CATEGORY: #PropagandaFilters
#PROPAGANDAFILTERS CONTENTS:
The next tier down in the hashtag stack, required for the successful forensic analysis of communications, and thus the next step down in the Protocol after we have attempted to judge any potential genetic, unconscious and biological determinants that may be inherent in a communication, and the way they affect our learning is to determine the entities, hidden facts,agendas,lesser known affiliations behind media sources, tech companies, agencies, NGOs that create front organisations, media events, propaganda, celebrities, editorial bias and advertising.
“Since 1990, a wave of massive deals and rapid globalization have left the media industries further centralized in nine transnational conglomerates-Disney, AOL Time Warner, Viacom (owner of CBS), News Corporation, Bertelsmann, General Electric (owner of NBC), Sony, AT&T-Liberty Media, and Vivendi Universal. These giants own all the world’s major film studios, TV networks, and music companies, and a sizable fraction of the most important cable channels, cable systems, magazines, major-market TV stations, and book publishers. The largest, the recently merged AOL Time Warner, has integrated the leading Internet portal into the traditional media system. Another fifteen firms round out the system, meaning that two dozen firms control nearly the entirety of media experienced by most U.S. citizens. [this has consolidated further since publication of this book and the formulation of #PropagandaWatchdog years later] Bagdikian concludes that “it is the overwhelming collective power of these firms, with their corporate interlocks and unified cultural and political values, that raises troubling questions about the individual’s role in the American democracy. ” Of the nine giants that now dominate the media universe, all but General Electric have extensively conglomerated within the media, and are important in both producing content and distributing it. Four of them- Disney, AOL Time Warner, Viacom, and News Corporation-produce movies, books, magazines, newspapers, TV programs, music, videos, toys, and theme parks, among other things; and they have extensive distribution facilities via broadcasting and cable ownership, retail stores, and movie-theater chains. They also provide news and occasional investigative reports and documentaries that address political issues, but the leaders of these pop-cultural behemoths are mainly interested in entertainment, which produces large audiences[…] that also make possible the cross-selling “synergies” that are a focal point of their attention and resources. […]
As noted by media analyst W. Lance Bennett,”The public is exposed to powerful persuasive messages from above and is unable to communicate meaningfully through the media in response to these messages. Leaders have usurped enormous amounts of political power and reduced popular control over the political system by using the media to generate support, compliance, and just plain confusion among the public.”
More significantly for our particular concerns here, the media typically provide their own independent contribution even without being “used,” in the manner and for the reasons that we have discussed.
Another media analyst, Ben Bagdikian, observes that the institutional bias of the private mass media “does not merely protect the corporate system. It robs the public of a chance to understand the real world.”
That conclusion is well supported by the evidence we have reviewed.”
Hermann & Chomsky, ‘Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy Of The Mass Media 1988‘
So the next tier down in the hashtag stack, required for the successful analysis of communications, and thus propaganda, indoctrination and coercion, is the way the Propaganda Filters identified by Hermann and Chomsky work and for whom.
They work in the media as manifest by the above and below methods, much of which will require research fact checking and attribution into both current and historical allegiances so communications can then be identified alongside the hashtags and then itemised into propaganda types through research or insider knowledge or through whistleblowers into potential sources Propaganda Filters as identified by Chomsky and Edward Herman in their book ‘Manufacturing Consent’.
“[T]he media serve the ends of a dominant elite. It is much more difficult to see a propaganda system at work where the media are private and formal censorship is absent. This is especially true where the media actively compete, periodically attack and expose corporate and governmental malfeasance, and aggressively portray themselves as spokesmen for free speech and the general community interest. What is not evident (and remains undiscussed in the media) is the limited nature of such critiques, as well as the huge inequality in command of resources, and its effect both on access to a private media system and on its behavior and performance.
A propaganda model focuses on this inequality of wealth and power and its multilevel effects on mass-media interests and choices. It traces the routes by which money and power are able to filter out the news fit to print, marginalize dissent, and allow the government and dominant private interests to get their messages across to the public. The essential ingredients of our propaganda model, or set of news “filters,” fall under the following headings: (l) the size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth, and profit orientation of the dominant mass-media firms…”
Hermann & Chomsky, ‘Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy Of The Mass Media 1988‘
#Ownership
…thus this hashtag can be modified, with research linking to a url, in order to indicate which party or parties of:
“the size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth, and profit orientation of the dominant mass-media firms”
Hermann & Chomsky, ‘Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy Of The Mass Media 1988‘
…this explains that large media conglomerates are owned by large corporations, who are in-turn influenced or impacted by the policies and legislature of special interests, at the moment that is globalisation. So, these media organizations will likely not be critical of policies that are aligned with their interests. This is the ownership’s influence behind the communication or editorial bias in question, overtly or covertly, and ‘Qui Bono’, who benefits.
#Advertising
“…advertising as the primary income source of the mass media…”
Hermann & Chomsky, ‘Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy Of The Mass Media 1988‘
Thus advertisers hold great power over what can/cannot be said, making the entire editorial in fact very often into an advertorial, thus this hashtag can be modified, with research linking to a url in question, in order to indicate which party or parties may be involved.
#Sourcing
“the reliance of the media on information provided by government, business, and “experts” funded and approved by these primary sources and agents of power[…]
The mass media are drawn into a symbiotic relationship with powerful sources of information by economic necessity and reciprocity of interest. The media need a steady, reliable flow of the raw material of news.
