THE PROPAGANDA MODEL TODAY MODEL PROPAGANDA THE CDSMS EDITED BY JOAN PEDRO-CARAÑANA, DANIEL BROUDY & JEFFERY KLAEHN THE PROPAGANDA MODEL TODAY Filtering Perception and Awareness PEDRO-CARAÑANA, BROUDY & KLAEHN (EDS) PEDRO-CARAÑANA, BROUDY The Propaganda Model Today : Filtering Perception and Awareness Edited by Joan Pedro-Carañana, Daniel Broudy & Jeffery Klaehn University of Westminster Press www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk Published by University of Westminster Press 115 New Cavendish Street London W1W 6UW www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk Text © the editors and several contributors 2018 First published 2018 Series cover concept: Mina Bach (minabach.co.uk) Print and digital versions typeset by Siliconchips Services Ltd. ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-912656-16-5 ISBN (PDF): 978-1-912656-17-2 ISBN (EPUB): 978-1-912656-18-9 ISBN (Kindle): 978-1-912656-19-6 DOI: https://doi.org/10.16997/book27 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommer cial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Com- mons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA. This license allows for copying and distributing the work, provid ing author attribution is clearly stated, that you are not using the material for commercial purposes, and that modified versions are not distributed. The full text of this book has been peer-reviewed to ensure high academic standards. For full review policies, see: http://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/ site/publish/ Suggested citation: Pedro-Carañana, J., Broudy, D. and Klaehn, J. (eds.). 2018. The Propaganda Model Today: Filtering Perception and Awareness. London: University of Westminster Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.16997/book27. License: CC‐BY‐NC‐ND 4.0 To read the free, open access version of this book online, visit https://doi.org/10.16997/book27 or scan this QR code with your mobile device: Dedication The editors dedicate this collection to the memory of Edward S. Herman (7 April 1925 – 11 November 2017), the principal architect of the Herman-Chomsky Propaganda Model. Competing interests The editors and contributors declare that they have no competing interests in publishing this book. Contents 1. Introduction 1 Joan Pedro-Carañana, Daniel Broudy and Jeffery Klaehn Part I: Theoretical and Methodological Considerations 19 2. Interview with Edward S. Herman: Ideological Hegemony in Contemporary Societies 21 Jeffery Klaehn, Joan Pedro-Carañana, Matthew Alford and Yigal Godler 3. What the Propaganda Model Can Learn from the Sociology of Journalism 25 Jesse Owen Hearns-Branaman 4. Journalism Studies’ Systematic Pursuit of Irrelevance: How Research Emphases Sabotage Critiques of Corporate-Run News Media 37 Yigal Godler 5. Does the Propaganda Model Actually Theorise Propaganda? 53 Piers Robinson Part II: The Internet and New Digital Media 69 6. Propaganda 2.0: Herman and Chomsky’s Propaganda Model in the Age of the Internet, Big Data and Social Media 71 Christian Fuchs 7. System Security: A Missing Filter for the Propaganda Model? 93 Daniel Broudy and Miyume Tanji 8. From #15M to Podemos: Updating the Propaganda Model for Explaining Political Change in Spain and the Role of Digital Media 107 Miguel Álvarez-Peralta 9. Anti-Communism and the Mainstream Online Press in Spain: Criticism of Podemos as a Strategy of a Two-Party System in Crisis 125 Aurora Labio-Bernal viii Contents Part III: Screen Entertainment and Broadcast Media 143 10. A Screen Entertainment Propaganda Model 145 Matthew Alford 11. American Television: Manufacturing Consumerism 159 Tabe Bergman 12. The Sport of Shafting Fans and Taxpayers: An Application of the Propaganda Model to the Coverage of Professional Athletes and Team Owners 173 Barry Pollick Part IV: Case Studies on Media and Power: The Interplay Between National and Global Elites 191 13. The 2008 Financial Crisis, the Great Recession and Austerity in Britain: Analysing Media Coverage Using the Herman-Chomsky Propaganda Model 193 Andrew Mullen 14. Corporate-Market Power and Ideological Domination: The Propaganda Model after 30 Years – Relevance and Further Application 223 Florian Zollmann 15. Imperialism and Hegemonic Information in Latin America: The Media Coup in Venezuela vs. the Criminalisation of Protest in Mexico 237 Francisco Sierra Caballero 16. ‘Dynamic’ Obama Lectures ‘Bumbling’ Castro on Race Relations in Cuba, While Wilfully Blind to Black Lives Matter Movement in the US 249 James Winter 17. Thinking the Unthinkable about the Unthinkable – The Use of Nuclear Weapons and the Propaganda Model 263 Milan Rai 18. Conclusion 279 Joan Pedro-Carañana, Daniel Broudy