Hey, so we took our sweet time but finally,
here you go, it's part two in this series.
In part one we looked at how Edward Bernays
used public relations to manufacture consent.
This time round we're going to look at why
the mass media either cannot or will not always
bring you the full truth.
What you're about to see is a remarkable and
historic television experiment.
The argument goes like this, there's a certain
'class' within society, who set the agenda,
and if you can convince that class of something,
that agenda flows all the way down to the
rest of society.
Back in the days of Edward Bernays's youth,
intellectuals were targeted with information
or propaganda because those intellectuals
had their own means through which they'd then
disseminate this information.
But in the modern era, it's large media organisations
who now set the agenda. More than 25 years
ago, Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman argued
that all information streaming through the
mass media goes through five filters and if
you look at their arguments today, you can
see that they're still relevant.
The first filter is ownership. Who owns the
mass media outlets which produce the news?
Well in 1983, a study suggested that just
50 corporations controlled just about every
single mass media outlet in the United States.
By 1992, that number had dropped to 14 and
now there are just six.
That's one pretty effective way to control
how information flows, just owning as many
publications as possible.
Paddy Chayevsky has talked about the insidious
nature of what he calls pre-censorship, how
does that work?
Pre-censorship is a practice, I think of most
television writers, I can't speak for all
of them, this is the prior knowledge of the
writer of those areas which are difficult
to try and get through, and so a writer will
shy away from writing those things, which
he knows he's going to have trouble with on
a sponsorial or agency level.
Next up is advertising.
You might look at a media organisation and
think "the product is the news, and the market
is the audience". But according to Chomsky,
this is wrong.
YOU are the product of a news organisation.
The market is large corporations and advertisers.
Newspapers and broadcasters sell YOU to advertisers
and it makes sense that the vision of the
world on offer in those newspapers is beneficial
to the customer - which are the huge corporations.
And it's because of this that a particular
way to interpret the world is created.
And you can see this today with the rise of
lifestyle supplements, the creeping in of
culture, and entertainment sections of newspapers,
because it is those kind of topics which create
audiences which are valuable to advertisers.
So, for example, how valuable is tough and
hard hitting information about tax evasion
to accountancy firms who want to advertise
in your newspaper? How valuable is information
on structural corruption in the banking system
to banks who want to sell you a mortgage?
Number three is access. Nobody can afford
to have reporters everywhere, so everyone
places them where they expect the news to
come from. That's power centres like Westminster,
Washington DC, Wall St, the City of London
and so on. Media organisations rely heavily
on spokespeople from the power centres - whether
they be government or big business - to feed
it news lines and to give them access.
And the theory is that gives those power centres
some influence over what turns up in the news.
There's a constant fear that if you question
the official line too vociferously, you might
offend your sources and you might end up losing
your access.
When Donald Rumsfeld appeared to say this...
It should have been pretty clear just how
patently absurd that diagram and statement
were.
Really, the serious business was convincing
you just how well equipped and organised Osama
bin Laden was.
The result of all this is that alternative
voices are pushed to the periphery. Official
sources and so called experts, are given an
air of legitimacy.
So to go back to Edward Bernays, he once told
David Letterman that he wanted to be referred
to as a doctor because it made what he said
sound more authoritative.
Unofficial sources on the other hand, well,
they're given short shrift. The most famous
example is probably Professor Steven E Jones
trying to raise questions about the official
report into 9/11 on MSNBC.
He'd submitted a clip of World Trade Center
7 collapsing to highlight one of his points
but it was never shown and he was cut off
after just a few minutes.
Fourth comes flak or as Chomsky called it
"negative responses to a media statement"
- now that might be individual letters of
complaint, which can be dealt with pretty
easily - but it might be something altogether
more shadowy.
Something like the Global Climate Coalition
- made up of fossil fuel and automobile companies
such as Exxon, Texaco and Ford. That was set
up by PR company Burson Marsteller to try
and rubbish climate change stories and the
scientists researching them. So they were
using their power and influence to educate
you to their agenda - and yet people still
think that there's a media conspiracy to promote
climate change.
And so an Iron Curtain fell across Europe,
an Iron Curtain dividing the free world from
the slave world.
The fifth and final filter is the need for
an enemy. The media often needs a simple dichotomy
between good and evil. And if you have an
enemy to be scared of you can justify your
actions more easily.
Whether that's the Soviet menace during the
Cold War, anti-capitalist protesters constantly
being called rioters or the current bogeyman,
al-Qaeda...
Having that evil figure, threatening your
good, honest way of life can be used to sell
weapons, to start wars and to prevent you,
the public, from believing their really is
an alternative.
And fear, as you well know, is a very powerful
thing.
Now, if you believe Chomsky's filters then
it's easy to see how information isn't always
as free-flowing as it might appear on the
surface.
In part three we'll look at some of the ways
in which modern politician's have modified
Edward Bernays's public relations techniques
and used it to manipulate the media in order
to make sure that they get their message across
to you.
