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20 Years of Propaganda?
Critical Discussions and Evidence of the Ongoing
Relevance of the Herman and Chomsky Propaganda Model
University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, May 2007
Report provided by: Dr Andy Mullen,
Politics and History Division,
Northumbria University, UK
Conference Overview | Plenary Discussion | Expanding the Propaganda Model | Alternative Media, Social Change and the Propaganda Model | Pedagogy and the Propaganda Model |
Conference Overview
The year 2008 will mark the 20th anniversary of
the publication of the book, Manufacturing
Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media,
by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky (Pantheon,
1988). In this book, the authors put forth a
model, the Propaganda Model (PM), as a way of
understanding the way our mass media system
interrelates with our economy, political system
and society in general. Since putting forth their
PM (with its ownership, advertising, sources,
flak and ideology filters), there have been many
changes and technological advances in our entire
communication and media landscape. The 2007
conference, and the spring 2008 publication based
upon the proceedings, will, through vigorous
debate, discussion and fresh insight, make great
strides in critically analysing (perhaps revising
and updating) the ongoing relevance of the
Herman-Chomsky Propaganda Model as a useful
conceptualisation for understanding 21st century media and society.
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Plenary Discussion
The Propaganda Model's Usefulness for
Understanding 21st Century Media and Society
Edward Herman
The PM is stronger now than it was twenty years
ago when we published Manufacturing Consent. Each
of the filters has changed, rendering them more
powerful. (1) Ownership filter has changed
because of corporate concentration and the
process of globalisation. Public service
broadcasting has also declined in its importance
and influence. Also, the media conglomerates are
much closer to governments now and are
consequently much more influenced by them. (2)
Advertising filter has changed because of
corporate concentration and globalisation.
Newspaper sales are in decline and many
advertisers have migrated to the Internet.
Therefore, their power over the media has
increased; the balance of power has moved
decisively in their favour. (3) Sourcing filter
has changed because media corporations have cut
back on their investment in news production in
favour of more 'infotainment'. There is also a
greater reliance now on pre-packed government
sources. Government are now the 'primary
definers' of what constitutes news. Governments,
in effect, now manage the media, rendering them
more dependent and malleable. (4) Flak filter has
changed in that governments are more powerful as
flak agents. We have also witnessed the emergence
of the blogging phenomenon and the growing
influence of right-wing bloggers as flak agents
[see Eric Boehlert (2006) Lapdogs, Free Press].
(5) The ideology filter has been transformed as
anti-communism, although not yet dead, is
considerably weaker. It has been replaced by the
'marvel of the market'. The notion of 'terrorism'
is also a powerful ideology which is suitably
vague e.g. state versus non-state terrorism and
the ignorance that the United States (US) is
arguably the prime terrorist state in the world
today. The rise of the Internet potentially
challenges the model. However, it still holds for
the operation of the mass media. Also, its impact
and emancipatory potential should not be
overestimated; research has shown that only 6% of
Internet users are accessing alternative sources
with most using existing news outlets. We are
also witnessing an attempt by media conglomerates
to try and control the Internet - manifest in the
current battle over net neutrality for example.
In short, new technology is being re-occupied by
the old guard. The existence of mass protest
movements, which are part of the resistance to
the capitalist system, does not alter the PM. The
model is focused upon the operation of elite
institutions. The PM demonstrates that such
resistance, together with the general population,
is the target of corporate propaganda. We need to
keep these two phenomena - the PM and progressive
social movements - separate in our analysis. The
PM is a model of class warfare [see Jeff Faux
(2006) Global Class Warfare, Wiley]. Faux focused
on the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA) and the fact that the general publics in
North America and Mexico opposed NAFTA, as
reflected in public opinion polls. However, as
the PM predicted, the media uniformly favoured
NAFTA. The book by David Harvey [(2005) A Brief
History of Neo-liberalism, Oxford University
Press] and the PM fit together beautifully. There
is also the book by Thomas Ferguson [(1995)
Golden Rule, University of Chicago Press] in
which he uses the example of the media obsession
with the defence budget when most of the general
public wanted greater spending on education. Once
again, as predicted by the PM, the media focused
on the former at the expense of the latter. The
US media has been a perfect accomplice for US
foreign policy. Media apologetics have recently
reached a new low, with Iran the latest target of
US aggression. We are no longer in an age of
Orwell; we are in the age of Kafka.
