The consensus factory

by Wolfgang Teune

[This article posted on 12/6/2023 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.ossietzky.net/artikel/die-konsensfabrik/.]

In 1988, Noam Chomsky, one of the best-known academics of our time, together with Edward S. Hermann, published a book on the political economy of the mass media entitled "Manufactoring Consent", which deals with the production of a uniform opinion in society. "Uniform" means conforming to the system, adapted to the NATO line.

Westend-Verlag has recently published this media science classic with a detailed foreword by media scientists Prof. Uwe Krüger, Holger Pötzsch and Florian Zollmann. The expert Michael Schiffmann translated this still highly important work into German.

Chomsky and E. S. Hermann relate the existential challenges of the present, economic inequality, social tensions in societies and the influence of media corporations to the formation of consciousness and opinion in society, and they analyze structures of influence by media corporations and their financiers on published opinion.

In contrast to a conspiracy theory focused on individuals, the approach of the two media analysts is based on structural conditions - and examines processes that are called "public relations" (PR), "strategic communication" (i.e. intentional filtering of information) and "market-structurally mediated" narrowing of reporting in media studies. Strategic communication differs from conventional human communication in that an actor wants to manipulate the recipients of messages in a hidden direction so that they think and do what the actor wants without them noticing the manipulation. This approach is similar to PR campaigns in the advertising industry, which use psychological operations to influence consumers.

The authors characterize the propaganda model to which the book refers with five points that clarify the method and thrust:

Fundamental to the operation of media in capitalism are the ownership structures in society and thus also in the industry: the profit orientation is the basic interest of privately positioned corporations, even in the media sector.

Many media companies are largely dependent on advertising revenue.

Media that strongly influence the formation of public opinion prefer official sources from state institutions, which, however, reflect the views of the holders of power and accordingly process information in their own interests,

Positions that question or even cast doubt on the prevailing narrative are often discredited; the two call this "flak" as an instrument of discipline.

Anti-communism, anti-socialism and the rejection of analyses critical of capital support the dominant ideology of the regulatory framework, which is not questioned.

Objectivity and neutrality are formally asserted, criticism and control of the holders of wealth and power do occur - often as scandalized examples of particularly greedy individual cases - but the portrayal of opponents of power as dangerous radicals or unworldly ideologues has an easier time being well-placed.

Structural injustices are often stripped of their system-critical context by personalizing greed. The foreword to the book states: "The discussion is not primarily about the grand strategy, but about tactical details." Formal impartiality becomes visible when different positions are included in the reporting, but these remain within a narrow spectrum that excludes criticism of the system. Something similar happens in reporting on war and the military, in which opinion-leading media work with double standards and half-information, for example when they report less frequently and in a relativizing manner on activities of "violence (...) emanating from the USA", while "violence emanating from official enemy states" is "reported extensively and prominently".

Reports increase emotionalization by describing the fate of victims of enemy states more extensively and adding "many human attributes". "Lower-ranking actors" are preferably held personally responsible for excesses of violence committed by their own forces, while "violence emanating from enemy states can be traced back to orders from the very highest level", as Chomsky wrote back in 2003, i.e. during the Iraq war.

The "consensus factory" authors do not hold journalists individually responsible for this manipulation, but see them as being under systemic pressure, which in many cases leads to a "functional self-restraint" that stems from the hope of job security.

"Another relevant line of research is the agenda-cutting approach: This is interested in why relevant and controversial topics (...) are marginalized." In addition to media routines, the authors attest to the effect of "ideological constraints".

They report that the propaganda model is discredited by established circles as an approach of "Marxist-radical" theoretical approaches. This goes hand in hand with the demonization of opponents of the West in general and NATO in particular; to this end, the authors use propaganda to legitimize the unprovoked and non-UN-mandated, mendaciously legitimized war of aggression by the USA and its "coalition of the willing" against Iraq. The lies of US President G. W. Bush and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children are pushed into the background of the reporting, as is the illegal nature of this war.

The authors observe a similar structure of propaganda in the new social media as they have long diagnosed in the print media. They point to the increase in power of high-tech media corporations and their non-transparent influence, for example in the filtering programming of algorithms, which can already generate an inconspicuous but owner-desired bias in search engines. The same applies to the setting in films and games. The basic question of media analysis therefore remains the same: Who owns media?

Noam Chomsky will be 95 years old on December 7 this year. Even at this age, he has retained a dialectical analysis of complex developments and contexts that is a role model for many people in social science and linguistics. His wealth of facts and his clarity of assessment and conclusions make it worthwhile to study his work again and again.