Manufacturing Consent_ The Political Economy of the Mass Media - Edward S. Herman [219]
The organization and self-education of groups in the community and workplace, and their networking and activism, continue to be the fundamental elements in steps toward the democratization of our social life and any meaningful social change. Only to the extent that such developments succeed can we hope to see media that are free and independent.
Afterword to the 2008 Edition
Twenty years after its first appearance in Manufacturing Consent, the propaganda model, which is the analytic underpinning of the book, appears as strong and relevant as ever. On balance, the structural conditions on which the model is built would seem to have strengthened the elite grip on the mainstream media in the United States—which is our focus here—but in the media of the United Kingdom and elsewhere as well.1 Globalization has continued its advance; the concentration, conglomeration and joint venture arrangements among the big firms have increased;2 commercialization and bottom-line considerations dominate as never before; and the competition for advertising has intensified, with the “old media” (newspapers, broadcast radio and TV, and the movies) steadily losing ground to their cable, Internet, and wireless progeny, and i-phones and i-pods (and the like) now often providing multiple and in some cases essentially all of the above media functions.3 The public sector has continued to decline and suffer a forced integration into the commercial sector.4 These developments have resulted in more compromises on behalf of advertisers, including more friendly editorial policy, more product placements, more intrusive ads, more cautious news policy, a shrinkage in investigative reporting and greater dependence on wire service and public relations offerings, and a reduced willingness to challenge establishment positions and party lines.5 This has made for a diminished public sphere and facilitated media management by government and powerful corporate and other lobbying entities.
A further structural development that affects the applicability of the propaganda model is the growth of inequality. Inequality of income and wealth have both increased fairly steadily over the past several decades, through both Democratic (Clinton) and Republican (Reagan, Bush I and Bush II) administrations. Between 1983 and 2004 the wealth of the top 1 percent increased by 77.8 percent, while that of the bottom 40 percent fell 58.7 percent; and between 1982 and 2004 the income of the top 1 percent rose by 67.6 percent, while that of the bottom 40 percent rose by only 4.3 percent.6 The gap between what the majority and the prospering elite want and need has grown larger in consequence, and the challenge to the mainstream media (MSM) to protect elite interests from the demands of “the great beast” (Alexander Hamilton) has increased. The gigantic military establishment must be protected from a public that would like more resources used for the civil society;7 threats to the increasingly regressive tax system must be kept at bay; attacks on “free trade” (i.e., extended investor rights) must be fended off; universal and affordable health care at the expense of vested insurance and pharmaceutical company interests cannot be supported;8 and the ability of money to dominate elections must be glossed over.9 The growth of inequality has itself helped the MSM meet these challenges by pushing the political system to the right and by business and the wealthy pumping greater resources into public relations, advertising, and more direct control of the media.
The dominance of the MSM and their ability to perform their elite services has been offset in part by the greater sophistication of the public and its rising doubts regarding the benevolent