John Downing
Is the PM too narrow? Its focus is imperialism on
the part of the US and it is therefore
US-centric. What about the relationship between
domestic and foreign news issues and coverage and
the relationship between news and entertainment?
The PM makes the sweeping assertion that we are
all fact gathers, but is this true? Are people
riveted to the facts? Will the exposure of media
lies bring about political change? The PM stress
on information leads to a split-level analysis.
On the one hand, the five filters are seen as
effective where there is elite consensus. On the
other hand, the rhetorical level of critique,
using denunciation and sarcasm and manifest in
terms such as the 'manufacture of consent',
implies agency on the part of media workers. In
terms of domestic news coverage, does the PM
still apply? Can the PM be modified to
incorporate entertainment media, video games,
etc? Would it survive such a modification?
Robert Hackett
The PM as a model is readily accessible to
students. It presents an empirical and moral
critique of the state of the mainstream media.
However, there are some serious limitations to
the model. It is reductionist in nature and there
are too few variables. There are other factors
which lock the media into a propaganda role, for
example the links between intelligence agencies
and the media. Also, ideology is reduced to that
of propaganda campaigns. The PM treats the
mainstream media in terms of institutions of
capital. However, it does not pay attention to
internal institutional factors, for example the
agency of news journalists. But new production is
not simply a production line as the PM implies.
The PM is also functionalist and disempowering in
terms of the agents of social change.
Furthermore, it takes no account of audience
effects, despite using terms like indoctrination,
etc. Finally, there is the issue of division
amongst the elite and the existence of audience
mobilisation in support of alternatives. A useful
model to complement the PM is the hierarchy model
proposed by Pamela Shoemaker and Stephen Reese
[(1991) Mediating the Message, Guildford
Publications] which provides a device for
conceptualising media operations and effects.
Another useful model, which attends to agency and
structure, is that of field theory, proposed by
Pierre Bourdieu. The PM certainly has political
resonance, but these other models are arguably
more sophisticated and provide for comparative analysis.
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Expanding the Propaganda Model
Colin Sparks
I am a Marxist and an unapologetic reductionist;
this type of analysis has its merits if we are to
try and understand the complex world that we live
in. European media systems are very different to
that in the US and a number of criticisms can be
levelled at the PM from a Marxist perspective.
(a) The notion of the capitalist elite - the PM
treats the elite as if it were a unified bloc,
where divisions are tactical rather than
fundamental. However, there can be major
disagreement within the elite, for example the
campaign by the Mirror newspapers in Britain
against the Iraq war. Of course, the owners of
this media group are capitalist, so how should be
account for this? In addition to the class war
between capital and labour, there are differences
between different fractions of capital, i.e.
capital versus capital as well as capital versus
labour. Evidence of such divisions undermines the
PM. (b) Bourgeois democracy - the debate about
the media as an institution needs to be
contextualised within the reality of what is a
bourgeois democracy. However, some societies are
characterised by a greater range of what is
considered legitimate opinion, when compared to
the US, the country the PM is based upon. (c) The
political economy of the media - what we have is
a media system produced by the elites for the
masses. Therefore, the elites must attend, in
however distorted a way, to the concerns of the
masses if they are to sell their media. (d)
International differences - public sector
broadcasting is widespread in Europe and this
makes for a different media system. The newspaper
market is also more competitive in Europe
compared to the US; political differentiation is
therefore more marked. (e) Competing sources -
there are a more diverse range of sources in
European media systems. Plus, a dependence on
corporate and government sources does not
necessarily imply that the media will
automatically 'follow the line'. (f) The social
position of journalists - they are wage workers,
even if a recent study found that many British
journalists had been schooled in the private sector. Consequently, the news room is also a
site of class conflict. Journalists'
professionalism is a distorted expression of
their desire to be autonomous from the
corporations they work for. Conclusions:
professional autonomy of journalists is an
important factor; journalists can be 'won over'
and should be targeted and supported in the class
war, and there is a crucial difference in media
operation in 'normal times' compared to crisis
periods. This has implications for the role of
the media and its function in crises.
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Alternative Media, Social Change and the Propaganda Model
Oliver Boyd-Barrett
The PM is a well crafted synthesis of the work
produced by media sociologists in the 1960s,
1970s and 1980s, particularly British research.
