Full Version: Does Ideological Management exists in America?
What is Ideological Management?
“Our whole social system rests upon the fictitious belief that nobody is forced to do what he does, but that he likes to do. This replacement of overt by anonymous authority finds its expression in all areas of life: Force is camouflaged by consent; the consent is brought about by methods of mass suggestion.” Erich Fromm, The Art of Being. (pub. 1989: Written between 1976-78)
George Orwell wrote in his book 1984, something like…
He who controls the past controls the future
He who controls the present controls the past
Ministry of Truth
Psychologists advice caution in situations where we find either ourselves or other people dismissing an argument out-of-hand as absurd or incomprehensible. It seems that several very different motives may account for our response.
First, rejection may of course be a rational response to the nonsense of a demonstrably irrational argument. Secondly, however, it may be triggered by the accurate but uncomfortable nature of an argument—we may reject an idea as nonsense precisely because we recognize (perhaps unconsciously) that it raises a profoundly unpleasant truth we would rather not confront. Thirdly, the argument may be so contrary to our common sense of view of the world that it strikes us as being simply ridiculous (the word derives from the Latin ridere meaning “to laugh”; we tend to find ridiculous, or funny, that which dramatically contradicts our usual conception of the world). Fourthly, we may simply be lying when we dismiss an argument that we perceive as damaging to our interests.
In short, immediate rejection of an argument may be based on rational, emotional, or self-interested motives. While it may often be difficult to establish which motivation, or mixture of motivations, is involved, at any given time, rejections based on emotional discomfort, intellectual sloth and/or self-interest will tend to claim a greater level of certainty than those based on reason; reason, after all, is not in the business of absolute certainty, while emotion and self-interest often tolerate nothing less.
Unfortunately, it is when we claim to be most certain about what is or is not a common sense argument, that our judgment is most suspect. In the face of this all-too-human predicament, our only realistic strategy would appear to be to rely on our powers of doubt and reason, to put aside our (perhaps) irrationally-motivated knee-jerk response and take as careful a look as possible at the facts.
FRAMING CONDITIONS
At first sight, it seems extraordinary that snowflakes and other crystalline structures are able to form almost perfect, symmetrical shapes in the complete absence of conscious control or design. The mechanism by which this occurs can easily be demonstrated by setting-out a flat, box-like framework on a table. By pouring a stream of tiny balls over this frame, we find that we eventually, and inevitably, end up with a more or less perfect pyramid shape. Because the most stable resting position in the structure (given the square framework and the spherical shape of the balls) is always one that contributes to the construction of a perfect pyramid, any ball that settles inevitably builds, while all others in less stable positions are moved into more stable positions or bounce out. No one is designing the pyramid, or forcing the balls into place; the pyramid is simply an inevitable product of the framing conditions of round objects falling onto a square wooden frame.
In an analogous way, I would suggest, that powerful state and business elites seek to determine the basic framework of modern social goals: maximum economic growth generated by maximized corporate profit, fuelled by mass production, fuelled by mass consumerism. By pouring news, information and ideas into this basic economic framework, a version of reality progressively suited to the requirements of the framework is inevitably produced. As with the crystal model, conscious design is not at all required beyond the initial framing of conditions. (Which I would argue business elites DO consciously try to maintain: any threat to compromise the basic, unchallengeable goal of maximum economic growth from maximum corporate profit is vigorously and consciously opposed at home and abroad).
If we accept the basic plausibility of this model, we have to at least admit the theoretical possibility of extreme levels of control without coercion or planning (beyond that required for the maintenance of the framework). Similarly, we must admit the possibility that a state of extreme lack of freedom might be able to exist in an apparently “free,” “non-totalitarian,” “democracy.”
I would argue that there exists five reality filters. The existence of these filters allow money and power to filter out news “fit to print,” marginalize dissent, and allow government and dominating private interests to get their message across to the public. (The details here refer to state and business control of the US media).
THE FIRST FILTER: the size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth, and profit-orientation of the dominant mass-media firms.
Media ownership is limited by the substantial cost involved in running even small media entities. With the industrialization of newspapers for example, the cost of machinery required for even very small newspapers has for many years run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. As has been ironically suggested, anyone is free to open their own newspaper, so long as they have a couple of million dollars to spare. Thus the first filter is the limitation on ownership, by the large amount of investment required, of media with any significant influence.
