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.