In Manufacturing
Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (Pantheon, 1988) Noam
Chomsky and I put forward a "propaganda model" as a framework for analyzing
and understanding how the mainstream U.S. media work and why they perform
as they do. We had long been impressed with the regularity with which
the media operate within restricted assumptions, depend heavily and uncritically
on elite information sources, and participate in propaganda campaigns
helpful to elite interests. In trying to explain why they do this we looked
for structural factors as the only possible root of systematic behavior
and performance patterns.
The propaganda
model was and is in distinct contrast to the prevailing mainstream explanations
-- both liberal and conservative -- of media behavior and performance.
These approaches downplay structural factors, generally presupposing their
unimportance or positive impact because of the multiplicity of agents
and thus competition and diversity.
Liberal and conservative analysts emphasize journalistic conduct, public
opinion, and news source initiatives as the main determining variables.
The analysts are inconsistent in this regard, however. When they discuss
media systems in communist or other authoritarian states, the idea that
journalists or public opinion can override the power of those who own
and control the media is dismissed as nonsense and even considered an
apology for tyranny.
There is a distinct difference, too, between the political implications
of the propaganda model and mainstream scholarship. If structural factors
shape the broad contours of media performance, and if that performance
is incompatible with a truly democratic political culture, then a basic
change in media ownership, organization, and purpose is necessary for
the achievement of genuine democracy.
In mainstream analyses such a perspective is politically unacceptable,
and its supportive arguments and evidence are rarely subject to debate.
In this article I will describe the propaganda model, address some of
the criticism that has been leveled against it, and discuss how the model
holds up nearly a decade after its publication. I will also provide some
examples of how the propaganda model can help explain the nature of media
coverage of important political topics in the 1990s.
The
Propaganda Model
What is
the propaganda model and how does it work?
The crucial structural factors derive from the fact that the dominant
media are firmly imbedded in the market system. They are profit-seeking
businesses, owned by very wealthy people (or other companies); they are
funded largely by advertisers who are also profit-seeking entities, and
who want their ads to appear in a supportive selling environment. The
media are also dependent on government and major business firms as information
sources, and both efficiency and political considerations, and frequently
overlapping interests, cause a certain degree of solidarity to prevail
among the government, major media, and other corporate businesses.
Government and large non-media business firms are also best positioned
(and sufficiently wealthy) to be able to pressure the media with threats
of withdrawal of advertising or TV licenses, libel suits, and other direct
and indirect modes of attack. The media are also constrained by the dominant
ideology, which heavily featured anticommunism before and during the Cold
War era, and was mobilized often to prevent the media from criticizing
attacks on small states labelled communist.
These factors are linked together, reflecting the multi-leveled capability
of powerful business and government entities and collectives (e.g., the
Business Roundtable; U.S. Chamber of Commerce; industry lobbies and front
groups) to exert power over the flow of information.
We noted that the five factors involved -- ownership, advertising, sourcing,
flak, and anticommunist ideology -- work as "filters" through which information
must pass, and that individually and often in additive fashion they help
shape media choices. We stressed that the filters work mainly by the independent
action of many individuals and organizations; these frequently, but not
always, share a common view of issues and similar interests.
In short, the propaganda model describes a decentralized and non-conspiratorial
market system of control and processing, although at times the government
or one or more private actors may take initiatives and mobilize coordinated
elite handling of an issue. Propaganda campaigns can occur only when consistent
with the interests of those controlling and managing the filters.
For example, these managers all accepted the view that the Polish government's
crackdown on the Solidarity union in 1980-81 was extremely newsworthy
and deserved severe condemnation; whereas the same interests did not find
the Turkish military government's equally brutal crackdown on trade unions
in Turkey at about the same time to be newsworthy or reprehensible. In
the latter case the U.S. government and business community liked the military
government's anticommunist stance and open door economic policy; and the
crackdown on Turkish unions had the merit of weakening the Left and keeping
wages down.
In the Polish case, propaganda points could be scored against a Soviet-supported
government, and concern could be expressed for workers whose wages were
not paid by Free World employers! The fit of this dichotomization to corporate
interests and anticommunist ideology is obvious.