In 1986 there were some 25,000 media entities (daily newspapers, magazines, radio and TV stations, book publishers and movie studios) in the United States. Of these, many were small, local news dispensers heavily dependent on the large national companies for all but local news. Also, despite the large numbers of media, the twenty-nine largest media systems accounted for over half the output of newspapers and for most of the sales and audiences in magazines, broadcasting, books and films.
These top companies are of course all large, profit-seeking corporations, owned and controlled by wealthy people. Many of them are fully integrated into the stock market and, consequently, face powerful pressures from stockholders, directors and bankers to focus on profitability. Despite often being in competition, all have a basic framework of identical interests. These control groups obviously have a special stake in the status quo by virtue of their wealth and their strategic position in one of the great institutions of society [the stock market]. And they exercise the power of this strategic position, if only by establishing the general aims of the company and choosing its top management.
Mark Hertsgaard has commented (in conversations with David Barsamian) on how this commitment to the status quo means that major media corporations tend to avoid reporting that seeks out root causes of the problems that afflict our world:
“…that’s the kind of reporting that raises very serious and pointed questions about the way our society is organized, about power relations in our society, about the advantages of and problems with a capitalist system. It raises real questions about the status quo. Those questions are not going to be asked on a consistent basis within news organizations that are owned by corporations that have every interest in maintaining the status quo. Those corporations are not going to hire individuals to run those organizations who care about that kind of reporting. Therefore, those individuals are not going to hire reporters who do that kind of reporting, and so you’re not going to see it… Generally, if you start as a reporter early in your career you pick up the messages and it becomes almost instinctive. You don’t even realize all of what you’ve given up, all of the small compromises that you’ve made along the way.”
The control groups of the media giants are brought into close relationship with the mainstream of the corporate community through boards of directors and social links. This relationship is intensified by the fact that the corporate parents of media giants like NBC, Group W television and cable systems are themselves corporate giants dominate by corporate and banking executives (General Electric and Westinghouse).
The following site talks about corporate ownership.
The 50, 26, 20 Corporations That Own the Media
http://www.fair.org/extra/best-of-extra/co...-ownership.html
by Ben Bagdikian
The GE Boycott: A Story NBC Would Not Buy
http://www.fair.org/extra/best-of-extra/ge-boycott.html
by Todd Putman
Media Giants Cast Aside “Chains” of Regulations: FCC Should Resist
http://www.fair.org/activism/fcc-giants.html
THE SECOND FILTER: Advertising
Before advertising became prominent, the price of a newspaper had to cover the costs of production. With the growth of advertising, however, newspapers attractive to advertisers were able to lower their copy price below the production cost. This put newspapers which attracted less advertising at a serious disadvantage—their prices would tend to be higher, which reduced sales, and they would also have less profit to invest in improving sale-ability through quality, format, promotions and so on. For this reason, an advertising-based system will tend to drive into the margins, or out of existence all together media entities that depend on revenue from sales alone. Therefore, working-class papers have been at a serious disadvantage. Their readers have tended to be of modest means, a factor that has always affected advertiser interest.
The British Daily Herald newspaper, for example, failed despite having double the readership of The Times, the Financial Times and The Guardian put together. A significant reason was the fact that, while the Herald had 8.1 percent of national daily circulation, it received only 3.5 percent of net advertising revenue. Apart from the lower disposable income of its readers, an additional reason the Herald received so little advertising was clearly the fact that it promoted an alternative framework of analysis and understanding that contested the dominant systems of representations in both broadcasting and the mainstream press. That is, the Herald challenged the status quo and was not as business-friendly as other newspapers competing for advertising revenue. There are many examples of advertisers and corporate sponsors clearly (and quiet naturally) supporting periodicals and television programs which support their interests while withdrawing support from media deemed “anti-business.”
In 1985, the public television station WNET lost its corporate funding from Gulf & Western after the station showed the documentary “Hunger for Profit”, which contained material critical of multinational corporate activities in the Third World. Even before the program was shown, station officials “did all we could to get the program sanitized” (according to a station source). The Chief Executive of Gulf & Western complained to the station that the program was “virulently anti-business if not anti-American,” and that by carrying the program the station was clearly not a “friend” of the corporation. The Economist reported that WNET is unlikely to make the same mistake again.
In similar vein, Procter & Gamble instructed their advertising agency that “There will be no material on any of our programs which could in any way further the concept of business as cold, ruthless and lacking in all sentiment or spiritual motivation.” The manager of corporate communications for General Electric (which, as we have discussed, own NBC-TV) has said: “We insist on a program environment that reinforces our corporate messages.”
