5 Reasons to Care
• Plausible Model of US Press Performance
• If it is a true account, the implications are
serious.
– Mass Media
– Power in US more generally
• May apply to capitalist media in general
• Still influential outside of the mainstream
• Renewed interest within Communication
Studies
Recent Applications of PM
• Toronto Globe and Mail on East Timor in
1970s
• Recent reporting on Venezuela and
Colombia
– Term limits
– Shutting down opposition tv stations
Conceptions of Power
• Pluralist Theory vs. Ruling Class Theory
• PM  Ruling Class Theory
Two Phenomena
– Chomsky's extraordinary influence
– Chomsky’s extraordinary lack of influence.
German Ideology
• The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch
the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling
material force of society, is at the same time its
ruling intellectual force. The class which has the
means of material production at its disposal, has
control at the same time over the means of
mental production, so that thereby, generally
speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means
of mental production are subject to it.
MIT Promotional Notice
• 1980 and 1992
– Chomsky the most cited living person
– The top ten cited sources during the period
were: Marx, Lenin, Shakespeare, Aristotle, the
Bible, Plato, Freud, Chomsky, Hegel and
Cicero.
Two Contradictory Expectations
•
Given Chomsky’s fame:
–
•
PM will be addressed in the elite mass media
Given predictions of PM:
–
PM will be ignored in the elite mass media.
NYT Book Review
• Walter LaFeber
– “compelling indictments”
– “unfortunate overstatements”
– General pattern:
• accept the evidence
• deny the conclusions.
– LaFeber: Historian of US Foreign Policy at
outer edge of Sphere of Legitimate
Controversy.
Journal of Communication Inquiry
1992
• “. . . media researchers have consistently
ignored the propaganda model just as the
model itself predicts”
American Journalism Review
1993
•
Charge: Selective Use of Evidence
– No evidence given.
•
Charge: Overstate their case
– No evidence given.
•
•
"Critics may say the Herman-Chomsky
thesis is wrong-headed, but it is not
trivial”
"The outrageous conclusion of this semischolarly work is that . . . "
Bennett: When the Press Fails
• PM: press as ‘little more than a
propaganda outlet for the state’.
• “Our view is a bit more complicated . . .”
• When “diverse faction publicly debate
policies . . . news gates open to more
diverse viewpoints.”
• Bennett: Indexing
Hallin: We Keep America On Top
of the World
• PM as ‘hegemony theory’
• “worth elaborating a little here on my
disagreements with their view”
• “plenty of evidence” for impact of filters.
• But PM is ‘perfectly unidimensional’
• Treats journalistic professionalism as ‘false
consciousness’
Hallin (cont)
• PM is functionalist: media reproduce
“dominant conceptions of the political
world”
• PM does not notice that the media serve
othe functions
– as “a forum for debate among elites”
– Leads to conflicting role of the media.
PM as Conspiracy Theory?
•
•
intent is "an immeasurable red herring”
it is unknowable and irrelevant
•
PM explains media behavior and
performance in structural terms.
–
Makes no essential reference to the
personal beliefs or psychological status of
media professionals.
Charge: Determinism
• Capitalist structure  Media Performance
 'what people think'.
• "completely effective in manufacturing
consent" ?
• Single dominant ideology?
Charge: Too pessimistic
•
Herman’s response:
– Local level victories possible
– Issues not of core interest to elites will get
more varied treatment
•
•
E.g., gun control, school prayer, abortion right
But not global trade, taxation, and economic
policy
– But, where the elite are really concerned
and unified: media will serve elite interests
uncompromisingly.
Charge: Doesn’t investigate “how
sources organize media strategies
• Herman: wrong to focus on “microcorporate strategies”
• Possible example: Role of images as
conveyors of propaganda.
The Judith Miller Factor
– “Judith Miller, the New York Times, and the
Propaganda Model”
– By Oliver Body-Barrett, Journalism Studies 2004
– Suggests overemphasis on structure in PM
– Extends the model to include “non-routine
abuses of standard operating procedures”
Renewed Power of PM?
•
Too Polemical or Too Critical? Chomsky
on the study of the news media and US
foreign policy
– By Eric Herring, Piers Robinson, 2003
– Bennett: “just inside and Chomsky just
outside of" the "range of academic
acceptability"
– Confessions of an academic propagandist?