Propaganda model

Propaganda model

The propaganda model is a theory advanced by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky that alleges systemic biases in the mass media and seeks to explain them in terms of structural economic causes.

Overview

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). 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". [ cite book|title=Necessary Illusions: Thought Control In Democratic Societies|date=1989|first=Noam|last=Chomsky] The theory postulates five general classes of "filters" that determine the type of news that is presented in news media. These five are:
# Ownership of the medium
# Medium's funding sources
# Sourcing
#
# Anti-communist ideology

The first three are generally regarded by the authors as being the most important.

Although the model was based mainly on the characterization of United States 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. [http://web.archive.org/web/20070225145314/http://www.zmag.org/forums/chomforumacrh.htm A selection of Chomsky] ]

The filters

Ownership

Herman and Chomsky argue that since mainstream media outlets are 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 widely 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.

Funding

Since the mainstream media depend heavily on advertising revenues to survive, the model suggests that the interests of advertisers come before reporting the news. Chomsky and Herman argue that, as a business, a newspaper has a product which it offers to an audience. 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, 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 themselves the product which is sold to the businesses that buy advertising space; the news itself has only a marginal role as the product.

Sourcing

The third filter concerns the mass media's need for a continuous flow of information to fill their demand for daily news. In an industrialized economy where consumers demand information on numerous worldwide 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 The Pentagon 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

* provide them with facilities in which to gather
* 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

On the other hand, the media become reluctant to run articles that will harm corporate interests that provide them with the resources that the media depend upon. Chomsky and Herman state (p. 22), cquote | It is very difficult to call authorities on whom one depends for daily news liars, even if they tell whoppers.

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 cognitive dissonance.

During the year 2005 in the USA, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) criticised the George W. Bush administration for the preparation and distribution of videos which falsely give the impression of being interviews made independently of the administration. The New York Times reported that "more than 20 federal agencies, including the State Department and the Defense Department, now create fake news clips. The Bush administration spent $254 million in its first four years on contracts with public relations firms, more than double the amount spent by the Clinton administration."ref label|truthout|8|b In April 2008, the New York Times revealed how the US Pentagon and Defense Department traded access to valuable information and powerful decision makers to ex-military officers, many now military contractors, who were parroting administration talking-points and providing favorable "analysis" regarding the Iraq War and related topics on/in major television, radio and print media. [ cite book|title=Filtering the News: Essays on Herman and Chomsky's Propaganda Model|date=2005|first=Jeffery |last=Klaehn]

Flak

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 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.", "The Establishment"). 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.

Flak from the powerful can be either "direct" or "indirect". The direct could include the following hypothetical scenarios:
* Letters or phone calls from the White House to Dan Rather or William S. Paley
* Inquiries from the FCC to major television networks requesting documents used to plan and assemble a program
* Messages from irate executives representing advertising agencies or corporate sponsors to media officials threatening retaliation if not granted on-air reply time.

The powerful can also work on the media indirectly by:
* Complaints delivered "en masse" to their own constituencies ("e.g.", stockholders, employees) about media bias,
* Generation of mass advertising that does the same,
* By funding watchdog groups or think tanks engineered to expose and attack deviations in media coverage that endanger vital elite interests.
* By funding political campaigns that elect politicians who will be more willing to curb any such media deviations.

Anti-Ideologies; substitutes for anti-communism

A final filter is anti-ideology. 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, press, "etc." They argue that such a portrayal was often used as a means to silence voices critical of elite interests.

With the Soviet Union'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 anathemas 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-terrorism".

Empirical support

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 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).

Finally, the authors examine what points of view they believe are expressed in the media. In one case, the authors examined over fifty of Stephen Kinzer's articles about Nicaragua in the "New York Times". They criticize Kinzer for failing to quote a single person in Nicaragua who is pro-Sandinista and contrast this with independent polls reporting only 9% support for all the opposition parties taken together. Chomsky states cquote | [The polls] show 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. [ [http://www.uiowa.edu/~cyberlaw/lem02/chomsky1.html Chomsky, Understanding Power ] ]

Based on this example and select others, the authors argue that such a persistent bias can only be explained by a model like the one they advocate.

Applications

Since the publication of "Manufacturing Consent", both Herman and Chomsky have adopted the theory and have given it a prominent role in their writings, lectures, and theoretical frameworks. Chomsky, in particular, has made extensive use of its explanative power to lend support to his own interpretations of mainstream media attitudes towards a wide array of events, including the following:

* Panama invasion (1989)Fact|date=May 2008
* Gulf War (1990)Fact|date=May 2008
* Iraq invasion (2003)Fact|date=May 2008
* Ethanol as fuel: energy balance, impact on world food prices and allegations of amazon rainforest depletion (2008)Fact|date=October 2008

Herman, seeking to build upon a more institutionalized framework to analyze mainstream media functioning, joined the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), which has since 1986 critiqued, documented, and statistically analyzed what it alleges is media bias and censorship.