If advertisers, and corporate sponsors generally, tend to support media which boost their message, and these media consequently tend to flourish relative to those not so supported, then we have one example of a tight system of control that does not at all require a conspiracy theory but simply the operation of market forces. For advertiser control clearly extends to the detail of the contents and tone of media. This influence can be extremely subtle and far-reaching (the beginnings, perhaps, of the invisible hand of total control implied by the pyramid model above). A truly advertiser-friendly TV station, for example, will be supportive of the advertiser’s desire for the maintenance of a “buying environment” in between commercials.
Advertisers will want, more generally, to avoid programs with serious complexities and disturbing controversies that interfere with the “buying mood”. They seek programs that will lightly entertain and thus fit in with the spirit of the primary purpose of program purchases—the dissemination of a selling message.
Editors are well aware that a failure to maintain advertiser—friendly content and tone will result in the loss of critical advertising revenue to the competition—a double blow. According to Lewis Lapham, former editor of Harper’s magazine, New York editors “advise, discretion when approaching topics likely to alarm the buyers of large advertising space.” He goes on: “The American press is, and always has been, a booster press, its editorial pages characteristically advancing the same arguments as the paid advertising copy.”
Capitalist Tool: PR Executives Dreams
http://www.fair.org/extra/best-of-extra/forbes-nader.html
The Power of the Press Has a Price: T.V. Reporters on Advertiser Pressure
http://www.fair.org/extra/9707/ad-survey.html
How to Be Stupid: Lessons from Channel One
http://www.fair.org/extra/9707/ad-survey.html
THE THIRD FILTER: The sourcing of mass media news.
The mass media, are inevitably drawn into symbiotic relationship with powerful sources of information by economic necessity and mutual interest. As we know, the media must have a steady, reliable supply of news. For obvious economic reasons, they cannot have reporters everywhere around the globe, so resources are concentrated where significant news is likely to occur. The White House, the Pentagon, and State Department are central news terminals of this type. Similarly, business corporations and trade groups also act as significant, regular news terminals. Their important as news sources is a direct result of the fact that both corporate and state sectors have enormous resources dedicated to public relations and the dissemination of promotional material.
The US Air Force, alone, for example, publishes 140 newspapers every week and issues 45,000 headquarters and unit news releases a year. Similarly, in 1983 the US Chamber of Commerce had a budget for research, communications and political activities of $65 million. Among many other things, it produced its own weekly panel discussion program carried by 128 commercial television stations. The scale of this influence dwarfs anything that might be mounted by the combined effort of, say, human rights, church and environmental groups, who might attempt to present a view of reality less in harmony with state and/or corporate goals (the leading dissident magazine currently publishings in the US—Z Magazine—is run by a grand total of three people. By comparison, even as far back as 1968 the US Air Force PR effort involved 1,305 full-time staff, as well as countless thousands of staff with public relations duties.
The huge volume of state and business communications not only swamps dissenting voices, but the provides the media with cheap and readily available news. This effective subsidizing of the media is another important factor in determining what tends to become news. To consolidate their pre-eminent position as sources, government and business-news promoters go to great pains to make things easy for news organizations… In effect, the large bureaucracies of the powerful subsidize the mass media, and gain special access by their contribution to reducing the media’s costs of acquiring the raw materials of, and producing, news. The large entities that provide this subsidy become “routine” news sources and have privileged access to the gates. Non-routine sources must struggle for access, and may be ignored by the arbitrary decision of the gatekeepers.
Snow Job: The Establishment’s Papers Do Damage Control for the CIA
http://www.fair.org/extra/9701/contra-crack.html
Norman Solomon
Happy Birthday, CIA:
http://www.fair.org/extra/9711/cia.html
The press celebrates 50 years of spying and covert action
Withholding News: The Washington Post and the UNSCOM Spying Scandal
http://www.fair.org/extra/9903/unscom.html
New York Times on Iraq Sanctions: Guilty of Malpractice
http://www.fair.org/extra/0003/crossette-iraq.html
Seth Ackerman
THE FOURTH FILTER: “Flak”
The term “flak” refers to negative responses to a media statement or program, which may take the form of letters, telegrams, phone calls, petitions, law-suits, speeches and bills before Congress as well as other modes of complaint, threat and punishment. One form of flak mentioned above is the threat of withdrawal of advertising revenue; this threat alone is often sufficient to persuade editors to review the contents of their product. Business organizations regularly come together to form flak machines. One such machine formed by a collection of corporate giants is Accuracy In Media (AIM), whose income rose from $5,000 in 1971 to $1.5 million in the early 1980s. At least eight oil companies were AIM contributors in the early eighties. The function of AIM is to generate flak and put pressure on the media to follow a corporate-friendly agenda.
