Jan 17, 2011

Herman & Chomsky's 'Propaganda Model': It Still Holds

Book(1988) was made into a documentary(1992) 
Brief investigation into the current standards of Newsworthiness and Most Preliminary assessment of US Media Performance has revealed for me 

that 22 years since the publication of the seminal ‘Manufacturing Consent’

a) The Institutional structures of the Propaganda Model* are intact if not burgeoning AND

b) The patterns of Media Coverage validate the model’s forecasts in many instances- as is illustrated by the abbreviated case study performed below.

*What is the Propaganda Model?

 
Propaganda Model is the analytical framework that attempts to debunk the Mythology
THAT..

>>The constituents of the US Media( Print & Electronic) are the Purveyors of Truth ,sentinels of our inalienable liberties and institute in themselves a system of checks and balances that is supposed to preclude the abuse of political office, military resources and Civil Rights among their other purported functions<<


The model contrarily engenders the assertion THAT.. 


>>Precedently, US Media enterprises comprise a disinformation system whose primary function, currently and in the decades past, has been to propagandize on behalf of the Corporate Interests that finance and control them .These corporate elites are disproportionately represented in all branches of Government in Lieu of The American electorate; The Media’s Politcal economy* and most socio- economic & foreign policies can thereby be explained on the basis of this elite proprietorship and overrepresentation respectively<< 

Now an important distinction needs to be drawn between the Propaganda machinery of the US and that of totalitarian regimes such as the erstwhile Soviet Union. The propaganda systems of the Soviet Union were calibrated to censor the complete spectrum of dissident opinion and the ensuing infringement of free expression was therefore abundantly evident even for the least discerning to observe and decry. Whereas the US media is structured to accomodate – and rather encourage – the right modicum of hetereodoxy in the National Dialogue so long as it comports with the elite consensus on the controversial issues…. to perpetrate the illusion of an intrepid and independent press. This is one of the great socio-engineering deceptions of the 20th century artfully executed by American News Managers to this day to MANUFACTURE CONSENT. The following case study manifests the aforementioned claims:

Permissible levels of heterodoxy in The Iraq War coverage (Incriminates either The Dispensables, or no one. Furthermore, Such coverage doesn’t bring The Righteousness of The War into question): 

Currently, The American people, are being inundated with the incessant expressions of Indignation of “The Pundits” at the petty infractions allegedly committed by Infantry men in Iraq and Afghansitan . This information has been disclosed to the citizenry through the publicisation of thousands of Classified Military Documents- whose authenticity is yet to be established and whose authorship is ascribed to unreliable low ranking disgruntled military officials –by wikileaks . The story was covered by all the Major News Networks(Fox , ABC, NBC and CBS) and Print Media (NYTimes ,The Washington post et al) Unacceptable Levels of Heterodoxy (Incriminates War Managers & Ranking Defence personnel and therefore omitted absolutely from the list of Newsworthy events) As the Wiki Leaks Management published reams of confidential material, which has thusfar proved to be inconsequential and the accusations therein remain unsubstantiated, a vastly more significant study entitled "Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005-2009", was CONCURRENTLY released in the Medical Journals of the University of Ullster. The authors of the study observed that there were “Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945”** This study and its criminating conclusions, as of today, hasnt received a second of air time on any of the major News networks or an inch of Column space in the print Media. 

Inquiries on every search engine on the Subject would reveal that the only news organizations who have addressed the study hitherto,to my Knowledge, are The Independent and Russia Today. The article in The Independent paraphrases the statements of British Commander Nigel Foster who had the following to say about the murderous abandon with which US Generals bombed falluja supposedly in attempts to “SURGICALLY” strike the terrorists that had infiltrated the city “US Marines first besieged and bombarded Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad, in April 2004 after four employees of the American security company Blackwater were killed and their bodies burned. After an eight-month stand-off, the Marines stormed the city in November using artillery and aerial bombing against rebel positions. US forces later admitted that they had employed white phosphorus as well as other munitions.” “He[Nigel Foster] added that the US commander who ordered this devastating use of firepower did not consider it significant enough to mention it in his daily report to the US general in command.” The Study’s Co-Authors Dr Busby & local doctors further offered the following analysis to explain the extraordinary upswing in the infant mortality rates and the incidence of Cancer in Falluja since the bombing. “while I[Dr Busby] cannot identify the type of armaments used by the Marines, the extent of genetic damage suffered by inhabitants suggests the use of uranium in some form.” “They said they were also seeing far more cancers than they did before the battle for Fallujah between US troops and insurgents.” The studys conclusions and the testimonials of British commanders unequivocally prove the commision of war crimes by US generals who were in turn executing the orders of the members of the former US Executive. The Publication of the Study, had it been addressed, represented an extraordinary opportunity for the “Independent” press to bring the perpetrators of war offences to Justice in the International Courts of Law . Yet no furore was raised . Doesn’t take a political scientist to figure out why? Collusion! In other words, the former Members of the executive are in a symbiotic relationship with the Business elite who control the media by the dint of their egreggiously accumulated wealth . Period! 

  
* term for studying production, buying and selling, and their relations with law, custom, and government. 

**http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/toxic-legacy-of-us-assault-on-fallujah-worse-than-hi

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