Israel (in any form) is far more common than news from sub-Saharan Africa. Morley considers this approach dubiously empirical.
The New York Times review
Writing for The New York Times, the historian Walter LaFeber criticized the book Manufacturing Consent for overstating its case, in particular with regards to reporting on Nicaragua and not adequately explaining how a powerful propaganda system would let military aid to the Contra rebels be blocked. Herman responded in a letter by stating that the system was not "all powerful" and that LaFeber did not address their main point regarding Nicaragua. LaFeber replied that:
Mr. Herman wants to have it both ways: to claim that leading American journals "mobilize bias" but object when I cite crucial examples that weaken the book's thesis. If the news media are so unqualifiedly bad, the book should at least explain why so many publications (including my own) can cite their stories to attack President Reagan's Central American policy.
Chomsky responds to LaFeber's reply in Necessary Illusions:
What is more, a propaganda model is not weakened by the discovery that with careful and critical reading, material could be unearthed in the media that could be used by those that objected to "President Reagan's Central American policy" on grounds of principle, opposing not its failures but its successes: the near destruction of Nicaragua and the blunting of the popular forces that threatened to bring democracy and social reform to El Salvador, among other achievements.
See also
- Concentration of media ownership
- Corporate censorship
- Crowd manipulation
- Edward Bernays
- Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
- Gatekeeping (communication)
- Mass psychology
- Politico-media complex
- Propaganda
- Spin (public relations)
References
Notes
- Chomsky 1989, p. .
- ^ "A selection of Chomsky". February 25, 2007. Archived from the original on February 25, 2007.
- Klaehn, Jeffery (2018). Pedro-Carañana, Joan; Broudy, Daniel (eds.). The Propaganda Model Today: Filtering Perception and Awareness. University of Westminster Press. doi:10.16997/book27. ISBN 9781912656165. S2CID 158190603.
- Spaynton (2015-06-10), English: corp own, retrieved 2017-04-18
- Cromwell, David (2002). "The Propaganda Model: An Overview". excerpted from Private Planet: Corporate Plunder and the Fight Back; chomsky.info. Retrieved 7 March 2010.
- "The Decline of the Global Climate Coalition". documents.uow.edu.au. Archived from the original on 2020-08-06. Retrieved 2020-06-12.
- Noam Chomsky (2002). Peter R. Mitchell & John Schoeffel (eds.). Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky. New York: The New Press. Footnote 35.
- ^ "Noam Chomsky". chomsky.info.
- "The Propaganda Model after 20 Years: Interview with Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky". chomsky.info. Retrieved 2019-04-16.
- Allan 2010, p. 22.
- "The Propaganda Model after 20 Years: Interview with Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky". chomsky.info. Retrieved 2019-04-16.
- "Broadcasting Climate Change: State and Media" (PDF). ecpr.eu. Retrieved 2021-02-11.
- "Chomsky, Understanding Power". Archived from the original on 19 January 2015.
- Herman & Chomsky 2002, p. 252.
- Herman & Chomsky 2002, p. xx.
- Herman & Chomsky 2002, p. 112.
- Saba Hamedy (19 September 2010). "Chomsky: US won't acknowledge Iraq war crimes". The Daily Free Press. Retrieved 6 January 2011.
- "Chomsky on the WikiLeaks' Coverage in the Press". YouTube. Archived from the original on 2021-12-12.
- "BEYOND HIROSHIMA - THE NON-REPORTING OF FALLUJAH'S CANCER CATASTROPHE". September 7, 2010.
- "Toxic legacy of US assault on Fallujah 'worse than Hiroshima'". The Independent. July 24, 2010.
- ^ Edwards 1998.
- Illegal but Legitimate: a Dubious Doctrine for the Times. University of Washington. April 20, 2005.
- Inc, Gallup (November 12, 2002). "Support for Invasion of Iraq Remains Contingent on U.N. Approval". Gallup.com.
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has generic name (help) - Page 2008, p. 109.
- Steve Rendall & Tara Broughel (2003). "Amplifying Officials, Squelching Dissent". Extra!. Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting.
- Journalistic Balance as Global Warming Bias, FAIR
- Anderegg et al. 2010.
- "Noam Chomsky and Bill McKibben on Global Warming". YouTube. 2 June 2010. Archived from the original on 2021-12-12.
- ^ 20 Years of Propaganda University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, May 2007
- Mullen 2007.
- Chomsky In First Person, Frontline
- ^ Torture at Times: Waterboarding in the Media
- "New study documents media's servitude to government". Salon. June 30, 2010.
- Wilby, Peter (30 January 2006). "On the margins". New Statesman.
- Poole, Stephen (3 October 2009). "Non-fiction review roundup". The Guardian.
- Hearns-Branaman 2009; Hearns-Branaman 2015.
- Alford 2009.
- ^ "Murdoch: the network defeats the hierarchy", BBC.
- Lehrer 2004.
- Herman & Chomsky 2002, p. Ix.