Just as state and corporate communications power naturally tend to assist supportive media, so state and corporate flak machines tend to attack and undermine unsupportive media. These are both powerful factors tending to bias the viewpoint of media that are able to flourish. For example, it will be far safer for media to opt for uncontroversial, advertiser-friendly news proffered by state and corporate information machines which will not draw flak, than news proffered by isolated dissident sources which may draw intense flak from state and corporate institutions.
Censured News: Oliver North & Company Banned from Costa Rica
http://www.fair.org/extra/best-of-extra/co...bans-north.html
Robert Gardner
“We Paid $3 billion Dollars for These Stations. We’ll Decide What the News Is.
http://www.fair.org/extra/9806/foxbgh.html
Polls Apart: The Manufacturing of Anti-Bilingual Latino Majority
http://www.fair.org/extra/9811/latino.html
Mikal Muharrar
Meet the Myth Makers: Right-Wing Media Groups Provide Ammo for "Liberal Media" Claims
http://www.fair.org/extra/9807/myth-makers.html
Peter Hart and Steve Randall
Whose on the News: June 2002
http://www.fair.org/press-releases/power-s...es-release.html
THE FIFTH FILTER: Anti-communism
Until recently, this has been especially useful for justifying corporate behavior abroad and controlling critics of corporate behavior at home. The creation of an “evil empire” of one sort or another, has long been a standard device for terrifying the population into supporting arms production and economic/military adventurism abroad (both important revenue-generators for the corporate community).
Before Communism, the role of “evil empire” was played by the “devilish” Spaniards, the “savage” American Indians, the “treacherous” British, or the “baby-eating” Hun. More recently, since the collapse in credibility of any communist “threat”, the war against “international drugs trafficking and terrorism” as well as skirmishes against various “new Hitlers” and “mad dogs” in the Middle East, have served to mobilize the populace around and against threats to elite interests in a similar ways.
Slaughter is Something Other Countries Do
http://fair.org/extra/best-of-extra/slaughter-not-us.html
Euphemism for Israeli Settlements Confuse Coverage
http://www.fair.org/press-releases/settlem...euphemisms.html
Scandal? What Scandal? Bush's Iran-Contra appointees are barely a story
http://www.fair.org/extra/0109/iran-contra.html
Media and Memory: The Arrest of a Dictator
http://www.fair.org/media-beat/981022.html
I use this website because of familiarity. Fair and Accuracy in Reporting is national organization known as FAIR and acts as a media watchdog. There are several media watchdogs websites.
Edward Hermann and Noam Chomsky came up with the “filtering system model or paradigm” in the book, Manufacturing Consent. The printing of Hermann and Chomsky’s book changed the world of media criticism. Chomsky is also a world renowned linguist. In fact in linguistics you talk about B.C. (before Chomsky) and A.C. (after Chomsky). He is the most quoted author of the 20th century and one of the top ten most quoted English speakers ever. (the Bible counts as one book). He is arguably the greatest intellectual alive. Yet you never see him on TV, hmmm???
There are many other media criticism sites. You can find conservative, liberal, libertarian, green, etc. Compare the quality of the arguments. You decide what you want to believe. Look at what information benefits YOU. It is my belief, the more information you have, the better decision you can make.
Questions to those who wish to reply:
1. Do you think that ideological management exists, in the manner this posting suggests?
2. What filters do you agree with and which ones do you not agree with? Why (justification = justifications can be either reasoned arguments or poignant feelings).
3. Any other type of critique?
4. Which definitions of terrorism do you agree with?
-A. “The use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.” “a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government. [1785-95]” (Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, 1996)
- B. “A violent act or an act dangerous to human life [that would violate the criminal of this or any state] “that appears to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by assassination or kidnapping” (U.S. Code, 1984). Under the Reagan administration.
- C. “Terrorism is the deliberate and systematic murder, maiming and menacing of the innocent to inspire fear for political ends.” (Benjamin Netanyahu, Terrorism: How the West Can Win.)
- D. “Terrorism is what the government declares to be terrorism” (totally politicized meaning, never made explicit but internalized and regularly applied by the U.S. mainstream media and pundit terrorism experts).
