How Powerful is the Mass Media?

The idea that the mass media controls our ideas is a very common one. According to this theory, the media acts as a kind of syringe that injects propaganda directly into our minds.

People are seen as sheep that follow the media more or less unthinkingly. The conclusion is that we are powerless in the face of mass propaganda that brainwashes us into compliance.

This view of the media does not just exist at the margins of society. It’s also a dominant idea within mainstream politics. Leading figures in all the main political parties see winning over the mass media as the key to winning elections – rather than having decent policies that ordinary people could support.

The notion that the media is all-powerful is also used to write off any sense that people can fight back against the system, or that they can be won away from racist or sexist ideas.

All this raises two questions. Who actually controls the mass media? And how much impact does it really have on the ideas people hold?

Under capitalism the mass media is owned by a handful of rich and powerful people that form part of the “ruling class” – the tiny number of people at the top of society who own the factories, offices and other workplaces.

Rupert Murdoch, for instance, owns over 175 print publications across the world, including the Sun, the Times and the News of the World here in Britain.

Status quo

The ruling class has a clear interest in promoting ideas that justify the status quo and endorse the global system that it benefits from. That is why there are so many clear instances of the mass media pushing propaganda on behalf of the bosses.

In 2002 and 2003, when Britain and the US were preparing to wage war on Iraq, the Sun newspaper gave pages over to detailing how Saddam Hussein’s alleged “weapons of mass destruction” could hit British troops in Cyprus within 45 minutes of being fired.

It either ignored or attacked anti-war activists and provided “support our boys” posters for readers to display in their windows.

But media bias towards the ruling class can also be seen in less extreme times. After the National Union of Teachers (NUT) conference earlier this year sections of the media ran hysterical articles condemning the teachers’ decision to strike over pay and conditions.

The Daily Telegraph declared that it was “time to crush the NUT like the miners” – referring to the Miners’ Strike of 1984-85.

This bias goes wider than simply attacking strikers or building support for war. The mass media operates within an ideological framework that accepts and promotes the dominant ideas in society – such as the idea that capitalism is the only way to organise society.

The bias does not exist only in the openly right wing media, but also in media outlets that pride themselves on being “neutral” or “liberal”.

The Guardian newspaper recently ran a week-long series of articles on the global food crisis. This was presented as in-depth, serious analysis. Yet it reiterated some of the worst myths about the food crisis, myths that would rather blame the Chinese for eating too much meat than suggest there might be something wrong with the free market.

The revolutionaries Karl Marx and Frederick Engels wrote in the 19th century that “the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas”. But this doesn’t arise out of some kind of shady conspiracy within the ruling class.

It’s true that owners sometimes intervene directly in the running of their media franchises. Murdoch is well known for regularly intervening in the editorial decisions of the Sun newspaper.

In May this year Murdoch was asked if he had anything to do with the New York Post’s support for Barack Obama in the US Democratic presidential run off. He answered simply, “Yes.”

Assumptions

But for the most part owners rely on well-paid senior managers and editors who are closely tied to the capitalist class and so share their assumptions and ideas about the world.

If the mass media is owned by an elite that tries to use it to back up their system, how do we explain political differences in the message put out by different media outlets? The point here is that the ruling class is not a homogenous group. There are divisions within it – and the media reflects these.

The Daily Mirror’s stance in the run up to the Iraq war is a good example of this. It took an anti-war position in the context of divisions among the ruling class and an unprecedented mass movement against the war. So it reflected the fact that the ruling class was divided – but it also knew that there was an audience for an anti-war newspaper.

The profit motive can sometimes pull the mass media in different directions and make it appear that it is posing a challenge to the dominant ideology.

For instance, the Daily Mail has recently run several front pages on the rising cost of living in Britain. These rising costs are real. But the Daily Mail’s explanation for them is one that diverts people’s anger away from the bosses and towards immigrants.

Although the ruling class owns the mass media, it does not always completely control it.

The media needs workers to get produced in the first place. And media workers can and have refused to produce some of the worst excesses of racism and anti-union propaganda.

