Transcript Media ‘Biases’ and ‘Filters’ CMNS 130   A Propaganda Model Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, 1988: NEWS FILTERS:  Size, Concentrated Ownership, owner’s wealth, and profit orientation.

Media ‘Biases’ and
‘Filters’
CMNS 130
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A Propaganda Model
Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, 1988:
NEWS FILTERS:
 Size, Concentrated Ownership, owner’s wealth,
and profit orientation of media organizations.
 Advertising as primary income source of mass
media.
 Reliance of media on information provided by
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Government,
Business and
“Experts”
“Flak” or negative response to ‘discipline’ the
media.
‘Anti-Communism’ as a national religion and
control mechanism
CMNS 130
Size, Ownership, and Profit Orientation
of the Mass Media: The First Filter
 Top tier of media (measured by prestige,
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resources and outreach) consists of
government and news agencies
Government and news agencies define ‘news
agenda’
They supply national and international news
to lower tiers of the media.
Media depend on government for general
policy support.
CMNS 130
Global “Networks”
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Many large media corporations are integrated
into the market through stockholders, directors
and bankers.
Other factors include: Globalization,
convergence, de-regulation and synergy.
These apply to manoeuverings of corporations
as well as the strategies of governments.
Convergence—or erosion of boundaries —
between communication sectors results from
digital technologies and their capacity to transfer
information between formerly segregated areas
in broadcasting, telecommunications and
computers
CMNS 130
Privatization and De-regulation
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Privatization and de-regulation or, more
appropriately, ‘re-regulation’—from regulation in
the public interest to new regulatory regimes
based on economic and entrepreneurial
imperatives—have shifted the focus from public
service mandates and monopoly structures to
commercial forms of production and a more
open economy.
De-regulation of communication industries is the
result of global trade liberalization and new
technologies—satellite, cable and the internet—
which are no longer tied to geographical
boundaries.
CMNS 130
Synergy
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Corporations have created synergy—”the
process of taking a media brand and exploiting it
for all the profit possible” (McChesney, 1998)—
via the vertical (The control over cultural production, distribution and
exhibition ) and horizontal (Ownership and control across a variety of
media and industries ) integration of industries.
Global conglomeration has resulted in the
predominance of a few media mega giants
controlling the world-wide flow of communication
goods such as Time Warner, Disney, News
Corporation, Sony, Viacom, General Electric
(owner of NBC), Dutch Phillips (owner of
Polygram) and Bertelsmann
CMNS 130
Who owns What?
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The combination of hardware and software
enables these companies to cross-promote films
and television programs through tie-ins and
spin-offs, such as home-videos, computer
games, books and toys.
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Website: Who owns what? (Canwest overhead)
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http://www.cjr.org/tools/owners/canwest.asp
CMNS 130
The Advertising License to do
business: The Second Filter
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Before advertising became prominent, the
price of a newspaper had to cover the cost of
doing business.
With the growth of advertising, papers who
attracted ads could be sold below production
costs. This placed papers who lacked
advertising at a disadvantage.
“The advertisers’ choices influence media
prosperity and survival.
As a result, working class papers and a more
radical press are at a disadvantage.
CMNS 130
The Influence of Advertisers
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Large corporate advertisers will rarely support programs
with serious criticisms of corporate activities,
environmental degradation, and interconnections between
military and industry.
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Advertisers will also avoid programs with serious
complexities and disturbing controversies that may
interfere with the ‘buying mood’ of its
readership/audiences.
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This dependence on advertising dollars, therefore,
translates into less critical content being printed or aired,
resulting in articles and programs, which are culturally and
politically more conservative.
CMNS 130
“TABLOID” TV
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Instead of critical documentaries, ‘Discovery’
and ‘National Geographic Television’ programs
feature adventure and travel type shows which
invite viewers to escape into exotic landscapes
and scenarios.
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News programs are becoming increasingly
‘tabloidizised”, in their “relentless search for a
nightly extravaganza of chaos, conflict,
confrontation, and controversy (Fleras, p. 47)
CMNS 130
Sourcing Mass-media News:
The Third Filter
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The mass media are drawn into a symbiotic relationship
with powerful sources of information by economic
necessity and reciprocity of interest.
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Media organizations need a steady, reliable flow of the
‘raw material of news’.
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Media organizations have daily news demands and
imperative news schedules that they must meet.
CMNS 130
Central Nodes for Gathering News
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Economics dictate media organizations to concentrate
their resources where
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significant news occurs on a frequent basis
where important rumors and leaks abound,
and where regular press conferences are held.
Central nodes of such activities include
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The White House, the Pentagon, and the State Department,
in Washington, DC
Parliament Hill in Ottawa, and provincial parliaments.
Courts
City Hall
Police Headquarters (New York City)
Special Events (Film Festivals, Sports event, etc.)
(Gaye Tuchman, 1978; Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, 1988)
CMNS 130
Government Sources
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Government and corporate sources are easily recognizable
They have credibility by their status and prestige.
This helps media’s claim to be “objective” dispensers of the
news.
It is a protection from criticisms of bias and the threat of libel
suits, they need material that can be portrayed as presumptively
accurate.
It is also cost efficient: taking information from sources that may
be presumed credible reduces investigative expenses.
However, materials from sources that need to be checked,
requires costly research.