Hmmm????
“Our whole social system rests upon the fictitious belief that nobody is forced to do what he does, but that he likes to do. This replacement of overt by anonymous authority finds its expression in all areas of life: Force is camouflaged by consent; the consent is brought about by methods of mass suggestion.” Erich Fromm, The Art of Being. (pub. 1989: Written between 1976-78)
George Orwell wrote in his book 1984, something like…
He who controls the past controls the future
He who controls the present controls the past
Ministry of Truth
Psychologists advice caution in situations where we find either ourselves or other people dismissing an argument out-of-hand as absurd or incomprehensible. It seems that several very different motives may account for our response.
First, rejection may of course be a rational response to the nonsense of a demonstrably irrational argument. Secondly, however, it may be triggered by the accurate but uncomfortable nature of an argument—we may reject an idea as nonsense precisely because we recognize (perhaps unconsciously) that it raises a profoundly unpleasant truth we would rather not confront. Thirdly, the argument may be so contrary to our common sense of view of the world that it strikes us as being simply ridiculous (the word derives from the Latin ridere meaning “to laugh”; we tend to find ridiculous, or funny, that which dramatically contradicts our usual conception of the world). Fourthly, we may simply be lying when we dismiss an argument that we perceive as damaging to our interests.
In short, immediate rejection of an argument may be based on rational, emotional, or self-interested motives. While it may often be difficult to establish which motivation, or mixture of motivations, is involved, at any given time, rejections based on emotional discomfort, intellectual sloth and/or self-interest will tend to claim a greater level of certainty than those based on reason; reason, after all, is not in the business of absolute certainty, while emotion and self-interest often tolerate nothing less.
Unfortunately, it is when we claim to be most certain about what is or is not a common sense argument, that our judgment is most suspect. In the face of this all-too-human predicament, our only realistic strategy would appear to be to rely on our powers of doubt and reason, to put aside our (perhaps) irrationally-motivated knee-jerk response and take as careful a look as possible at the facts.
FRAMING CONDITIONS
At first sight, it seems extraordinary that snowflakes and other crystalline structures are able to form almost perfect, symmetrical shapes in the complete absence of conscious control or design. The mechanism by which this occurs can easily be demonstrated by setting-out a flat, box-like framework on a table. By pouring a stream of tiny balls over this frame, we find that we eventually, and inevitably, end up with a more or less perfect pyramid shape. Because the most stable resting position in the structure (given the square framework and the spherical shape of the balls) is always one that contributes to the construction of a perfect pyramid, any ball that settles inevitably builds, while all others in less stable positions are moved into more stable positions or bounce out. No one is designing the pyramid, or forcing the balls into place; the pyramid is simply an inevitable product of the framing conditions of round objects falling onto a square wooden frame.
In an analogous way, I would suggest, that powerful state and business elites seek to determine the basic framework of modern social goals: maximum economic growth generated by maximized corporate profit, fuelled by mass production, fuelled by mass consumerism. By pouring news, information and ideas into this basic economic framework, a version of reality progressively suited to the requirements of the framework is inevitably produced. As with the crystal model, conscious design is not at all required beyond the initial framing of conditions. (Which I would argue business elites DO consciously try to maintain: any threat to compromise the basic, unchallengeable goal of maximum economic growth from maximum corporate profit is vigorously and consciously opposed at home and abroad).
If we accept the basic plausibility of this model, we have to at least admit the theoretical possibility of extreme levels of control without coercion or planning (beyond that required for the maintenance of the framework). Similarly, we must admit the possibility that a state of extreme lack of freedom might be able to exist in an apparently “free,” “non-totalitarian,” “democracy.”
I would argue that there exists five reality filters. The existence of these filters allow money and power to filter out news “fit to print,” marginalize dissent, and allow government and dominating private interests to get their message across to the public. (The details here refer to state and business control of the US media).
THE FIRST FILTER: the size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth, and profit-orientation of the dominant mass-media firms.
Media ownership is limited by the substantial cost involved in running even small media entities. With the industrialization of newspapers for example, the cost of machinery required for even very small newspapers has for many years run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. As has been ironically suggested, anyone is free to open their own newspaper, so long as they have a couple of million dollars to spare. Thus the first filter is the limitation on ownership, by the large amount of investment required, of media with any significant influence.
