Draft Only. To Be Continued ...

The Propaganda Model - Reflections

“Propaganda” did not become a pejorative term until after World War II. When Bernays wrote his book Propaganda in the 1920’s the need for propaganda was generally accepted as a necessary and even desirable consequence of the organization of democratic society. By definition propaganda is …

Herman and Chomsky offer one model of the way propaganda functions in a non-totalitarian society. This model has testable consequences that can be used to validate or refute it. This is the function of Chapters 2-6 in their book Manufacturing Consent. These chapters offer five detailed case studies that compare the actual behavior of the mass media to the behavior predicted by the model.

The underlying idea behind the Herman and Chomsky propaganda model is that the mass media “serve to mobilize support for the special interests that dominate the state and private activity.”[1] The model attempts to explain mass media behavior – its choices, emphases, and omissions – through an articulation of this fundamental idea. It proposes a mechanism – five media filters – through which “the powerful are able to fix the premises of discourse, to decide what the general populace is allowed to see, hear, and think about, and to ‘manage’ public opinion by regular propaganda campaigns.”[2] This view, of course, directly challenges the received doctrine that media are independent, objective, unbiased and “do not merely reflect the world as powerful groups wish it to be perceived.”[3]

The Five Filters

Their model is characterized by five “media filters” that determine what and how news is made available to the public by mass media. These five filters are:

  • Size, concentrated ownership, and profit orientation of the mass-media firms
  • Advertising is the primary income source of mass-media
  • Sourcing of mass-media news
  • Flak as a way to discipline the media
  • Anticommunism as a national religion and control mechanism

  • Size, concentrated ownership, and profit orientation of the mass-media firms
  • Advertising is the primary income source of mass-media
  • Sourcing of mass-media news
  • Flak as a way to discipline the media
  • Anticommunism as a national religion and control mechanism

According to the model, the filters work like a set of coordinated sieves to sift out information that might be disadvantageous to the mass media industry. They are largely invisible to mass media consumers and even to members of the media community. They function much like “organizational mental models.” They effectively control the behavior of the media community by tacitly guiding decisions about what gets published and what gets said.

The mass media is in the hands of a few (less than 10 or 20, depending on how you count) mega-corporations. (See the “Ultra-Concentrated Media” illustration from 2004 below). Start up costs effectively exclude new entrants. Competition forces constant focus on the bottom line. Media boards of directors are primarily populated by corporate executives, lawyers, bankers, etc. In short, mass media is business. Big business. And at this level the primary goal of business is profit. Its mission is to increase wealth, either of the stockholders in the publicly traded companies (e.g., Disney, AOL/TimeWarner) or the controlling family in the private companies (e.g., Thomson). This is the first filter. “Do no harm.” Mass media ultimately provides information to its readership that will not undermine its own bottom line. This affects both what is published and the target audience for whom it is published.

Very few publications, and even fewer broadcast media, are supported directly by their readers, viewers or listeners. Mass-media corporations (print, broadcast, or otherwise) make their money from advertising. And from the standpoint of an advertiser what a media company has to offer is not programming, not airtime and not ad space. The advertiser is purchasing access to an audience. This is what mass media brings to the table. The media corporation sells its audience to the advertiser. In an environment in which advertising is the primary revenue generator, audience size and quality drive everything else. This is the second filter. Programming must be designed to attract and retain the right audience.

In order to do this mass media must have something to say. Where does the news come from? As Herman and Chomsky point out, staffing news bureaus, sending reporters to remote locations, tracking down stories, etc. are difficult and expensive tasks. This is where we find a convergence of interests between mass media and those very institutions that the media is supposed to be objectively covering. These institutions (or their public relations surrogates) provide “ready made” news at predetermined locations saving the media the time, trouble and money of having to search for it. From the White House press room to the Pentagon briefings to corporate press releases to public interest “video news releases” (VNRs) it’s there for the taking. Why build it yourself when you can buy it? And, in many cases, the “official” version has another advantage. It comes from a trusted and well-known (if not reliable) source. This means that extensive and expensive source checking can be eliminated. If the source is trusted enough (e.g., the White House, the Attorney General, “an FBI spokesperson”) it may even insulate the publication from legal concerns about inaccurate or false claims. This is the third filter. “All the news that’s useful to those who provide it.” The news we read is, by and large, the news that organizations that can afford it want us to read. These are the organizations with large public relations apparatus in place.[4]

And what happens if a publication fails to properly filter its messages. It may find that its usual sources are no longer available (filter 3). If the message offends its readers or is offensive to an advertiser (regardless of whether or not its true), it puts in jeopardy its primary revenue stream (filter 2). If the message undermines the parent corporation or calls into question practices that support its profitability, funding can be withdrawn (filter 1). This is flak at work, the next filter. “Tread gently. Don’t wake the sleeping giants.”