They have daily news demands and imperative news schedules that they must meet. They cannot afford to have reporters and cameras at all places where important stories may break. Economics dictates that they concentrate their resources where significant news often occurs, where important rumors and leaks abound, and where regular press conferences are held. The White House, the Pentagon, and the State Department, in Washington, D.C., are central nodes of such news activity. On a local basis, city hall and the police department are the subject of regular news “beats” for reporters. Business corporations and trade groups are also regular and credible purveyors of stories deemed newsworthy. These bureaucracies turn out a large volume of material that meets the demands of news organizations for reliable, scheduled flows. Mark Fishman calls this “the principle of bureaucratic affinity:
“only other bureaucracies can satisfy the input needs of a news bureaucracy.”
Government and corporate sources also have the great merit of being recognizable and credible by their status and prestige. This is important to the mass media. As Fishman notes, Newsworkers are predisposed to treat bureaucratic accounts as factual because news personnel participate in upholding a normative order of authorized knowers in the society. Reporters operate with the attitude that officials ought to know what it is their job to know. In particular, a newsworker will recognize an official’s claim to knowledge not merely as a claim, but as a credible, competent piece of knowledge. This amounts to a moral division of labor: officials have and give the facts; reporters merely get them.”
Another reason for the heavy weight given to official sources is that the mass media claim to be “Objective” dispensers of the news. Partly to maintain the image of objectivity, but also to protect themselves from criticisms of bias and the threat of libel suits, they need material that can be portrayed as presumptively accurate. This is also partly a matter of cost: taking information from sources that may be presumed credible reduces investigative expense, whereas material from sources that are not prima facie credible, or that will elicit criticism and threats, requires careful checking and costly research.”
Hermann & Chomsky, ‘Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy Of The Mass Media 1988‘
Thus ‘the powers that be’, now less national governments than the unelected globalist powers behind them, hold great power over what can/cannot be said, thus this hashtag can be modified, with research linking to a url in question, in order to indicate which party or parties may be involved.
#Flak
“flak” as a means of disciplining the media[…] “Flak” refers to negative responses to a media statement or program.
It may take the form of letters, telegrams, phone calls, petitions, lawsuits, speeches and bills before Congress, and other modes of complaint, threat, and punitive action. It may be organized centrally or locally, or it may consist of the entirely independent actions of individuals.
If flak is produced on a large scale, or by individuals or groups with substantial resources, it can be both uncomfortable and costly to the media. Positions have to be defended within the organization and without, sometimes before legislatures and possibly even in courts. Advertisers may withdraw patronage. Television advertising is mainly of consumer goods that are readily subject to organized boycott. During the McCarthy years, many advertisers and radio and television stations were effectively coerced into quiescence and blacklisting of employees by the threats of determined Red hunters to boycott products. Advertisers are still concerned to avoid offending constituencies that might produce flak, and their demand for suitable programming is a continuing feature of the media environment. If certain kinds of fact, position, or program are thought likely to elicit flak, this prospect can be a deterrent.
The ability to produce flak, and especially flak that is costly and threatening, is related to power. Serious fiat has increased in close parallel with business’s growing resentment of media criticism and the corporate offensive of the 1970S and 1980s. Flak from the powerful can be either direct or indirect. The direct would include letters or phone calls from the White House to Dan Rather or William Paley, or from the FCC to the television networks asking for documents used in putting together a program, or from irate officials of ad agencies or corporate sponsors to media officials asking for reply time or threatening retaliation.’ The powerful can also work on the media indirectly by complaining to their own constituencies (stockholders, employees) about the media, by generating institutional advertising that does the same, and by funding right-wing monitoring or think-tank operations designed to attack the media. They may also fund political campaigns and help put into power conservative politicians who will more directly serve the interests of private power in curbing any deviationism in the media. “flak” as a means of disciplining the media[…] flak.”
Hermann & Chomsky, ‘Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy Of The Mass Media 1988‘
Thus #flak comes less from traditional sources than the unelected globalist powers behind them, and their astroturfed legions of pseudo-liberal #frontcompanies such as Media Matters and Planned Parenthood, and who collectively hold great power over what can/cannot be said, thus this hashtag can be modified, with research linking to a url in question, in order to indicate which party or parties may be involved.
#Ideology
(originally anti-communism)
“anticommunism” as a national religion and control mechanism.”
Hermann & Chomsky, ‘Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy Of The Mass Media 1988‘
…but which now after the collapse of Soviet Russia stands for a propagandised fear of the ‘other’ for political gain.
“A final filter is the ideology of anticommunism. Communism as the ultimate evil has always been the specter haunting property owners, as it threatens the very root of their class position and superior status. The Soviet, Chinese, and Cuban revolutions were traumas to Western elites,
Hermann & Chomsky, ‘Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy Of The Mass Media 1988‘
and the ongoing conflicts and the well-publicized abuses of Communist states have contributed to elevating opposition to communism to a first principle of Western ideology and politics.”
However since the book was written in 1988, the Soviet Union has broken down and Socialist ideology embraced by agents of the Deep State, however we find the same largely irrational #Bogeyman propaganda is applied to different actors, such as anyone standing against globalism, open borders, for common-sense traditional-values or for nationalism, or for anyone advocating the protection of free speech.
This is often projected against the non-soviet Russians, or Trump supporters who are labelled alt-right, far-right etc.
“…ideology helps mobilize the populace against an enemy, and because the concept is fuzzy it can be used against anybody advocating policies that threaten property interests …It therefore helps fragment [opposition…] and serves as a political-control mechanism. If the triumph of [the #Bogeyman] is the worst imaginable result, the support of fascism abroad is justified as a lesser evil. Opposition […] who are too soft […] and “play into their hands” is rationalized in similar terms.
Hermann & Chomsky, ‘Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy Of The Mass Media 1988‘