It drew upon political economy work (Peter
Golding, Graham Murdock), the sociology of
organisations (Jeremy Turnstall) and cultural
studies (Stuart Hall). However, what is missing
from the PM? It does not attend to 'framing',
propaganda per se (the psychology of persuasion),
it falls into the 'science trap' with its
preconditions and it fails to account for agency.
The PM is an example of a 'deficit model', that
is to say, it is underpinned by a belief that the
media should be a watchdog, a fourth estate and a
defender of the public sphere against
concentrated power. It is therefore premised on
the notion that if only the media did these
things, then everything would be okay. However,
is this really what the mass media aspire to,
have ever aspired to? The penetration of the
media by intelligence agencies (planting stories)
surely deserves to be a sixth filter? [See the
research by Richard Keeble (2006) 'Hacks and
spooks', <http://www.medialens.org/>www.medialens.org].
What we need is a model that conceives the media
as a means of social control, which attends to
corporate power, capitalism, the ruling class and the secret government.
David Miller
'I want to talk about manufacturing compliance -
looking at the role that the media play in the
reproduction of capitalist societies. Criticisms
of the PM: (a) It is a model of media performance
not the role of the media in society. (b) The PM
neglects the role of the public relations
industry and organised propaganda. (c) The PM has
nothing to say about public opinion or media
impact. If we expand upon these, the title of the
book in which the PM was outlined i.e.
Manufacturing Consent implies some sort of media
impact. However, the model does not account for
media effects. Critically, however, there is
evidence that propaganda can have an impact upon
public opinion, consider for example the role of
weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the
2003 Iraq war [see PIPA/Knowledge Networks Poll,
'Misperceptions, the Media and the Iraq War at
www.worldpublicopinion.org].
Furthermore, the role of public
relations/propaganda has expanded greatly over
the last 20 years. The industry is not just
concerned about shaping the media agenda and
public opinion. It is also concerned with
communicating with elites, for example the role
of the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg
Group. The industry and their political allies
aim for 'total spectrum dominance'. Consequently,
information provided by the media and propaganda
are blurred and are seen as one and the same
thing. Then there are the issues of hegemony,
power, consent and coercion. Antonio Gramsci's
Prison Notebooks are instructive here. Leadership
by an elite is not just based upon the consent of
the masses, it is also based upon occasional
coercion (the deployment of lies, threats, etc.)
and the media is one arena in which this occurs,
hence the manufacture of compliance.
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Pedagogy and the Propaganda Model: Sut Jhally
In this session each member of the panel (Porter, Thussu, Tulloch, and Sim) was asked to say a few words before a question period emerged.
I teach the PM as a scientific model, a
hypothesis, a model concerned with content and,
just as importantly, with absences i.e. it
provides a structural analysis of the media
system that identifies not just what is there but
what is not there. The PM is easily tested.
Empiricism is very important for progressive-left
forces as the evidence is on our side. The
flexibility of the PM is also a distinct
advantage. It needs to be adapted, however, to
take account of new technologies (such as the
Internet), the end of the Cold War, etc. There is
a new ideological filter: the 'war on terror'.
The PM is useful for teaching undergraduates, for
introducing them to the skills they need to think
analytically and critically. The PM was the basis
for the film, 'The Myth of the Liberal Media'
(see Media Education Foundation to access the
film). The idea of a liberal media is a
deflection device and this is a good starting
point for media and communication students. There
is a section in the film from the 'Manufacturing
Consent' DVD which tests the PM in terms of the
Cambodia versus East Timor coverage. What is
missing from the film, however, is any analysis
of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Why? Looking back,
this is my reluctance to deal with this
controversial topic because of the powerful flak
forces that operate. This phenomena also
permeates the academy, witness Eqbal Ahmad who
paid a high price for keeping the issue of
Palestine alive in the face of a concerted
campaign for pro-Israeli forces in the US, such
as the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee
and the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East
Reporting, and Israel itself. The right-wing is
now targeting universities, for example David
Horowitz and company. Karl Marx differentiated
between the mode of analysis and the mode of
exposition, for example the difference between
his Grundrisse and Capital. Progressive-left
politics requires 9a) scientific analysis and (b)
translation of such analysis for ordinary people.
The division within media and communication
studies, between political economy (i.e. PM) and
cultural approaches (i.e. Stuart Hall) is not a
useful one. Progressive-left forces need to take teaching seriously.
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