And finally, everything is filtered through the prevailing “political paradigm” that for the past 80 years but 10 was anti-Communism. The official statement of this paradigm was actually explicitly formulated in the early 1950’s by the National Security Council and has become so familiar that it’s completely transparent to us. If you take it out of context it takes the form of a bad fairy tale; the kind that you’d probably be embarrassed to tell your children. Here’s one version:

“X (fill in the current paradigm, formerly, “Communism”) is evil. It is a threat to freedom, democracy and everything that good, honest and hardworking people – such as every real A (fill in “American” or your current country) -- stands for. It is a real threat our society and way of life. X has brutally murdered and tortured people in D, E, F. It has ruthlessly suppressed the rights of those in G, H, and I. It is our duty as the custodians of truth and liberty to ensure that the world is safe from this growing cancer. And with God’s help, we will.”

This is a polarizing or dichotomizing lens. There is only two positions if you look through it: You’re with us or you’re against us. You’re good or you’re evil. And once you put this filter on really weird things start to happen. For example, X can do something (e.g., cause the murder of a priest, train government death squads in a foreign county, refuse to decommission biological weapons, etc) and this will be ground for extended excoriation and international protest if not military action. But if A or B (a close friend of A) does precisely the same thing it’s either a) not noticed or b) not taken seriously due to the first four filters. It’s pretty clear that we’ve found our new political paradigm. It’s well worth asking whether it shares significant similarities with its predecessor.

It’s important to understand that Chomsky sees these filters as unconscious agents of selection and distortion. He does not believe that a journalist when confronted with a breaking story consults the list of filters to decide whether it is “newsworthy” or not. Over time, he believes, reporters, journalists, columnists, assistant editors, managing editors, senior editors and others in the industry become naturally acclimated to the conditions of acceptability. As mentioned above, these filters become tacit mental models through which the media industry – and all of us who patronize it – see the world. Propaganda works best when you’re not even aware of it. As with mental model generally, the trick is to surface, test and if necessary improve them. This is what Chomsky is attempting with this essay.

Specific Levers of Media Persuasion

The filters allow us to predict in a very general way the types of news and the types of stories that will be available in the mass media. Let’s now take a look at some specific techniques or “levers” that are used to accomplish the filtering. There are at least thirteen dimensions along which information is controlled and massaged. These levers can influence the perceived importance, interpretation and credence of the news we read.

  • What to publish. What counts as news? What gets treated at all?
  • When to publish. Readership varies. The lead story in the Sunday paper may have a different readership from the same story published on Tuesday. A story published on a long holiday weekend may not attract the attention it would on a typical Monday morning.
  • Where to publish. The New York Times. Washington Post. Daily News. Daily Progress. People Magazine. Front page of the first section. Last page of the first section. Page 6 of the first section. Business section.
  • How long to publish. What the duration of the story? A day? A month? Six months?
  • How often to publish. What’s the frequency with which stories appear? Every day? Once a week? Once a year?
  • How much to publish. How many column inches? The longer the story the more important it must be. Are there editorials about the topic? What about the columnists and talking heads? Have they picked it up?
  • What to say. This is the obvious one. What is the content of the story. What are the issues it deals with? Does it take a position on any of the issues? Are there reasons presented in support of these positions? Are they good reasons? Are there heroes and the villains?
  • What to omit. Are their relevant perspectives, opinions or individuals that are not represented?
  • Who says it. Are experts or authorities quoted? Are they reliable? Are they experts of the relevant sort? Should we take them at their word? Are they respected in their fields?
  • Who denies it. Are experts or authorities quoted who disagree? Are they reliable? Are they experts of the relevant sort? Should we take them at their word? Are they respected in their fields?
  • Why it’s being said. Why now? Is there some content related reason that the story is appearing now rather than some other time? What occasioned the story? Is it really newsworth?
  • What “frame” to use.Framing sets the broad parameters for a discussion and determines the issues, evidence and questions that are relevant to the discussion. Through framing the press shapes further discussion of that issue. There are a variety of familiar frames used to direct a discussion. These include: moral, medical, social, economic, patriotic, civil libertarian, education, tradition, security, etc. Those with an agenda to pursue obviously choose the frame that is most compelling for their issues.
    An instructive current example concerns the Bush administration’s position on Iraq. Shortly 9-11 the administration began to consider possible military action against Iraq. By both timing and design the frame for the discussion was security and, specifically, terrorism. This set the issues, evidence and questions that were relevant to the discussion.

Did Iraq provide financial assistance to al Quaeda?

Did Iraq provide biological weapons to al Quaeda?

Was Iraq involved in the planning of the 9-11 attack?

Were there members of al Quaeda that visited Iraq?