We used the concepts of "worthy" and "unworthy" victims to describe this
dichotomization, with a trace of irony, as the differential treatment
was clearly related to political and economic advantage rather than anything
like actual worth. In fact, the Polish trade unionists quickly ceased
to be worthy when communism was overthrown and the workers were struggling
against a western-oriented neoliberal regime. The travails of Polish workers
now, like those of Turkish workers, do not pass through the propaganda
model filters. They are both unworthy victims at this point. We never
claimed that the propaganda model explains everything or that it shows
media omnipotence and complete effectiveness in manufacturing consent.
It is a model of media behavior and performance, not media effects.
We explicitly pointed to alternative media, grass roots information sources,
and public skepticism about media veracity as important limits on media
effectiveness in propaganda service, and we urged the support and more
effective use of these alternatives. We have frequently pointed to the
general public's disagreement with the media and elite over the morality
of the Vietnam War and the desirability of the assault on Nicaragua in
the 1980s (among other matters).
The power of the U.S. propaganda system lies in its ability to mobilize
an elite consensus, to give the appearance of democratic consent, and
to create enough confusion, misunderstanding, and apathy in the general
population to allow elite programs to go forward. We also emphasized the
fact that there are often differences within the elite that open up space
for some debate and even occasional (but very rare) attacks on the intent,
as well as the tactical means of achieving elite ends.
Although the propaganda model was generally well received on the Left,
some complained of an allegedly pessimistic thrust and implication of
hopeless odds to be overcome. A closely related objection was its inapplicability
to local conflicts where the possibility of effective resistance was greater.
But the propaganda model does not suggest that local and even larger victories
are impossible, especially where the elites are divided or have limited
interest in an issue.
For example, coverage of issues like gun control, school prayer, and abortion
rights may well receive more varied treatment than, say, global trade,
taxation, and economic policy.
Moreover, well organized campaigns by labor, human rights, or environmental
organizations fighting against abusive local businesses can sometimes
elicit positive media coverage. In fact, we would like to think that the
propaganda model even suggests where and how activists can best deploy
their efforts to influence mainstream media coverage of issues.
The model does suggest that the mainstream media, as elite institutions,
commonly frame news and allow debate only within the parameters of elite
interests; and that where the elite is really concerned and unified, and/or
where ordinary citizens are not aware of their own stake in an issue or
are immobilized by effective propaganda, the media will serve elite interests
uncompromisingly.
Mainstream
Liberal and Academic "Left" Critiques
Many liberals
and a number of academic media analysts of the left did not like the propaganda
model. Some of them found repugnant a wholesale condemnation of a system
in which they played a respected role; for them it is a basically sound
system, its inequalities of access regrettable but tolerable, its pluralism
and competition effectively responding to consumer demands.
In the postmodernist mode, global analyses and global solutions are rejected
and derided; individual struggles and small victories are stressed, even
by nominally leftist thinkers. Many of the critiques displayed barely-concealed
anger; and in most the propaganda model was dismissed with a few superficial
cliches (conspiratorial, simplistic, etc.) without minimal presentation
of the model or subjecting it to the test of evidence.
Let me discuss briefly some of the main criticisms.
-Conspiracy
theory.
We explained in Manufacturing Consent that critical analyses like ours
would inevitably elicit cries of conspiracy theory, and in a futile effort
to prevent this we devoted several pages of the Preface to showing that
the propaganda model is best described as a "guided market system," and
explicitly rejecting conspiracy.
Mainstream critics still could not abandon the charge, partly because
they knew that falsely accusing a radical critique of conspiracy theory
would not cost them anything and partly because of their superficial assumption
that since the media comprise thousands of "independent" journalists and
companies any finding that they follow a "party line" serving the state
must rest on an assumed conspiracy. (In fact it can result from a widespread
gullible acceptance of official handouts, common internalized beliefs,
fear of reprisal for critical analysis, etc.).
The propaganda model explains media behavior and performance in structural
terms, and intent is an unmeasurable red herring. All we know is that
the media and journalists mislead in tandem -- some no doubt internalize
a propaganda line as true, some may know it is false, but the point is
unknowable and irrelevant.
-Failure
to take account of media professionalism and objectivity.
Communications professor Dan Hallin argued that we failed to take account
of the maturing of journalist professionalism, which he claimed to be
"central to understanding how the media operate." (Keeping America On
Top of the World, 13)
Hallin also stated that in protecting and rehabilitating the public sphere
"professionalism is surely part of the answer."(4) But professionalism
and objectivity rules are fuzzy, flexible, and superficial manifestations
of deeper power and control relationships.