In 1986 there were some 25,000 media entities (daily newspapers, magazines, radio and TV stations, book publishers and movie studios) in the United States. Of these, many were small, local news dispensers heavily dependent on the large national companies for all but local news. Also, despite the large numbers of media, the twenty-nine largest media systems accounted for over half the output of newspapers and for most of the sales and audiences in magazines, broadcasting, books and films.
These top companies are of course all large, profit-seeking corporations, owned and controlled by wealthy people. Many of them are fully integrated into the stock market and, consequently, face powerful pressures from stockholders, directors and bankers to focus on profitability. Despite often being in competition, all have a basic framework of identical interests. These control groups obviously have a special stake in the status quo by virtue of their wealth and their strategic position in one of the great institutions of society [the stock market]. And they exercise the power of this strategic position, if only by establishing the general aims of the company and choosing its top management.
Mark Hertsgaard has commented (in conversations with David Barsamian) on how this commitment to the status quo means that major media corporations tend to avoid reporting that seeks out root causes of the problems that afflict our world:
“…that’s the kind of reporting that raises very serious and pointed questions about the way our society is organized, about power relations in our society, about the advantages of and problems with a capitalist system. It raises real questions about the status quo. Those questions are not going to be asked on a consistent basis within news organizations that are owned by corporations that have every interest in maintaining the status quo. Those corporations are not going to hire individuals to run those organizations who care about that kind of reporting. Therefore, those individuals are not going to hire reporters who do that kind of reporting, and so you’re not going to see it… Generally, if you start as a reporter early in your career you pick up the messages and it becomes almost instinctive. You don’t even realize all of what you’ve given up, all of the small compromises that you’ve made along the way.”
The control groups of the media giants are brought into close relationship with the mainstream of the corporate community through boards of directors and social links. This relationship is intensified by the fact that the corporate parents of media giants like NBC, Group W television and cable systems are themselves corporate giants dominate by corporate and banking executives (General Electric and Westinghouse).
The following site talks about corporate ownership.
The 50, 26, 20 Corporations That Own the Media
http://www.fair.org/extra/best-of-extra/co...-ownership.html
by Ben Bagdikian
The GE Boycott: A Story NBC Would Not Buy
http://www.fair.org/extra/best-of-extra/ge-boycott.html
by Todd Putman
Media Giants Cast Aside “Chains” of Regulations: FCC Should Resist
http://www.fair.org/activism/fcc-giants.html
THE SECOND FILTER: Advertising
Before advertising became prominent, the price of a newspaper had to cover the costs of production. With the growth of advertising, however, newspapers attractive to advertisers were able to lower their copy price below the production cost. This put newspapers which attracted less advertising at a serious disadvantage—their prices would tend to be higher, which reduced sales, and they would also have less profit to invest in improving sale-ability through quality, format, promotions and so on. For this reason, an advertising-based system will tend to drive into the margins, or out of existence all together media entities that depend on revenue from sales alone. Therefore, working-class papers have been at a serious disadvantage. Their readers have tended to be of modest means, a factor that has always affected advertiser interest.
The British Daily Herald newspaper, for example, failed despite having double the readership of The Times, the Financial Times and The Guardian put together. A significant reason was the fact that, while the Herald had 8.1 percent of national daily circulation, it received only 3.5 percent of net advertising revenue. Apart from the lower disposable income of its readers, an additional reason the Herald received so little advertising was clearly the fact that it promoted an alternative framework of analysis and understanding that contested the dominant systems of representations in both broadcasting and the mainstream press. That is, the Herald challenged the status quo and was not as business-friendly as other newspapers competing for advertising revenue. There are many examples of advertisers and corporate sponsors clearly (and quiet naturally) supporting periodicals and television programs which support their interests while withdrawing support from media deemed “anti-business.”
In 1985, the public television station WNET lost its corporate funding from Gulf & Western after the station showed the documentary “Hunger for Profit”, which contained material critical of multinational corporate activities in the Third World. Even before the program was shown, station officials “did all we could to get the program sanitized” (according to a station source). The Chief Executive of Gulf & Western complained to the station that the program was “virulently anti-business if not anti-American,” and that by carrying the program the station was clearly not a “friend” of the corporation. The Economist reported that WNET is unlikely to make the same mistake again.
In similar vein, Procter & Gamble instructed their advertising agency that “There will be no material on any of our programs which could in any way further the concept of business as cold, ruthless and lacking in all sentiment or spiritual motivation.” The manager of corporate communications for General Electric (which, as we have discussed, own NBC-TV) has said: “We insist on a program environment that reinforces our corporate messages.”
