{"title":"Anti-Communism and the Mainstream Online Press in Spain: Criticism of Podemos as a Strategy of a Two-Party System in Crisis in Spain : Criticism of Podemos as a Strategy of a Two-Party System in Crisis","authors":"A. Labio-Bernal","doi":"10.16997/BOOK27.I","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.16997/BOOK27.I","url":null,"abstract":"The emergence of Podemos in 2016, alongside the fragmentation of the Spanish political spectrum into different ideological forces, has spearheaded a crisis for the traditional bipartisanship of the Peoples Party (PP) and the Socialist Party (PSOE). The unique circumstances in the country’s political landscape have led the mainstream newspapers to position themselves as defenders of the establishment, carrying out a critique of Podemos in which ‘anti-communism’ has been used as a key method to discredit the new party. This chapter explicates the ‘anti-communism’ filtering mechanism within Herman and Chomsky’s Propaganda Model and applies this analysis to the case of the Spanish online press. Both political leaders and the editorial pages of mainstream newspapers have drawn comparisons between Podemos and regimes like those found in Venezuela and Cuba as a way of attacking the new political force. Explicitly or implicitly, the vocabulary flooding the pages of the newspapers has resurrected the idea of communism as the enemy of law and order. According to other filters elaborated by Herman and Chomsky, the media groups’ behaviour is rooted in the tight relationship between crisis-ridden bipartisanship and the moneyed interests of the media companies and their connections to government and business elites.","PeriodicalId":117074,"journal":{"name":"The Propaganda Model Today: Filtering Perception and Awareness","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122587936","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Sport of Shafting Fans and Taxpayers: An Application of the Propaganda Model to the Coverage of Professional Athletes and Team Owners","authors":"Barry Pollick","doi":"10.16997/BOOK27.L","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.16997/BOOK27.L","url":null,"abstract":"While evidence for Herman and Chomsky’s Propaganda Model (PM) has been well-documented on such issues as anti-globalization protests, the environment, and American foreign policy, this author could find no study that applies the PM to sports coverage. Since Chomsky argues that critical theorists should not restrict themselves to elite subjects (M. Achbar and P. Witonick. Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, Zeitgeist Video, 1992), this paper content-analysed the coverage of professional athletes vs. that of sports team owners to determine quantitatively the extent of the hegemonic biases predicted in the PM. Not surprisingly, the study found that the elite New York Times, naively perceived as ‘liberal’ and pro-worker, generally covered their fellow elites – sports owners – neutrally, if not benevolently while covering professional athletes negatively. For example, NFL players were much more likely to be called ‘greedy’ than NFL owners were. Corroborating this finding of systemic bias, the study also found that Google.com overwhelmingly characterized NFL owners more favourably than NFL players. As predicted by the PM, this double standard in coverage serves the owners’ interests at the expense of their admittedly well-paid workers.","PeriodicalId":117074,"journal":{"name":"The Propaganda Model Today: Filtering Perception and Awareness","volume":"62 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131761538","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Thinking the Unthinkable about the Unthinkable – The Use of Nuclear Weapons and the Propaganda Model","authors":"Milan Rai","doi":"10.16997/BOOK27.Q","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.16997/BOOK27.Q","url":null,"abstract":"The debate around nuclear weapons in Britain and the US has been long-standing, at times fiercely contested, and almost entirely beside the point. The Chomsky-Herman Propaganda Model of media and scholarly performance predicts that mainstream discussion of foreign and security policy will rigorously observe certain unspoken limits. Key historical events and fundamental principles will be excluded from awareness or discussion. The long debate around ‘nuclear deterrence’ and, as part of that debate, the more recent controversy over the replacement of Britain’s Trident nuclear weapon system has observed these restrictions. There has been no acknowledgement of the history of British nuclear intimidation of non-nuclear weapon states, including Iraq in 1961, 1991 and 2003. There has been no awareness within the mainstream of the implications of this record for the debate around nuclear weapons, or for the definition of ‘nuclear deterrence’.","PeriodicalId":117074,"journal":{"name":"The Propaganda Model Today: Filtering Perception and Awareness","volume":"218 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124316763","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"American Television: Manufacturing Consumerism","authors":"T. Bergman","doi":"10.16997/BOOK27.K","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.16997/BOOK27.K","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter introduces a propaganda model for American television and its content. Its chief aims are to contribute to theorizing about American television and providing an introductory framework for reflecting on its societal function. After discussing the continuing importance of television as a medium and the existing literature on American television, which tends to downplay or ignore encompassing political-economic perspectives, the chapter presents a propaganda model for American television (PMTV) by adapting the original model’s five filters and showing that American television programming reflects the political economy of the television industry. Finally the chapter discusses limitations of a PMTV, including methodological ones, the value of a PMTV in the digital age, and anticipated objections to a PMTV.","PeriodicalId":117074,"journal":{"name":"The Propaganda Model Today: Filtering Perception and Awareness","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130261317","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What the Propaganda Model Can Learn from the Sociology of Journalism","authors":"Jesse Owen Hearns-Branaman","doi":"10.16997/BOOK27.C","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.16997/BOOK27.C","url":null,"abstract":"One major criticism of the Propaganda Model is its lack of interaction with the sociology of journalists in general. This is not an oversight on Herman and Chomsky’s part but a deliberate effort to focus on the political-economic systematic influences on media production and performance. Herman and Chomsky (2004) offer reasons for the exclusion of research involving interviews with journalists, newsroom ethnography, and other sociologically-minded perspectives: their findings simply reveal the rationalizations of journalists that cannot provide any additional insights into media performance. This chapter argues that critically examining and integrating sociological research into journalists, in fact, greatly enhances and bolsters the findings of the PM. While the PM elides such research, ‘there is plenty of empirical evidence from sociological studies of media organizations available to support the proposition that the various filters can and do shape news content’ (Thompson 2009). The author discusses how integrating research in sociology can better reveal how journalists have been assimilated into the journalistic field. The author argues that rationalizations informing media performance are not simply contradictions, but further evidence of the five filters as central to journalistic professionalism itself. The chapter includes a critical review of previous studies that examine the sociology of journalism and notions of sourcing, effects of the profit imperative, the hierarchical nature of media structures, and the ideology of journalistic professionalism. [Peter A. Thompson, ‘Market Manipulation?: Applying the Propaganda Model to Financial Media Reporting,’ Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture 6(2) (2009)]","PeriodicalId":117074,"journal":{"name":"The Propaganda Model Today: Filtering Perception and Awareness","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123185106","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The 2008 Financial Crisis, the Great Recession and Austerity in Britain: Analysing Media Coverage Using the Herman-Chomsky Propaganda Model","authors":"Andrew Mullen","doi":"10.16997/BOOK27.M","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.16997/BOOK27.M","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter investigates the functional utility of the PM in Britain where, as in the US, corporate media ownership prevails. More specifically, it uses the PM to understand and explain British newspaper and television coverage of the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession and austerity that followed. Divided into three sections, the chapter begins with an overview of the PM, its three hypotheses, five operative filters and methodological approach. The second section concentrates on the case study: mass media coverage of the 2008 financial crisis, the Great Recession and austerity. It also considers how the mass media treated the idea of levying a wealth tax as a radical alternative to austerity. The third section applies the PM to such media coverage and suggests the Model is, indeed, relevant and applicable in Britain.","PeriodicalId":117074,"journal":{"name":"The Propaganda Model Today: Filtering Perception and Awareness","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125998360","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}