and Jeffery Klaehn Index 293 CHAPTER 1 Introduction Joan Pedro-Carañana, Daniel Broudy and Jeffery Klaehn If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. –Malcolm X The propaganda system allows the U.S. leadership to commit crimes without limit and with no suggestion of misbehaviour or criminality. –Edward S. Herman The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum. –Noam Chomsky Often, ‘freedom of expression’ is mistaken with ‘freedom of pressur- ing’… It is no longer necessary for the ends to justify the means since How to cite this book chapter: Pedro-Carañana, J., Broudy, D. and Klaehn, J. 2018. Introduction. In: Pedro- Carañana, J., Broudy, D. and Klaehn, J. (eds.). The Propaganda Model Today: Filtering Perception and Awareness. Pp. 1–18. London: University of West- minster Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.16997/book27.a. License: CC‐BY‐ NC‐ND 4.0 2 The Propaganda Model Today the means, the means of communication – the mass media – justify the ends of a power system that imposes its values on a global scale … [The] many are being held incommunicado by the few. –Eduardo Galeano 1. Reception of the Propaganda Model Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky first proposed their ‘propaganda model’ (PM hereafter) of media operations inManufacturing Consent: ThePolitical Economy of the Mass Media in 1988.1 Since then, the PM has seen noteworthy modifications2 and has attracted significant scholarly attention from around the world.3 While the individual elements of the propaganda system (or ‘filters’) iden- tified by the PM ownership,( advertising, sources, flak andanti- communism) had previously been the focus of much scholarly attention, their systematisation in a model, empirical corroboration and historisation have made the PM a useful tool for media analysis across cultural and geographical boundaries. Despite the wealth of scholarly research Herman and Chomsky’s work has set into motion over the past decades, the PM has been subjected to marginalisa- tion;4 poorly informed critiques;5 and misrepresentations.6 Interestingly, while the PM enables researchers to form discerning predictions as regards corporate media performance, Herman and Chomsky had further predicted that the PM itself would meet with such marginalisation and contempt. In current theoretical and empirical studies of mass media performance, uses of the PM continue, nonetheless, to yield important insights into the workings of political and economic power in society, due in large measure to the model’s considerable explanatory power. Its appeal also appears to come from the simplicity with which it may be used to investigate and elucidate how dominant institutional forces in society shape mass media performance. By illuminating ways in which power structures and privileged actors rou- tinely impact patterns of media behaviour, the PM serves as a highly effective means of clarifying how dominant systems of propaganda and manipulation can affect capitalist societies, characterised by the increasing control of demo- cratic institutions by financial and political-State forces to the detriment of the general population. In academic contexts currently marked by the de-politicisation of Cultural and Media/Communication Studies,7 this collection aims to introduce read- ers to the PM, to present cutting-edge research demonstrating the model’s general validity and to critically update, expand, and refine it.8 To these ends, we have brought together international researchers to analyse the continuities and new developments in media environments throughout various regions of the world. This volume, thus, endeavours to serve as a benchmark text for any- one interested in the PM, including students, scholars and researchers, con- Introduction 3 cerned citizens, social, political and media activists as well as policy makers across a range of disciplines, such as communication/media studies, sociol- ogy, political science/international relations, peace/war studies and political economy. While this collection is aimed primarily at a particular audience, it is also constructed in a way that remains widely accessible to a more general readership concerned about the influence of propaganda on the public mind and the mechanisms through which the power elites exert control over society through media. The volume locates these latest studies on media systems within the wider body of work already built on the PM so as to contextualise, refine, clarify and improve the model’s utility and validity. By bringing together a number of lead- ing scholars on the PM at an international level, we strive to give greater shape to a school of thought rooted in Herman