In 2006, workers at the Daily Star prevented the printing of an anti-Muslim page titled, “How Britain’s fave newspaper would look under Muslim rule.” Planned features included “Burqa Babes” and a “censored” editorial.

Workers in the National Union of Journalists called an emergency meeting and forced the Daily Star management to pull the page.

Similarly, during the Miners’ Strike printers at the Sun refused to print a front page of miners’ leader Arthur Scargill that made him look as if he was giving a Nazi salute.

How much notice do people really take of the mass media? It is certainly important as a major source of information and news for many people.

So it isn’t true to suggest that the media has no influence on people’s ideas. But the way our ideas are shaped by the media is much more complex than the simplistic “syringe” theory.

Our consciousness is shaped by our experiences of the world. Marx and Engels argued, “Consciousness does not determine life, but life consciousness.” People’s ideas are shaped by the material reality of their lives.

The majority of people that the mass media is sold and marketed to are working class. There is a huge gulf between the reality of their lives and the dominant ideology of capitalism. That gap can open up a space for that ideology to be questioned, challenged or rejected.

In the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, 96 people were killed after police allowed too many Liverpool football fans into overcrowded terraces.

The Sun newspaper ran a front page condemning the fans, claiming that they were drunken hooligans who stole from the dead. In fact the fans were key to helping the injured.

The scandal of the Sun’s coverage led to a boycott of the paper by newsagents across Liverpool. Sales plummeted and have never recovered. In 2004, the average circulation for the Sun in Liverpool was 12,000 copies a day – 200,000 less than before it printed the Hillsborough story.

Yet the dominant ideology remains and is promoted not just by the media, but by all of the major institutions in our society – including the education system and the legal system.

This leads to a situation where people hold contradictory ideas. People can have anti-immigrant opinions, but also support anti-deportation campaigns that involve someone they know personally.

Although people may reject obvious propaganda in the media, over time it can have an impact in generating racist or sexist assumptions. The mass media can reinforce backward ideas and it’s important that we challenge this.

But the mass media is not the fundamental reason why bigotry persists. Racism and sexism exist because of the kind of society that we live in.

Ideology

They form part of the dominant ideology of our society because the ruling class uses such ideas to divide and weaken the working class – and thereby preserve ruling class power.

Faced with ruling class bias in the mass media, many people turn to “alternative” sources of media. This is a positive development. Anti-war websites or other alternative media outlets can give people the facts and figures to argue their case with others. They can increase their understanding of the world and their confidence to fight back.

Revolutionaries have always seen producing socialist newspapers such as Socialist Worker as important.

But we recognise that these papers should do more than challenge the ideology of the ruling class – they should act as a tool for organising the struggle against the system.

The Russian revolutionary Lenin described the revolutionary paper as the “scaffolding” around which a revolutionary organisation is built. The scaffolding is clearly important. But it is there for a reason – to build up networks and organisation of people on the ground who can take on the system.

Research has found that the mass media has the biggest impact on those with no political affiliation. The mass media is most powerful when people are politically passive. Building resistance to capitalism can lead millions to question dominant ideas – and can see the power of that mass media melt away.

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The Poverty of Philosophy
By Immortal technique

Viva Technique - this is the true meaning of hip-hop.

Chavez Smells the Dogs of War
T.D McDonough

The war drums can be faintly heard across Latin America with the arch nations of Columbia and Venezuela flexing their might. The U.S. sponsored Colombian President Alvaro Uribe recently betrayed Chavez during his negotiations with the left wing FARC rebels, before making allegations against the Venezuelan premier. There is some lingering suspicion which suggests that Uribe, whispered to from Washington, is playing the aggressor in the hope of sparking a conflict that could justify U.S. intervention against Venezuela. In response, Chavez has signed a deal with China to purchase K-8 fighter jets.

“The government of Colombia is capable of provoking a war with Venezuela to justify a US intervention in Venezuela,” said President Chavez, earlier this week.

Of course, Venezuela is a threat to the spread of global Yankee capitalism and a further testament, like Cuba, to the effectiveness of Socialism in the modern world. In early 2002, the U.S. attempted to include Chavez and Venezuela in it’s misguided ‘Axis of Evil’ in the hope of drawing Chavez’s nation into the ‘War on Terror’. The move received global condemnation.