CMNS 130
Information and Circulation
Government and corporations release information
to the media via:
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Press releases
Public relations efforts
Purchasing newspaper space to get viewpoint across
Professional Organizations (commerce and trade)
use:
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Public Relations and Lobbing activities
Advertising, direct-mail campaigns, distribution of
educational films, booklets, pamphlets, outlays on initiatives
and referendums, political and think tank contributions.
CMNS 130
Government and business
promoters make things ‘easy’
for news organizations
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They provide media organizations with facilities in
which they can gather.
They provide advance copies of speeches and
forthcoming reports.
They schedule press conferences at hours well-geared
to news deadlines.
They write press releases in usable language .
They carefully organize their press conferences and
‘photo opportunities’.
CMNS 130
The Role of “EXPERTS”
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‘Experts’ tend to echo the official point of
view.
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They impart ‘objectivity’ and ‘authority’ to
a news story (Stuart Hall, 1978)
CMNS 130
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“The large bureaucracies of the powerful subsidize the
mass media, and gain special access by their contribution
to reducing the media’s cost of acquiring the raw materials
of, and producing news”.
Non-routine sources must struggle for access, and may be
ignored by the arbitrary decision of the gatekeepers”.
“Critical sources may be avoided not only because of their
lesser availability and higher cost of establishing credibility,
but also because the primary sources may be offended and
may even threaten the media using them”.
From Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky (1988).
Manufactoring Consent
CMNS 130
Flak and the Enforcers:
The Fourth Filter
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“Flak” refers to negative response to a media statement
or program.
It may take the form of
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Letters
Telegrams
Phone calls
Petitions
Lawsuits
Speeches
Bills before Congress (US) or Parliament (Canada)
Other modes of complaint, threat, and punitive action.
CMNS 130
How ‘Flak’ affects the Media
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If flak is produced on a large scale, it can be both
uncomfortable and costly to the media.
Positions have to be defended within the organization
and without, sometimes before legislature and even in
courts.
Advertisers may withdraw patronage.
If certain kinds of fact, position, or program are
thought to elicit flak, this may act to a deterrent to
media organizations.
CMNS 130
How ‘Flak’ is produced
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Flak can be produced indirectly
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by complaining to constituencies (stockholders, employees)
about the media,
by generating institutional advertising that does the same,
or by funding think-tank operations designed to attack the
media.
Corporations also sponsor organizations who keep a
close eye on media, and produce ‘flak’ when media ‘fail’
to portray business in an appropriate light.
CMNS 130
Anticommunism as a Control
Mechanism: The Fifth Filter
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Communism as the ‘ultimate evil’ has always been the
specter haunting property owners, as it threatens the
basis of their class position and superior status.
The Soviet, Chinese, and Cuban revolutions were
traumas to Western elites.
The ideology helps mobilize the populace against an
‘enemy’.
It also fragments the political left and labour
movements.
From Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky (1988). Manufactoring Consent
CMNS 130
The Framing of Issues
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When anti-communist fervour is aroused, the demand
for serious evidence in support of claims of
‘communist’ abuses is suspended.
Defectors, informers move to the center stage as
‘experts’.
Anti-Communist control mechanism exerts strong
influence on mass media.
Issues tend to be framed in terms of a dichotomized
world—the ‘axes of evil’.
CMNS 130
The Five Filters—Summary
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The five filters narrow the range of news that
passes through the ‘gates’.
They limit what can be made into ‘big news’
items.
Messages from and about dissidents and weak,
unorganized groups and individuals, are at a
disadvantage in sourcing costs and credibility.
CMNS 130
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The propaganda approach to media suggests a
systemic and highly political dichotomization in
news coverage based on serviceability to
important power interests.
This can be discerned in dichotomized choices
of story and in the volume of coverage.
CMNS 130
Constructing News Images
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“Seeing is believing”; “The camera never lies”—are
clichés which draw attention to popular beliefs and
apparent faith in observation and visual representation.
However, camera positioning and angle, picture framing
and lighting, image selection, photographic retouching,
digital image manipulation, editorial cropping and final
juxtaposition can all radically change or even invert the
sense of depicted scenes—’the camera can lie”.
‘Time for Peace: Time to Go’! (overhead)
CMNS 130
Signifier (shot)
Definition
Close-up
Face
Media
Most
Long
Full
shot
shot
shot
only
of body
Signified
(meaning)
Intimacy
Personal
and
characters
relationship
Context, scope,
public distance
Full
Social
Setting
body of
person
CMNS 130
relationship
Signifier (film/video)
Pan
down
Pan
Up
Definition
Camera
looks down
Camera looks up
Power,
Authority
Smallness,
Camera
Zoom
Signified (meaning)
moves in
in
Image
Fade
in
Fade
Out
Cut
Wipe
appears on
blank screen
Image screen goes
blank
Switch from one
image to another
Image wiped off
screen
weakness
Observation, focus
Beginning
CMNS 130
Ending
Simultaneity,
exitement
Imposed conclusion.
Chavez: Inside the Coup
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Filmed & Directed By
Kim Bartley & Donnacha O Briain
Edited By
Angel Hernandez Zoido
Produced in Association with The
Irish Film Board
NPS & COBO, RTE, BBC, ZDF/ARTE, YLE
CMNS 130