Chomsky Eric Herring Piers Robinson

https://web.archive.org/web/20060825202028/http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/200310--.pdf Too polemical or too critical? Chomsky on the study of the news media and US foreign policy ERIC HERRING AND PIERS ROBINSON*

Review of International Studies (2003), 29, 553–568  Copyright © British International Studies Association DOI: 10.1017/S0260210503005539 553 Anthony McKeown, Adam Morton, Patricia Owens, Jeff Schmidt, Anna Stavrianakis, Peter Wilkins, Gadi Wolfsfeld, John Zaller, the International Politics Research Group at Bristol University and the editorial reviewers for feedback on earlier drafts. 1 Noam Chomsky, ‘On the Bombings’, no date.  2 Quoted in Nick Cohen, ‘Why It is Right to be Anti-American’, The New Statesman , 14 January 2002, p. 10. 3 Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (New York: Pantheon, 1988), p. xii. See also the edited interviews in Peter R. Mitchell and John Schoeffel (eds.), Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky (New York: The New Press, 2002), pp. 348–51. Too polemical or too critical? Chomsky on the study of the news media and US foreign policy ERIC HERRING AND PIERS ROBINSON* Abstract. Noam Chomsky  argues  that, while  the  US  news  media  are  adversarial  towards  the US government on foreign policy, institutional filters operate to ensure that the criticisms made generally stay within narrow bounds set by the US political elite. Chomsky’s research in this area is largely ignored even by academics who agree with this conclusion. The institutional tendency to filter  out  anti-elite  perspectives  applies  not  only  to  the  news  media  but  also  to  academia. Consequently, Chomsky’s  work  is  marginalised  due  to  its  emphasis  on  corporate  power, principled opposition to US foreign policy and the role of academia in buttressing elite power. Over the last forty years, Noam Chomsky’s views on US foreign policy and the role of the  US  news  media  in  manufacturing  consent  for  it  have  earned  him  a  minority following among  the  public,  journalists  and  academics  within  and  beyond  the United States. However, sometimes the comments on his actual or alleged views are vitriolic. For example, following Chomsky’s posting on the internet of his assessment of the  meaning  of  the  11  September  2001  attacks  in  New  York  and  Washington, 1 Mackrubin T. Owens, Professor  of  Strategy  at  the  Naval  War  College  in  Newport, Rhode Island stated that: it is not an exaggeration to say that the terrorists who planned and executed the attacks of 11 September were merely expressing in more refined form the same anti-Americanism that has been a staple of the American university for three decades. The ravings of Osama Bin Laden and those of Noam Chomsky are interchangeable. 2 Often the  criticism  is  of  views  that  he  does  not  actually  hold. For example,  he  is routinely labelled a conspiracy theorist despite the fact that he explicitly rejects that mode of  analysis. 3 The inapplicability  of  that  label  will  become  apparent  below. It also tends to be assumed that his view is that the news media have a right-wing bias and are  non-adversarial. 4 His view  is  actually  that  it  is  nothing  to  do  with  right-  or left-wing  bias: instead, there  tends  to  be  a  liberal  and  adversarial  bias  in  the  media which serves  the  crucial  function  of  setting  the  boundary  of  critical  thought,  with the truth  about  US  foreign  policy  actually  being  located  outside  of  that  boundary. The more that the media appear liberal and adversarial, the better they will function in setting the boundaries of the thinkable. While misinterpretation of anyone’s work can occur, the  misinterpretations  of  Chomsky’s  work  show  a  systematic  pattern  of being  driven  by  the  ideological  frame  of  reference  of  those  doing  the  misinterpret- ing. Even when misinterpretations are pointed out, that frame of reference can make it impossible for the interlocutor to grasp what Chomsky is saying. Most commonly, Chomsky is not denounced, misinterpreted or engaged with. He is simply ignored. In this article we illustrate this in relation to Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s work published in 1988 on the media and US foreign policy titled Manufacturing Consent. 5 It is  important  to  note  at  the  outset  that  this  article  is  not about the rights or wrongs of either Chomsky’s media-foreign policy analysis or his broader critique of US foreign policy. Rather the article critiques the marginalisation of a legitimate research agenda that deserves scholarly attention and debate. Chomsky’s analysis of  the  media-foreign  policy  relationship  represents  a  central  plank  of  his broader critique  of  power  in  Western  society  and  the  way  in  which  key  institutions, such as the media, reinforce elite interests in society. Whilst the work is co-authored with a  major  communications  scholar,  Chomsky’s  views  on  the  US  media,  as expressed  in  Manufacturing  Consent, are a  regular  feature  of  his  work:  he  often critiques the  US  media  in  his  written  texts  and  has  been  the  subject  of  television documentaries and  interviews  on  this  subject. However, Manufacturing Consent represents his  formal  statement  on  US  media-elite  relations. It contains  a  well- developed theory  of  media-elite  relations  and  a  large  quantity  of  empirical  case- study testing. Also the  media-foreign  policy  relationship  is  a  subject  area  that  has commanded significant  attention  from  political  communications  scholars. As such Chomsky’s media-foreign  policy  analysis  provides  a  specific  and  clearly  defined reference point against which to assess responses to his work. In this  article  we  show  that Manufacturing Consent has been  ignored  by  leading US academics working on the relationship between the media and US foreign policy. We argue that it cannot be the case that this work has been ignored by them because they disagree with the general thrust of its analysis of  media-political elite relations. Their understanding  of  news  media  and  its  relationship  to  US  foreign  policy  is  in many ways the same as that of  Herman and Chomsky. The standard liberal myth of the news media in the West – that it is independent of elite interests and provides the people with  the  information  necessary  to  ensure  that  they  can  hold  elites  and  in particular governments to democratic account – is rejected widely by academics who study the  news  media  and  US  foreign  policy,  although  this  self-image  is  routine amongst most  journalists. In contrast, the  most  common  and  empirically  substanti- ated perspective  is  that, with  respect  to  coverage  of  US  foreign  policy, on  balance, 554 Eric Herring and Piers Robinson 4
 * Thanks to Lance Bennett, Noam Chomsky, Christine Dann, Daniel Hallin, Edward Herman,