If advertisers, and corporate sponsors generally, tend to support media which boost their message, and these media consequently tend to flourish relative to those not so supported, then we have one example of a tight system of control that does not at all require a conspiracy theory but simply the operation of market forces. For advertiser control clearly extends to the detail of the contents and tone of media. This influence can be extremely subtle and far-reaching (the beginnings, perhaps, of the invisible hand of total control implied by the pyramid model above). A truly advertiser-friendly TV station, for example, will be supportive of the advertiser’s desire for the maintenance of a “buying environment” in between commercials.
Advertisers will want, more generally, to avoid programs with serious complexities and disturbing controversies that interfere with the “buying mood”. They seek programs that will lightly entertain and thus fit in with the spirit of the primary purpose of program purchases—the dissemination of a selling message.
Editors are well aware that a failure to maintain advertiser—friendly content and tone will result in the loss of critical advertising revenue to the competition—a double blow. According to Lewis Lapham, former editor of Harper’s magazine, New York editors “advise, discretion when approaching topics likely to alarm the buyers of large advertising space.” He goes on: “The American press is, and always has been, a booster press, its editorial pages characteristically advancing the same arguments as the paid advertising copy.”
Capitalist Tool: PR Executives Dreams
http://www.fair.org/extra/best-of-extra/forbes-nader.html
The Power of the Press Has a Price: T.V. Reporters on Advertiser Pressure
http://www.fair.org/extra/9707/ad-survey.html
How to Be Stupid: Lessons from Channel One
http://www.fair.org/extra/9707/ad-survey.html
THE THIRD FILTER: The sourcing of mass media news.
The mass media, are inevitably drawn into symbiotic relationship with powerful sources of information by economic necessity and mutual interest. As we know, the media must have a steady, reliable supply of news. For obvious economic reasons, they cannot have reporters everywhere around the globe, so resources are concentrated where significant news is likely to occur. The White House, the Pentagon, and State Department are central news terminals of this type. Similarly, business corporations and trade groups also act as significant, regular news terminals. Their important as news sources is a direct result of the fact that both corporate and state sectors have enormous resources dedicated to public relations and the dissemination of promotional material.
The US Air Force, alone, for example, publishes 140 newspapers every week and issues 45,000 headquarters and unit news releases a year. Similarly, in 1983 the US Chamber of Commerce had a budget for research, communications and political activities of $65 million. Among many other things, it produced its own weekly panel discussion program carried by 128 commercial television stations. The scale of this influence dwarfs anything that might be mounted by the combined effort of, say, human rights, church and environmental groups, who might attempt to present a view of reality less in harmony with state and/or corporate goals (the leading dissident magazine currently publishings in the US—Z Magazine—is run by a grand total of three people. By comparison, even as far back as 1968 the US Air Force PR effort involved 1,305 full-time staff, as well as countless thousands of staff with public relations duties.
The huge volume of state and business communications not only swamps dissenting voices, but the provides the media with cheap and readily available news. This effective subsidizing of the media is another important factor in determining what tends to become news. To consolidate their pre-eminent position as sources, government and business-news promoters go to great pains to make things easy for news organizations… In effect, the large bureaucracies of the powerful subsidize the mass media, and gain special access by their contribution to reducing the media’s costs of acquiring the raw materials of, and producing, news. The large entities that provide this subsidy become “routine” news sources and have privileged access to the gates. Non-routine sources must struggle for access, and may be ignored by the arbitrary decision of the gatekeepers.
Snow Job: The Establishment’s Papers Do Damage Control for the CIA
http://www.fair.org/extra/9701/contra-crack.html
Norman Solomon
Happy Birthday, CIA:
http://www.fair.org/extra/9711/cia.html
The press celebrates 50 years of spying and covert action
Withholding News: The Washington Post and the UNSCOM Spying Scandal
http://www.fair.org/extra/9903/unscom.html
New York Times on Iraq Sanctions: Guilty of Malpractice
http://www.fair.org/extra/0003/crossette-iraq.html
Seth Ackerman
THE FOURTH FILTER: “Flak”
The term “flak” refers to negative responses to a media statement or program, which may take the form of letters, telegrams, phone calls, petitions, law-suits, speeches and bills before Congress as well as other modes of complaint, threat and punishment. One form of flak mentioned above is the threat of withdrawal of advertising revenue; this threat alone is often sufficient to persuade editors to review the contents of their product. Business organizations regularly come together to form flak machines. One such machine formed by a collection of corporate giants is Accuracy In Media (AIM), whose income rose from $5,000 in 1971 to $1.5 million in the early 1980s. At least eight oil companies were AIM contributors in the early eighties. The function of AIM is to generate flak and put pressure on the media to follow a corporate-friendly agenda.