Is Iraq sponsoring other powerful terrorist cells?

Does Iraq pose a direct and immediate threat to the U.S.?

Unfortunately for the administration this proved to be the wrong frame since the alleged terrorist connections could be substantiated. Fortunately for the administration the mass media buying public has a very short memory span. The Administration was therefore able to shift the frame of the discussion from “terrorism” to “violation of past Security Council resolutions” without little comment from the media. How might Chomsky explain this?

In addition to the above twelve there are some more generic tools of the propagandists trade that deserve mention. We’ll consider each of these techniques in more detail later in the course:

  • 3rd party experts
  • Junk science
  • Phony front groups
  • Association
  • Typification
Propaganda model predictions

A theory can be tested in part by its predictive power. Chomsky observes that “a propaganda approach to media coverage suggests a systematic and highly political dichotomization in news coverage based on serviceability to important domestic power interest.” This dichotomization has several predictable and testable consequences:

  • Stories about worthy & unworthy victims vary in quality and quantity. “Worthy victims” will are victims of our ideological enemies as dictated by the prevailing political paradigm (see the fifth filter above). “Unworthy victims” are victims of either the United States or our allies (regardless of political, social or humanitarian considerations)
  • Uncritical acceptance of certain premises, e.g.,
  • We seek peace. We oppose evil. We tell the truth. We only want to help.
  • They do not
  • Different criteria by which actions (ours & our enemies) are evaluated
  • Greater investigatory zeal in search for enemy villainy
  • Difference in the quality of coverage as displayed by media persuasion “levers”

“A Different Perspective”

In offering the following examples my intention is not to present Chomsky as an authority whose views are to be taken at face value. He is an intelligent man, a brilliant linguist and an MIT professor who has spent many years analyzing US policy. He’s also a social activist – a “social anarchist”. He obviously has an agenda. You need to validate for yourself his arguments by looking at the reasons that are offered in support of his conclusions. (As we’ll see later when we discuss appeals to authority.) I offer Chomsky as a different perspective, as a “provocation tool,” for shaking up your mental models. Right or wrong, Chomsky asks questions that are seldom asked in our society and virtually never asked in the American media. Chomsky, of course, explains this silence due to his propaganda model.

The point here is Einstein’s:

The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.

Or Emerson’s

The field cannot well be seen from within the field.

Or, to use Kuhn’s terminology, one cannot see the problems with a controlling paradigm unless you step into a new one.

When was the last time you stepped out of the field? When was the last time you looked at a problem “at a different level” or from a different perspective? When was the last time you questioned – or even thought about – the fundamental truths that determined a familiar paradigm? When was the last time, you asked of a “fundamental truth” confidently asserted by a respected public figure, “What are the facts?” “Is it true?”[5] When was the last time you questioned an established authority?

A. Scientific strike breaking, the “MohawkValley Formula” & Transparency. The first set of comments follows directly on the readings. They present, in Chomsky’s own words, one specific example of how he thinks propaganda works in a non-totalitarian society. By the 1930s it became more difficult or less convienent for industrialists to use force (e.g., independent armies of Pinkertons) and obviously pro-industry political maneuverings to break strikes. The Mohawk Valley Formula is a “scientific approach” to strike breaking developed and implemented on behalf of industrialists by the fledgling public relations industry.

B. Delusion & Testability (Friedman on Gingrich).

Manufacturing Consent – Self test

A. Fill in the Blanks

What (or who) could Chomsky & Herman be talking about in the following passages?Give an example to illustrate your answer.

  1. “One of our central themes in this book is that the observable pattern of indignant campaigns and suppressions, of shading and emphasis, and selection of context, premises, and general agenda, is highly functional for established power and responsive to the needs of the government and major power groups. A constant focus on victims of ______helps convince the public of enemy evil and sets the stage for intervention, subversion, and military conflict – all in noble cause. At that same time, the devotion of our leaders and media to this narrow set of victims raises public self-esteem and patriotism, as it demonstrates the essential humanity of [our] country and principle.”
  2. Within the limits of the filter constraints [the news media] are often objective; the constraints are so powerful, and are built into the system in such a fundamental way, that alternative bases of news choices are hardly imaginable. In assessing newsworthiness of the U.S. government’s claims of ______, the media [did] not stop to ponder the bias that is inherent in the priority assigned to government-supplied raw material, or the possibility that the government might be manipulating the news, imposing its own agenda, and deliberately diverting attention from other material.”
  3. “Like other terms of political discourse, the word ‘______’ has a technical Orwellian sense when used in rhetorical flights, or in regular “news reporting,” to refer to U.S. efforts to establish ‘______.’ The term refers to systems in which control over resources and the means of violence ensures the rule of elements that will serve the needs of U.S. power.”

B. Identifications – What do the following words and phrases mean?