For this misinterpretation of Chomsky, see Andrew Marr’s comments in his televised BBC interview with Chomsky , The Big Idea , British Broadcasting Corporation, February 1996. Unofficial transcript at  5 Herman, Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent . the US  media  serve  elite  interests  and  undermine  democracy. The media  do  this  by portraying  the  world  in  a  way  that  tends  to  shape  the  perspective  of  those  entering the political  elite, generate  public  consent  for  or  at  least  acquiescence  to  US  foreign policy and make it difficult for the public to have access to information necessary to challenge the  interests  of  the  elite. This is  seen  to  operate  less  through  censorship than through a recruitment process that selects and rewards those who see the world in a way congenial and unchallenging to those elite interests. Uncongenial facts and framings usually  do  not  have  to  be  censored  because  they  are  mostly  not  even  per- ceived to  exist. Herman and  Chomsky  point  out  that  the  title Manufacturing Consent is actually a quote from mainstream author Walter Lippmann who saw this relationship as natural and proper. 6 Having outlined the general issues, our article now proceeds in the following steps to explain  the  marginalisation  of  the  work  of  Herman  and  Chomsky  and  why  it matters. First, we outline  Herman  and  Chomsky’s  propaganda  model. Second, we demonstrate its  overlap  with  that  of  two  influential  critical  analyses  of  the  relation- ship between  the  media  and  US  foreign  policy  by  Lance  Bennett  and  Daniel  Hallin. Bennett provides  an  analysis  of  the  everyday  operation  of  journalism  while  Hallin considers what  might  be  an  exception  to  that  pattern. Third, we show  that, subse- quently, eight  significant  studies  in  the  same  field  and  written  from  a  similar  per- spective draw  on  Bennett  and  Hallin  but  not  Herman  and  Chomsky. Fourth, we consider but reject a personal explanation of this marginalisation and offer instead an institutional  explanation. We argue  that  the  model  used  by  US  academia  to  explain the media’s  subservience  to  the  perspective  of  the  US  political  elite  is  broadly applicable to  the  operation  of  US  academia  itself. It has  internalised  a  myth  of objective  academia  while  remaining  silent  on  the  role  of  the  media  in  serving  not merely political  elite  interests  but  also  corporate  elite  interests  in  the  shaping  of coverage  of  US  foreign  policy. Furthermore, it  has  failed  to  provide  space  for questioning the  legitimacy  of  US  foreign  policy. In what  is  an  unusual  but  necessary move, we show that our own previous work suffered from many of  the flaws we have identified in  the  work  of  others. Finally, through  a  consideration  of  Chomsky’s critique, we discuss what is necessary to remedy those flaws. Herman and Chomsky’s propaganda model