Just as state and corporate communications power naturally tend to assist supportive media, so state and corporate flak machines tend to attack and undermine unsupportive media. These are both powerful factors tending to bias the viewpoint of media that are able to flourish. For example, it will be far safer for media to opt for uncontroversial, advertiser-friendly news proffered by state and corporate information machines which will not draw flak, than news proffered by isolated dissident sources which may draw intense flak from state and corporate institutions.
Censured News: Oliver North & Company Banned from Costa Rica
http://www.fair.org/extra/best-of-extra/co...bans-north.html
Robert Gardner
“We Paid $3 billion Dollars for These Stations. We’ll Decide What the News Is.
http://www.fair.org/extra/9806/foxbgh.html
Polls Apart: The Manufacturing of Anti-Bilingual Latino Majority
http://www.fair.org/extra/9811/latino.html
Mikal Muharrar
Meet the Myth Makers: Right-Wing Media Groups Provide Ammo for "Liberal Media" Claims
http://www.fair.org/extra/9807/myth-makers.html
Peter Hart and Steve Randall
Whose on the News: June 2002
http://www.fair.org/press-releases/power-s...es-release.html
THE FIFTH FILTER: Anti-communism
Until recently, this has been especially useful for justifying corporate behavior abroad and controlling critics of corporate behavior at home. The creation of an “evil empire” of one sort or another, has long been a standard device for terrifying the population into supporting arms production and economic/military adventurism abroad (both important revenue-generators for the corporate community).
Before Communism, the role of “evil empire” was played by the “devilish” Spaniards, the “savage” American Indians, the “treacherous” British, or the “baby-eating” Hun. More recently, since the collapse in credibility of any communist “threat”, the war against “international drugs trafficking and terrorism” as well as skirmishes against various “new Hitlers” and “mad dogs” in the Middle East, have served to mobilize the populace around and against threats to elite interests in a similar ways.
Slaughter is Something Other Countries Do
http://fair.org/extra/best-of-extra/slaughter-not-us.html
Euphemism for Israeli Settlements Confuse Coverage
http://www.fair.org/press-releases/settlem...euphemisms.html
Scandal? What Scandal? Bush's Iran-Contra appointees are barely a story
http://www.fair.org/extra/0109/iran-contra.html
Media and Memory: The Arrest of a Dictator
http://www.fair.org/media-beat/981022.html
I use this website because of familiarity. Fair and Accuracy in Reporting is national organization known as FAIR and acts as a media watchdog. There are several media watchdogs websites.
Edward Hermann and Noam Chomsky came up with the “filtering system model or paradigm” in the book, Manufacturing Consent. The printing of Hermann and Chomsky’s book changed the world of media criticism. Chomsky is also a world renowned linguist. In fact in linguistics you talk about B.C. (before Chomsky) and A.C. (after Chomsky). He is the most quoted author of the 20th century and one of the top ten most quoted English speakers ever. (the Bible counts as one book). He is arguably the greatest intellectual alive. Yet you never see him on TV, hmmm???
There are many other media criticism sites. You can find conservative, liberal, libertarian, green, etc. Compare the quality of the arguments. You decide what you want to believe. Look at what information benefits YOU. It is my belief, the more information you have, the better decision you can make.
Questions to those who wish to reply:
1. Do you think that ideological management exists, in the manner this posting suggests?
2. What filters do you agree with and which ones do you not agree with? Why (justification = justifications can be either reasoned arguments or poignant feelings).
3. Any other type of critique?
4. Which definitions of terrorism do you agree with?
-A. “The use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.” “a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government. [1785-95]” (Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, 1996)
- B. “A violent act or an act dangerous to human life [that would violate the criminal of this or any state] “that appears to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by assassination or kidnapping” (U.S. Code, 1984). Under the Reagan administration.
- C. “Terrorism is the deliberate and systematic murder, maiming and menacing of the innocent to inspire fear for political ends.” (Benjamin Netanyahu, Terrorism: How the West Can Win.)
- D. “Terrorism is what the government declares to be terrorism” (totally politicized meaning, never made explicit but internalized and regularly applied by the U.S. mainstream media and pundit terrorism experts).
Hmmm????
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