- Chomsky "Media" interview by Andrew Marr The Big Idea, 1996
- Herman & Chomsky 2002, p. xii.
- "The Propaganda Model: A Retrospective Archived 2004-06-03 at the Wayback Machine" Edward Herman
- ^ Morley 2003.
- Chomsky 1989, p. 152.
- Laferber, Walter (6 November 1988). "Whose News?". The New York Times.
- "News and Propaganda". The New York Times. 11 December 1988. Retrieved 22 May 2010.
- Chomsky 1989, pp. 148–151.
Bibliography
- Alford, Matthew (2009). "A Propaganda Model for Hollywood". Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture. 6 (2): 144–156. doi:10.16997/wpcc.128. ISSN 1744-6716.
- Allan, Stuart (2010). News Culture (3rd ed.). Maidenhead, England: Open University Press. ISBN 978-0-335-23900-9.
- Anderegg, William R. L.; Prall, James W.; Harold, Jacob; Schneider, Stephen H. (2010). "Expert Credibility in Climate Change". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 107 (27): 12107–12109. Bibcode:2010PNAS..10712107A. doi:10.1073/pnas.1003187107. PMC 2901439. PMID 20566872.
- Chomsky, Noam (1989). Necessary Illusions: Thought Control In Democratic Societies. Pantheon. ISBN 978-0-89608-366-0. (2013 edition ISBN 978-0-88784-574-1)
- Edwards, David (1998). "Where Egos Dare". The Compassionate Revolution: Radical Politics and Buddhism. Totnes, England: Green Books. Archived from the original on 23 May 2015 – via Chomsky.info.
- Hearns-Branaman, Jesse Owen (2009). "A Political Economy of News Media in the People's Republic of China". Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture. 6 (2): 119–143. doi:10.16997/wpcc.127. ISSN 1744-6716.
- Hearns-Branaman, Jesse Owen (2015). A Political Economy of News in China: Manufacturing Harmony. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books. ISBN 978-0-7391-8292-5.
- Herman, Edward S.; Chomsky, Noam (2002). Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (2nd ed.). New York: Pantheon Books. ISBN 978-0-375-71449-8.
- Lehrer, Eli (2004). "Chomsky and the Media: A Kept Press and a Manipulated People". In Collier, Peter; Horowitz, David (eds.). The Anti-Chomsky Reader. San Francisco: Encounter Books. pp. 67–87. ISBN 978-1-893554-97-9.
- Morley, Gareth (2003). "Manufacturing Dissent: Noam Chomsky and the Crisis of the Western Left". Inroads: A Journal of Opinion (12): 84ff. ISSN 1188-746X. Retrieved 18 July 2017 – via The Free Library.
- Mullen, Andy (2007). "Twenty Years of Propaganda? Critical Discussions and Evidence of the Ongoing Relevance of the Herman and Chomsky Propaganda Model". Fifth-Estate-Online. Archived from the original on 16 November 2007. Retrieved 18 July 2017.
- Page, Benjamin I. (2008). The Foreign Policy Disconnect: What Americans Want from Our Leaders but Don't Get. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-64459-2.
External links
- The Propaganda Model Revisited by Edward S. Herman, 1996
- The Propaganda Model: An Overview by David Cromwell, 2002
- Klaehn, Jeffery (2002). "A Critical Review and Assessment of Herman and Chomsky's Propaganda Model". European Journal of Communication. 17 (2): 147–182. doi:10.1177/0267323102017002691. S2CID 51778637. As PDF
- The Propaganda Model: A Retrospective by Edward S. Herman, 2003
- Media, Power and the Origins of the Propaganda Model: An Interview with Edward S. Herman by Jeffery Klaehn, 2008
- "The Herman-Chomsky Propaganda Model Twenty Years On". Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture. 6 (2). 2009.
- Robertson, John W. (2011). "The Propaganda Model in 2011: Stronger Yet Still Neglected in UK Higher Education?" (PDF). Synaesthesia: Communication Across Cultures. 1 (1). ISSN 1883-5953.
- Pedro, Joan (2011). "The Propaganda Model in the Early 21st Century: Part I". International Journal of Communication. 5: 1865–1905. ISSN 1932-8036. Archived from the original on 2011-12-29. Retrieved 2011-12-24. Part II
- Propaganda Model Resource List at Source Watch
- Herman, Edward S.; Chomsky, Noam (2010). Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. Random House. ISBN 978-1-4070-5405-6.
Online videos
- Manufacturing Consent, The Propaganda Model, 1992
- "Noam Chomsky - The Political Economy of the Mass Media - Part 1"
- "The Myth of the Liberal Media: The Propaganda Model of News"
- Chomsky "Media" interview by Andrew Marr, The Big Idea, 1996
- Noam Chomsky in conversation with Jonathan Freedland. British Library exhibition: Propaganda, Power and Persuasion. March 19, 2003.
- Noam Chomsky: The 5 Filters of the Mass Media Machine