In Manufacturing Consent , Herman and  Chomsky  set  out  their  propaganda  model. It explains why the agenda and framing of news reports on US foreign policy rarely deviate from  those  set  by  US  corporate  and  political  elites. Five filters  function  to shape  news  media  output,  which  we  label  in  turn  the  corporate,  advertising, sourcing, flak and ideological filter. First, the ‘size, ownership and profit orientation of mass  media’ and  their  shared  ‘common  interests. . .  with  other  major  corpor- ations, banks,  and  government’  creates  a  clash  of  interest  between  the  media’s supposed role  as  a  watchdog  of  the  elite  and  the  interests  of  that  elite. 7 Conse- The news media and US foreign policy 555 6 Ibid., p. xi; Walter Lippman, Public Opinion (London: Allen & Unwin, 1921); Noam Chomsky, Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies (London: Pluto Press, 1989), p. 16. 7 Herman, Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent , pp. 3, 14.

quently, news stories that run contrary to those vested interests are, on balance, less likely to  surface  than  those  consistent  with  the  world  view  of  major  corporate conglomerates. Second, media  reliance  on  advertising  revenue  introduces  a  further constraining link  between  the  news  media  and  the  interests  of  commerce. This reliance shapes  media  output  in  order  to  appeal  to  affluent  audiences, in  whom  the advertisers are most interested. It also limits the amount of critical and controversial programming because  advertisers  generally  want  ‘to  avoid  programs  with  serious complexities and  disturbing  controversies  that  interfere  with  the  “buying  mood” ’. 8 Hence, money  does  not  only  talk:  it  also  silences. Third, journalists  rely  over- whelmingly on elite sources when constructing the news. The need to supply a steady and rapid  flow  of  ‘important’ news  stories  combined  with  the  vast  public  relations apparatus of government and powerful interests more broadly means that journalists tend to become heavily reliant on public officials and corporate representatives when defining and  framing  the  news  agenda. Fourth, whenever  controversial  material  is actually  aired  it  generates  a  disproportionate  degree  of  ‘flak’  from  individuals connected with  powerful  interests  including  ‘corporate  community  sponsored. . . institutions’ 9 such as  the  Center  for  Media  and  Public  Affairs,  and  Accuracy  in Media  (AIM)  and  government  ‘spin  doctors’. 10 Such criticism  serves  to  caution editors and  journalists  against  putting  out  news  stories  that  are  ‘too’ controversial. Finally, Herman  and  Chomsky  highlight  the  importance  of  an  ideology  of  ‘anti- communism as  a  control  mechanism’ that  provided  journalists,  at  least  during  the Cold War, with a ready made template with which to ‘understand’ global events, and provided the  political  elite  with  a  powerful  rhetorical  tool  with  which  to  criticise  as unpatriotic anyone who questioned US foreign policy.