Professionalism arose in journalism in the years when the newspaper business
was becoming less competitive and more dependent on advertising. Professionalism
was not an antagonistic movement by the workers against the press owners,
but was actively encouraged by many of the latter. It gave a badge of
legitimacy to journalism, ostensibly assuring readers that the news would
not be influenced by the biases of owners, advertisers, or the journalists
themselves. In certain circumstances it has provided a degree of autonomy,
but professionalism has also internalized some of the commercial values
that media owners hold most dear, like relying on inexpensive official
sources as the credible news source.
As Ben Bagdikian has noted, professionalism has made journalists oblivious
to the compromises with authority they are constantly making. Even Hallin
acknowledges that professional journalism can allow something close to
complete government control via sourcing domination. While Hallin claimed
that the propaganda model cannot explain the case of media coverage of
the Central American wars of the 1980s, where there was considerable domestic
hostility to the Reagan policies, in fact the propaganda model works extremely
well there, whereas Hallin's focus on "professionalism" fails abysmally.
Hallin acknowledged that "the administration was able more often than
not to prevail in the battle to determine the dominant frame of television
coverage," (64) "the broad patterns in the framing of the story can be
accounted for almost entirely by the evolution of policy and elite debate
in Washington," (74) and "coherent statements of alternative visions of
the world order and U.S. policy rarely appeared in the news."(77) This
is exactly what the propaganda model would forecast.
And if, as Hallin contended, a majority of the public opposed the elite
view, what kind of "professionalism" allows a virtually complete suppression
of the issues as the majority perceives them?
Hallin mentions a "nascent alternative perspective" in reporting on El
Salvador -- a "human rights" framework -- that "never caught hold." The
propaganda model can explain why it never took hold; Hallin does not.
With 700 journalists present at the Salvadoran election of 1982, allegedly
"often skeptical" of election integrity, (72) why did it yield a "public
relations victory" for the administration and a major falsification of
reality (as described in Manufacturing Consent)? Hallin did not explain
this. He never mentioned the Office of Public Diplomacy or the firing
of reporter Raymond Bonner and the work of the flak machines. He never
explained the failure of the media to report even a tiny fraction of the
crimes of the contras in Nicaragua and the death machines of El Salvador
and Guatemala, in contrast with their inflation of Sandinista misdeeds
and double standard in reporting on the Nicaraguan election of 1984.
Given the elite divisions and public hostility to the Reagan policy, media
subservience was phenomenal and arguably exceeded that which the propaganda
model might have anticipated.
-Failure
to explain continued opposition and resistance.
Both Hallin and historian Walter LaFeber (in a review in the New York
Times) pointed to the continued opposition to Reagan's Central America
policy as somehow incompatible with the model. These critics failed to
comprehend that the propaganda model is about how the media work, not
how effective they are.
By the logic of this form of criticism, as many Soviet citizens did not
swallow the lines put forward by Pravda, this demonstrates that Pravda
was not serving a state propaganda function.
-Propaganda
model too mechanical, functionalist, ignores existence of space, contestation,
and interaction.
This set of criticisms is at the heart of the negative reactions of the
serious left-of-center media analysts such as Philip Schlesinger, James
Curran, Peter Golding, Graham Murdoch, and John Eldridge, as well as of
Dan Hallin. Of these critics, only Schlesinger both summarizes the elements
of our model and discusses our evidence. He acknowledges that the case
studies make telling points, but in the end he finds ours "a highly deterministic
vision of how the media operate coupled with a straightforward functionalist
conception of ideology" (Media, Culture and Society, 1989).
Specifically, we failed to explain the weights to be given our five filters;
we did not allow for external influences, nor did we offer a "thoroughgoing
analysis of the ways in which economic dynamics operate to structure both
the range and form of press presentations" (quoting Graham Murdoch); and
while putting forward "a powerful effects model" we admit that the system
is not all-powerful, which calls into question our determinism.
The criticism of the propaganda model for being deterministic ignores
several important considerations.
Any model involves deterministic elements, so that this is a straw person
unless the critics also show that the system is not logically consistent,
operates on false premises, or that the predictive power of the determining
variables is poor. The critics often acknowledge that the case studies
we present are powerful, but they do not show where the alleged determinism
leads to error nor do they offer or point to alternative models that would
do a better job.
