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Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media is a 1988 book by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, in which the authors propose that the mass communication media of the U.S. "are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function, by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without overt coercion", by means of the propaganda model of communication.[1] The title derives from the phrase "the manufacture of consent," employed in the book Public Opinion (1922), by Walter Lippmann (1889–1974).[2]
The book was revised 20 years after its first publication to take account of developments such as the fall of the Soviet Union. There has been debate about how the Internet has changed the public’s access to information since 1988.
The Role of Media in Public Consent
[edit]There are two types of management in modern day democracies that contribute to propaganda--- information and public opinion. According to the Propaganda Model, public consent can be created through the framing and fabrication of privately owned media companies; mainly to serve political authorities or influential leaders. The public often misunderstand the Propaganda Model and see the perception of media as biased and unjust. There are various restrictions, political and economical, imposed on to the mass media in liberal societies. Support from independent media outlets is a form of balance to the information engagement to the public. Large profit-based media often are tied to a role of advertisers since their investors expect these companies to frame news in their favor. Independent media outlets on the other hand, are usually free from the influences and constraints; they’re able to offer platforms that are genuine and critical that often address the public’s voice. Minority groups also tend to get more attention from independent media companies, as they offer insights that don’t necessary benefit the mainstream media market.
Examples of Different Media Outlets
[edit]The differences between various forms of media outlet would offer distinctive sides of the stories. In the case of Iraq War, information exposed to the public can be very conflicted with approaches from local, non-profit based media platforms. CNN, a global commercial media outlet, reported the Iraq War as very bloodless and barely mentioned the suffering of the people. This can create indifference towards an international issue as their audiences were manipulated to avoid discomfort. Generally, large media companies like CNN influenced by its investors who require strong ties to the people shape its audience into believing that there are worthy victims and unworthy victims when it comes to a controversial conflicts. Salient issues discussed tend to have a party or a group whose sacrifice is justified. In comparison, a local news company would focus on strengthening the ties between the audience and the subjects. On top of descriptive portrayal of its main topics, shocking images and emphasis on sentiments often are implicated to trigger its audience's emotions.
Propaganda model of communication[edit]
[edit]Main article: Propaganda model
Five filters of editorial bias[edit]
[edit]The propaganda model for the manufacture of public consent describes five editorially distorting filters, which are applied to the reporting of news in mass communications media:
- Size, Ownership, and Profit Orientation: The dominant mass-media outlets are large profit-based operations, and therefore they must cater to the financial interests of the owners such as corporations and controlling investors. The size of a media company is a consequence of the investment capital required for the mass-communications technology required to reach a mass audience of viewers, listeners, and readers.
- The Advertising License to Do Business: Since the majority of the revenue of major media outlets derives from advertising(not from sales or subscriptions), advertisers have acquired a "de facto licensing authority".[4] Media outlets are not commercially viable without the support of advertisers. News media must therefore cater to the political prejudices and economic desires of their advertisers. This has weakened the working class press, for example, and also helps explain the attrition in the number of newspapers.
- Sourcing Mass Media News: Herman and Chomsky argue that “the large bureaucracies of the powerful subsidize the mass media, and gain special access [to the news], by their contribution to reducing the media’s costs of acquiring [...] 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.” Editorial distortion is aggravated by the news media’s dependence upon private and governmental news sources. If a given newspaper, television station, magazine, etc., incurs disfavor from the sources, it is subtly excluded from access to information. Consequently, it loses readers or viewers, and ultimately, advertisers. To minimize such financial danger, news media businesses editorially distort their reporting to favor government and corporate policies in order to stay in business.[5]
- Flak and the Enforcers: "Flak" refers to negative responses to a media statement or program (e.g. letters, complaints, lawsuits, or legislative actions). Flak can be expensive to the media, either due to loss of advertising revenue, or due to the costs of legal defense or defense of the media outlet's public image. Flak can be organized by powerful, private influence groups (e.g. think tanks). The prospect of eliciting flak can be a deterrent to the reporting of certain kinds of facts or opinions.[5]
- Anti-Communism: This was included as a filter in the original 1988 edition of the book, but Chomsky argues that since the end of the Cold War (1945–91) anticommunismwas replaced by the "War on Terror" as the major social control mechanism.[6]
Sources
[edit]Aday, S., Livingston, S. and Hebert, M. (2005) ‘Embedding the Truth: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Objectivity and Television Coverage of Iraq War’, The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 10 (3): pp. 3-21.
DiMaggio, A. (2009) When Media Goes to War: Hegemonic Discourse, Public Opinion, and the Limits of Dissent, New York: Monthly Review.
Herman, E. and Chomsky, N. (1994) Manufacturing Consent, London: Vintage.
Herring, E and Robinson, P. (2003) ‘Too Polemic or Too Critical? Chomsky and the Study of the News Media and US Foreign Policy’, Review of International Studies, 20 (4): pp. 553-568.
Robins, K. and Webster, F. and Pickering, M. (1987) ‘Propaganda, Information and Social Control’, in: Hawthorn, J. (eds) Propaganda, Persuasion and Polemic, London: Edward Arnold, pp. 1-18.
Phillips, P. (2003) Project censored guide to Independent media and activism, Toronto: Hushion House.
Wessler, H. and Adolphsen, M. (2008) ‘Contra-flow from the Arab World? How Arab Television Coverage of the 2003 Iraq War was Used and Framed on Western International News Channels’, Media Culture Society, 30 (4): pp.439-461.