Viva Chavez!

STOP THE WAR: London 2008 

On Saturday 25th March, we gathered together in London and marched from Trafalgar Square to Parliament Square in demonstration against the ‘War on Terror’, in whatever guise it may appear. Similarly, comrades around the globe united, from Paris to New York, in order to voice their anger at the imperialist agenda.

The mainstream media cited the attendance as a mere 10,000, but the reality saw the streets filled with over 40,000 protesters, still willing to fight against the machine, over five years on. One day, my friends…

Big thanks to Nadeem Baghdadi for the excellent photographs.

DEMONSTRATORS DESCEND ON PARLIAMENT

JEWS AGAINST ZIONISM (www.nkuk.org)

CHURCHILL MADE USEFUL!

PROTESTORS FILL THE STREETS

OUR DAY WILL COME!!!

The Left Wing Resurgence

The left has seen quite a large resurgence over the weekend. Not only has Cuba successfully held elections, positioning Raul Castro as President, but the Mediterranean island of Cyprus has voted, with a 70% majority, for Demetris Christofias’s Communist Party.

The Cypriot nation has voted in favour of the left wing party which seeks to reunite the island and move away from the current Greek/Turkish divide. This is surely a favourable conclusion to the strife that Cyprus has faced over the past few decades.

The picture for Cuba can only get brighter as the rolls onward. The US must face the fact that sanctions, terrorism and propaganda have had little effect on the resolve of the Cuban people. If anything, the US has only strengthened the unity and comradery alive on the little isle of Cuba. Castro’s legacy may be fading, Che may be gone, but the revolution still lives.

Viva la Revolucion!

Troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan
Don’t attack Iran
End the siege of Gaza
Saturday 15th March
Assemble 12 noon, Trafalgar Square, London

Be there: your freedom depends on the freedom of others. 

“It’s now five years since Tony Blair took us into an illegal and immoral war. A million innocents have been killed in Iraq. We haven’t heard a lot about weapons of mass destruction since Tony Blair was caught out on that one. We got rid of him but what makes me angry is that Gordon Brown has made no changes and no apologies. Just like Blair, he has refused even to meet the families who have lost loved ones in his war. We must keep marching to let Brown know we are on his case too”

Rose Gentle, Military Families Against the War

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FLYER

VISIT STOP THE WAR (UK) HERE

Big Brother’s Education

The UK government has urged all British Higher Education institutions to monitor and tackle ‘extremism’ amongst student groups. Higher Education Minister Bill Rammell argues that the threat from extremism is a “real and serious threat”.

This move comes after the request in 2006 for all HE institutions to monitor and assess learners who may be involved in ‘extremist’ activities. This policy is now to spread, not only further into student activities, but also into the domain of academic practitioners, lecturers and speakers who may ‘promote or advocate… extremism’.

However, the problem as always is how exactly do we define extremism? For example, in a sociological discussion how do we dismiss the ideas of Jean Paul Sartre, Frantz Fanon, or ‘Che’ Guevara, all of whom advocated violence as a necessary component of social revolution? ‘Revolution is a violent phenomenon’ as Fanon once argued. Or, is this mandate aimed at the Islamic population and if so, are we not focusing upon a minority group and alienating that group from wider society? Or, are these measures aimed at all those who oppose the current world order and the dominant bloc?

The idea of urging HE staff to monitor students for signs of ‘extremism’ is preposterous due mainly to the definition of ‘extremism’ and the connotations of that term with ‘terrorism’, the latter being another undefined term. In the latter part of the 20th century the communists were deemed the enemies of the state – the equivalent to the modern day ‘extremist’ and the latter day witch. In 1980’s Britain, the Irish were the enemy ‘terrorist’ threat, being replaced in modern times by those who follow Islam. Enemies change to reflect the concerns of the dominant group; any form of powerful opposition must be crushed, as Socialism was in the 20th century, and as Islamic militarism is being in the modern day. In all, the real problem is who is the real enemy, the real extremist, the real threat to humanities’ welfare?