The
propaganda model is dealing with extraordinarily complex sets of events,
and only claims to offer a broad framework of analysis that requires modification
depending on many local and special factors, and may be entirely inapplicable
in some cases. But if it offers insight in numerous important cases that
have large effects and cumulative ideological force, it is defensible
unless a better model is provided. Usually the critics wisely stick to
generalities and offer no critical detail or alternative model; when they
do provide alternatives, the results are not impressive.
-The criticism
of the propaganda model for functionalism is also dubious and the critics
sometimes seem to call for more functionalism. The model does describe
a system in which the media serve the elite, but by complex processes
incorporated into the model as means whereby the powerful protect their
interests naturally and without overt conspiracy. This would seem one
of the propaganda model's merits; it shows a dynamic and self-protecting
system in operation. The same corporate community that influences the
media through its power as owner, dominant funder (advertising), and a
major news source also underwrites Accuracy in Media and the American
Enterprise Institute to influence the media through harassment and the
provision of "sound" experts.
Critics of propaganda model functionalism like Eldridge and Schlesinger
contradictorily point to the merit of analyses that focus on "how sources
organize media strategies" to achieve their ends. Apparently it is admirable
to analyze micro corporate strategies to influence the media, but to focus
on global corporate efforts to influence the media -- along with the complementary
effects of thousands of local strategies -- is illegitimate functionalism!
It is also untrue that the propaganda model implies no constraints on
media owners/managers. We spell out the conditions affecting when the
media will be relatively open or closed -- mainly disagreements among
the elite and the extent to which other groups in society are interested
in, informed about, and organized to fight about issues. But the propaganda
model does start from the premise that a critical political economy will
put front and center the analysis of the locus of media control and the
mechanisms by which the powerful are able to dominate the flow of messages
and limit the space of contesting parties. The limits on their power are
certainly important, but why should they get first place, except as a
means of minimizing the power of the dominant interests, inflating the
elements of contestation, and pretending that the marginalized have more
strength than they really possess?
Enhanced
Relevance of the Propaganda Model
The dramatic
changes in the economy, communications industries, and politics over the
past decade have tended to enhance the applicability of the propaganda
model.
The first two filters -- ownership and advertising -- have become ever
more important. The decline of public broadcasting, the increase in corporate
power and global reach, and the mergers and centralization of the media,
have made bottom line considerations more controlling. The competition
for serving advertisers has become more intense. Newsrooms have been more
thoroughly incorporated into transnational corporate empires, with shrunken
resources and even less management enthusiasm for investigative journalism
that would challenge the structure of power. In short, the professional
autonomy of journalists has been reduced.
Some argue that the Internet and the new communication technologies are
breaking the corporate stranglehold on journalism and opening an unprecedented
era of interactive democratic media. There is no evidence to support this
view as regards journalism and mass communication. In fact, one could
argue that the new technologies are exacerbating the problem. They permit
media firms to shrink staff while achieving greater outputs and they make
possible global distribution systems, thus reducing the number of media
entities. Although the new technologies have great potential for democratic
communication, left to the market there is little reason to expect the
Internet to serve democratic ends.
The third and fourth filters -- sourcing and flak -- have also strengthened
as mechanisms of elite influence. A reduction in the resources devoted
to journalism means that those who subsidize the media by providing sources
for copy gain greater leverage. Moreover, work by people like Alex Carey,
John Stauber, and Sheldon Rampton has helped us see how the public relations
industry has been able to manipulate press coverage of issues on behalf
of corporate America. The PR industry understands how to use journalistic
conventions to serve its own ends. Studies of news sources reveal that
a significant proportion of news originates in the PR industry. There
are, by one conservative count, 20,000 more PR agents working to doctor
the news today than there are journalists writing it.
The fifth filter -- anticommunist ideology -- is possibly weakened by
the collapse of the Soviet Union and global socialism, but this is easily
offset by the greater ideological force of the belief in the "miracle
of the market." (Reagan) There is now an almost religious faith in the
market, at least among the elite, so that regardless of evidence, markets
are assumed benevolent and non-market mechanisms are suspect. When the
Soviet economy stagnated in the 1980s, it was attributed to the absence
of markets; when capitalist Russia disintegrated in the 1990s it was because
politicians and workers were not letting markets work their magic. Journalism
has internalized this ideology.