11 Whilst there may be grounds for questioning  the  specific  content  of  this  filter  following  the  collapse  of  most Communist states  and  the  internal  transformation  in  the  direction  of  capitalism  of many  of  those  that  remain, alternative  ideological  mechanisms, such  as  the  current ‘war on  terrorism’  have  broadly  the  same  effect  upon  news  output. Moreover, Herman and  Chomsky  make  clear  in  the  second  edition  of Manufacturing  Consent that ‘anti-communism’ was  part  of  a  broader  agenda  of  free  market  rhetoric, US economic  access  and  massive  state  subsidies  to  private  corporations. 12 It involved  a much  more  general  opposition  to  any  challenge  to  elite  interests  and  US  economic penetration of  any  state  be  it  of  the  left  or  right. Hence this  ideological  filter  con- tinues to be relevant to US foreign policy in the post-Cold War era.

The marginalisation of Herman and Chomsky As we  indicated  earlier,  the  propaganda  model  shares  many  similarities  with  the influential analyses of the media and US foreign policy by Bennett and Hallin. 13 We 556 Eric Herring and Piers Robinson 8 Ibid., p. 17. 9

Ibid., p. 27. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid., p. 29. 12 Herman, Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent , 2001, pp. vii-viii. 13 Daniel C. Hallin, The ‘Uncensored War’: The Media and Vietnam (London: University of California Press, 1986); Lance W. Bennett, ‘Toward a Theory of Press-State Relations in the United States’, Journal of Communication , 40:2 (1990), pp.103–25. now map  out  those  similarities  and  then  examine  the  divergent  attitudes  in  subse- quent scholarship to these studies. Bennett uses the label ‘indexing norm’ to refer to the journalistic routine of relying upon political elites when defining and framing the news agenda. He argues that: the presence of an ‘indexing norm’ shared at all levels of the news industry would keep the news compatible with the shifting political and economic interests of the state while enabling managers and directors to think and communicate in a relatively benign vocabulary of press responsibility and balanced journalism.

14 He concentrates on what is effectively the sourcing filter of the propaganda model in maintaining that journalists fall back on the vast volume of public relations material disseminated by  government  in  order  to  generate  a  steady  and  rapid  supply  of stories. 15 According to  Bennett,  the  indexing  hypothesis  ‘constitutes  a  quick  and easy guide for editors and reporters to use in deciding how to cover a story. It is a rule of thumb  that  can  be  defended  against  questions  from  uneasy  corporate  managers and concerned  citizens  alike’. 16 In applying  the  indexing  hypothesis  to  media  cover- age of US policy on Nicaragua during the 1980s, when Congress investigated covert Central Intelligence Agency operations against that country’s Sandinista government, Bennett finds that news coverage failed to present criticisms of official viewpoints. 17 He concludes: the media have helped create a political world that is, culturally speaking, upside-down. It is a world in which governments are able to define their own publics and where ‘democracy’ becomes whatever the government ends up doing.

18 The belief  is  widespread  that  US  media  coverage  during  the  Vietnam  War  departed from the  picture  painted  by  Bennett  and  was  oppositional  to  the  US  political  elite during the  war. However, Hallin’s  central  finding  in  The  ‘Uncensored  War’ is that media coverage  initially  reflected  the  consensus  among  the  US  political  elite  and then reflected the debates within it when it was divided over whether or not the war could be  won  at  a  cost  it  was  prepared  to  pay. Hence the  event  probably  most  cited as a  case  of  news  media  influence  on  government  actually  turns  out  to  be  a  case  of political elites becoming divided over policy with critical news coverage merely being a reflection of this. Hallin concludes, consistent with Herman and Chomsky, that the US media  rarely  produce  coverage  deviating  from  the  range  of  views  expressed  in Washington. The deference of US journalists to the US political elite is seen by Hallin to have been driven  by  two  factors. The first  was  the  ideology  of  the  Cold  War  (that  is, the ideological filter of the propaganda model). The second was the notion of ‘objective’ journalism (which is treated by Herman and Chomsky as a product of the operation of the  five  filters  of  the  propaganda  model).