The cold blooded killing of innocent civilians is a terrorist act, a disgusting act, yet this should never be confused with violence engendered through the need for social change, in all with the concept of revolution. The boundaries between extremism and emancipation are becoming blurred. Let us hope that this new government initiative is aimed only at those planning to murder innocents and not all those who don’t conform to the standards of the dominant group, or even those who seek to undermine the dominant group. If such a thing occurred then the power of the elites would be absolute and without precedence in our long, bloody history.

Worst of all, this time, there could be no turning back.

Kenya Crisis: Colonialism Through Consent
By T.D. McDonough, 2008.

The corporate media has failed to question the wider context behind the events unfolding in the Republic of Kenya and the real interests of the global elite in maintaining auxiliary control. The corporate interests within the east African nation must be explored if we are to understand the real mechanisms at work beyond the failed election and the resultant turmoil.

Kenya has been a long-standing ‘client’ of the IMF and the World Bank, both of whom, despite their misleading titles, are corporate entities, not social organisations. As such the IMF and the World Bank have invested heavily in the country’s ‘economic reconstruction’ since the pseudo-emancipation from the British Empire in the 1950’s. Like all developing nations, the accrued debt coupled with the reliance on exterior assistance enables the dominant powers - the IMF, World Bank and their ‘investors’, in this case - to maintain influence, even to exert control, over the ‘client’ country. This also includes the subservience and loyalty of elected officials.

However, in 2006 the Chinese government approved a request by CNOOC Ltd, a state-owned energy conglomerate, to begin oil explorations in the region, including the coastal regions of Kenya. This follows China’s long-standing interests in east Africa, or as one commentator in Nigeria observes: ‘the Chinese seem to have started where the Europeans left [off]‘.

China’s been deeply involved in east Africa, both ideologically and economically, since the 1960’s and the recent development is simply an extension of a long term plan to hegemonise, then colonise, East Africa, much like the Western nations did in the latter centuries, although the Chinese have pursued a strategy of coercion and investment, rather than unlimited force and aggression.

So, the full image begins to emerge: Kenya is the site of contention of two of the world’s dominant powers. The ‘current’ President Mwai Kibaki is friendly to western interests mainly due to his unwavering subservience to the IMF and the World Bank. Kibaki has passed numerous constitutional reforms in the past decade including privatisation laws, the redistribution of ‘idle’ land and reforms to the economy allowing for easier foreign investment. Kibaki proposed a new constitution in 2005 but received a resounding ‘no’ from the electorate.

The current dispute in Kenya is due to wide-spread allegations of corruption within the voting system. By all accounts, the opposition party, the ODM, was ahead in the votes until the final stages, when Kibaki’s PNU raced across the finish line. The country was soon plunged into chaos.

Tensions have been rising in Kenya over the last few years and the Western and Eastern powers have been well aware of this fact. But, chaos is King, especially when profit and potential oil reserves are at stake. By maintaining Kibaki’s presidency the Western powers can maintain their influence and safeguard against the expansion of China’s burgeoning African empire; or, alternatively, if the situation becomes even more extreme they can intervene directly and secure their interests through NATO and the UNThat is, unless the people organise themselves and take the path of revolution, which is, sadly, very unlikely. It seems that Kenya will remain an ideological battlefield for some time.

Its yet another sickly dose of reality: the realisation that the people of Kenya will never receive any legitimate assistance; by all accounts they are trapped between the jaws of a lion and the claws of a dragon, with either path leading to further exploitation and even more death. Mark these words: “there be oil in Kenya!” Expect the announcement before the close of 2008.

As always, the corporate media has failed to inform the public. The news channels have instead opted for sensationalist claims, such as ‘genocide’ (ITV News), ‘rape’ and ‘pillage’ (Sky/Fox News) and even ‘tribal warfare’ or ‘another Rwanda’ (BBC News 24). This couldn’t be further from the truth. Although the tribal differences in Kenya are being exploited, the violence in Kenya has western corporate sponsorship, whose aim is to withstand a Chinese takeover - let the facts be known and the truth will soon follow.