Adding it to the fifth filter, in a world where the global power of market
institutions makes anything other than market options seem utopian, gives
us an ideological package of immense strength.
Further
Applications
The propaganda
model applies exceedingly well to the media's treatment of the passage
of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the subsequent
Mexican crisis and meltdown of 1994-95. Once again there was a sharp split
between the preferences of ordinary citizens and the elite and business
community, with polls consistently showing substantial majorities opposed
to NAFTA -- and to the bailout of investors in Mexican securities -- but
the elite in favor. Media news coverage, selection of "experts," and opinion
columns were skewed accordingly; their judgment was that the benefits
of NAFTA were obvious, agreed to by all qualified authorities, and that
only demagogues and "special interests" were opposed.
Meg Greenfield, Washington Post Op Ed editor explained the huge imbalance
in her opinion column: "On the rare occasion when columnists of the left,
right, and middle are all in agreement ... I don't believe it is right
to create an artificial balance where none exists." But with a majority
of the public opposing NAFTA, the pro-NAFTA unity among the pundits simply
highlighted the huge elite bias of mainstream punditry.
It may be worth noting that the transnational media corporations have
a distinct self-interest in global trade agreements, as they are among
their foremost beneficiaries. The pro-corporate and anti-labor bias of
the mainstream media was also evident in the editorial denunciations (both
in the New York Times and Washington Post) of labor's attempt to influence
votes on NAFTA, with no comparable criticism of corporate or governmental
(U.S. and Mexican) lobbying and PR. After having touted the puny labor
and environmental protective side-agreements belatedly added to NAFTA
as admirable, the media then failed to follow up on their enforcement
and, in fact, when labor tried to use their provisions to prevent attacks
on union organization in Mexico, the press ignored the case or derided
it as labor "aggression."
With the Mexican meltdown beginning in December 1994, the media were clear
that NAFTA was not to blame, and in virtual lock-step they supported the
Mexican (investor) bailout, despite poll reports of massive general public
opposition. Experts and media repeatedly explained that the merit of NAFTA
was that it had "locked Mexico in" so that it could not resort to controls
to protect itself from severe deflation. They were oblivious to the profoundly
undemocratic nature of this lock-in.
As is suggested by the treatment of NAFTA and labor's right to participate
in its debates, the propaganda model applies to domestic as well as foreign
issues. Labor has been under siege in the United States for the past fifteen
years, but you would hardly know this from the mainstream media. The decertification
of unions, use of replacement workers, and long and debilitating strikes
like that involving Caterpillar were treated in a very low key, and in
a notable illustration of the applicability of the propaganda model, the
long Pittston miners strike was accorded much less attention than the
strike of miners in the Soviet Union.
For years the media found the evidence that the majority of ordinary citizens
were doing badly in the New Economic Order to be of marginal interest;
they "discovered" this issue only under the impetus of Pat Buchanan's
rightwing populist outcries. The coverage of the "drug wars" is well explained
by the propaganda model.
In the health insurance controversy of 1992-93, the media's refusal to
take the single-payer option seriously, despite apparent widespread public
support and the effectiveness of the system in Canada, served well the
interests of the insurance and medical service complex. The uncritical
media reporting and commentary on the alleged urgency of fiscal restraint
and a balanced budget in the years 1992-96 fit well the business community's
desire to reduce the social budget and weaken regulation, culminating
in the Contract With America.
The applicability of the propaganda model in these and other cases seems
clear.
Final
note
In retrospect,
perhaps we should have made it clearer that the propaganda model was about
media behavior and performance, with uncertain and variable effects. Maybe
we should have spelled out in more detail the contesting forces both within
and outside the media and the conditions under which these are likely
to be influential. But we clearly made these points, and it is quite possible
that nothing we could have done would have prevented our being labelled
conspiracy theorists, rigid determinists, and deniers of the possibility
that people can resist (even as we called for resistance).
The propaganda model still seems a very workable framework for analyzing
and understanding the mainstream media -- perhaps even more so than in
1988. As noted earlier in reference to Central America, it often surpasses
expectations of media subservience to government propaganda. And we are
still waiting for our critics to provide a better model.
Edward
S. Herman is Professor Emeritus at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
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