With the emergence of the World Wide Web 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, Free Press, FAIR and Media Lens, a British-based site authored by David Edwards and David Cromwell. [ [http://www.medialens.org/faq/#what_inspired Who/what inspired you to set up Media Lens?] FAQ]

In May, 2007, both Chomsky and Herman spoke at the University of Windsor in Canada summarizing developments and responding to criticisms related to the model. [ [http://www.uwindsor.ca/units/commstudies/propaganda.nsf/intoc/dc899988bd643987852572cd006efae1 20 Years of Propaganda] University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, May 2007] Both authors stated they felt the propaganda model is still applicable today (Herman said even more so than when it was originally introduced), although they did suggest a few areas where they believe it falls short and needs to be extended in light of recent developments. [ [http://www.fifth-estate-online.co.uk/comment/twentyyearsofpropaganda.html Critical Discussions and Evidence of the Ongoing Relevance of the Herman and Chomsky Propaganda Model] , University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, May 2007]

Chomsky has commented in the "ChomskyChat Forum" on the applicability of the Propaganda Model to the media environment of other countries:

Criticism

The Anti-Chomsky Reader

Eli Lehrer, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and former editor of "The American Enterprise" magazine, contributed a critique of the Propaganda Model to "The Anti-Chomsky Reader".

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. [ [http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Manufacturing+dissent:+Noam+Chomsky+and+the+crisis+of+the+Western...-a0127013020 Manufacturing dissent: Noam Chomsky and the crisis of the Western Left] ]

See also

* Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
* Media Lens
* Free Press
* Independent Media Center
* Media Matters for America
* Spinwatch
* United States journalism scandals

References

External links

* [http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/199607--.htm The Propaganda Model Revisited] by Edward S. Herman, 1996
* [http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/2002----.htm The Propaganda Model: An Overview] by David Cromwell, 2002
* [http://human-nature.com/reason/01/herman.pdf The Propaganda Model: A Retrospective] by Edward S. Herman, 2003
* [http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/2002----02.pdf A Critical Review and Assessment of Herman and Chomsky's Propaganda Model] , by Jeffery Klaehn 'European Journal of Communication", Volume 17, 2002
* [http://www.ukwatch.net/article/twenty_years_at_the_margins Twenty Years At The Margins: The Herman-Chomsky Propaganda Model, 1988-2008] by Andy Mullen, 2008
* [http://www.fair.org/ FAIR]
* [http://www.freepress.org/ The Free Press]
* [http://medialens.org/ Media Lens]
* [http://www.blackrosebooks.net/filter.html Filtering the News] edited by Jeffery Klaehn, 2005
* [http://www.blackrosebooks.net/bound.htm Bound by Power] edited by Jeffery Klaehn, 2006
* [http://www.fifth-estate-online.co.uk/reviews/boundbypower.html Review of Bound by Power] by Andy Mullen, 2007
* [http://www.blackrosebooks.net/lies.htm Lies the Media Tell Us] by James Winter, 2007
* [http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Propaganda_Model Source Watch Propaganda Model Resource List]

Online Videos

* [http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-5631882395226827730#0h35m35s "Manufacturing Consent"] , The Propaganda Model, 1992
* [http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-2318355606739230251 'Noam Chomsky - Exception to the Rulers: Media in Democracy']
* [http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=5730066521787705149 'Noam Chomsky - The Political Economy of the Mass Media - Part 1']
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYlyb1Bx9Ic 'The Myth of the Liberal Media: The Propaganda Model of News']
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jkJIya_0KE Chomsky "Media" interview by Andrew Marr] "The Big Idea", 1996


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем написать курсовую

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Propaganda Model — Modèle de propagande Le concept de modèle de propagande, ou modèle propagandiste (en anglais « propaganda model ») est proposé par Edward Herman et Noam Chomsky en 1988 pour analyser et rendre compte de la manière dont les médias… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Propaganda — This article is about the form of communication. For other uses, see Propaganda (disambiguation). French Military Propaganda postcard showing a caricature of Kaiser Wilhelm II biting the world (c. 1915) …   Wikipedia

  • Propaganda in the United States — Columbia sowing vegetables.Propaganda in the United States comes from governments and private entities of various kinds. Propaganda is an ambiguous term, often meaning the same as advertising. However, it is not only in advertising, propaganda is …   Wikipedia

  • Propaganda in the People's Republic of China — refers to the PRC s use of messages designed to influence public opinion.HistoryThe history of communist propaganda in China predates the establishment of the PRC, and it has since manifested itself in various forms, such as songs, paintings,… …   Wikipedia

  • propaganda — /prop euh gan deuh/, n. 1. information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc. 2. the deliberate spreading of such information, rumors, etc. 3. the particular doctrines or… …   Universalium

  • Model of masculinity under fascist Italy — The model of masculinity under fascist Italy is the hegemonic masculinity prescribed by dictator Benito Mussolini during his fascist reign. This hegemonic model was deemed as the appropriate, ideal identity to follow during the development of a… …   Wikipedia

  • Propaganda in North Korea — The propaganda in North Korea is extensively based on the Juche ideology to promote the Workers Party of Korea line.[citation needed] From its beginning to this day the propaganda is omnipresent. Contents 1 Themes 1.1 Cult of personality …   Wikipedia

  • Model theory — This article is about the mathematical discipline. For the informal notion in other parts of mathematics and science, see Mathematical model. In mathematics, model theory is the study of (classes of) mathematical structures (e.g. groups, fields,… …   Wikipedia

  • Modelo de Propaganda de los medios de comunicación — Cámaras en un plató de televisión. El Modelo de Propaganda de los medios de comunicación es un teoría presentada por Edward S. Herman y Noam Chomsky basada, según ellos, en que los prejuicios sistémicos de los medios de comunicación (el sesgo… …   Wikipedia Español

  • List of topics related to public relations and propaganda — * Ad Council * Agenda setting theory * Al Fateh * America s Army , video game produced by the U.S. government with the stated aim of encouraging players to become interested in joining the U.S. Army. * Astroturfing / Astroturf PR; fake grassroots …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”