19 According to  Hallin, the  ‘ideological system’ and ‘myth’ of  ‘objective’ journalism  developed  as  a  way  of  legitimising  the The news media and US foreign policy 557 14 Bennett, ‘Press-State Relations’, p. 109. 15 Ibid., p. 103. 16 Ibid., pp. 108–9. 17 Ibid., p. 113. 18 Ibid., p. 125. 19 Herman, Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent ,p.2. those who  are  organising  to  end  that  subservience. This does  mean  that  there  is  no space whatsoever for scholarship which critiques corporate power, opposes much of US foreign policy on grounds of  principle or is predicated on challenging the liberal myth of objective academia. As can be seen in

New Political Science , the journal of the American Political Science Association’s Caucus for a New Political Science , neo- Marxist scholars  in  particular  work  from  this  perspective,  and  Chomsky  is  a Professor  at  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology  and  Herman  an  Emeritus Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Chomsky challenges what he calls the dominant ‘commissar culture’ of academia more broadly  rather  than  simply  of  scholars  of  the  news  media  and  US  foreign policy. For Chomsky, academics in capitalist societies tend to be ideological managers who –  usually  unwittingly  –  shield  the  elite  of  which  they  are  a  part  from  serious scrutiny by  diverting  attention  from,  or  generating  ideological  rationales  for, their actions. 65

Those with  power  will  try  to  keep  it,  and  those  with  power  in  capitalist societies  are   primarily   political   elites   and   corporate   conglomerates. Existing institutions –  including  the  universities  and  governments  as  well  as  the  media  – function mainly  to  protect  the  interests  of  society’s  elite. This does  not  require conspiratorial coordination,  simply  rational  pursuit  of  perceived  self-interest. In protecting those  interests,  many  millions  of  people  are  killed  through  repressive violence and  denial  of  the  means  necessary  for  survival  despite  the  fact  that  the world has  more  than  enough  resources  to  meet  the  basic  needs  of  all. Through the social sciences  and  humanities  and  related  careers  such  as  journalism, people  often learn to be obedient and then to produce obedience in others. This is rewarded with inclusion and  advancement  deeper  into  the  elite. The greater  the  internalisation  of the  elite  perspective,  the  more  that  obedience  will  feel  like  freedom  and  lack  of constraint. 66 On the  whole,  social  science  research  gravitates  towards  innocuous work or directly anti-democratic work, that is, research which assists elite control of society. 67 In a  comment  that  applies  to  some  of  our  own  earlier  work  as  well  the work of  others  surveyed  in  this  article,  ‘part  of  the  genius. . .  of  the  higher education system  is  that  it  can  get  people  to  sell  out  even  while  they  think  they’re doing exactly  the  right  thing’.

68 The academics  surveyed  in  this  article  are  very committed to what they see as critical work. However, they operate without question- ing or  even  acknowledging  the  existence  of   elite  power  or  their  own  role  in buttressing  it, never  mind  assisting  those  who  are  organising  efforts  to  challenge  it. Such academics  are  neutralised  and  serve  to  mark  the  boundary  of  legitimate The news media and US foreign policy 567 65 In addition to the items in notes 41 and 59, see Mitchell, Schoeffel, Understanding Power ,ch.7. 66 Ibid., pp. 247–8. For a brilliant exploration of how all forms of professional training (including academic training) inculcate not only skills but also ideological discipline, and also how professionals can survive professional training with their values intact, see Jeff Schmidt, Disciplined Minds: A Critical Look at Salaried Professionals and the Soul-Battering System That Shapes Their Lives (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002) and Schmidt’s website  67 Mitchell, Schoeffel, Understanding Power , p. 239. 68 Ibid., p. 242. Although Chomsky discusses explicit efforts at censorship, his main concern is with a tendency towards internalisation of an elite perspective which makes conscious censorship or even self-censorship unnecessary. For a survey of claims of censorship across the political spectrum in US academic institutions in relation to commenting on the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, see John K. Wilson, The State of Academic Freedom, 2001–2002: A Report (2001)  critique. For example,  in  the  wake  of  the  9/11  attacks,  amongst  academics  we  can expect vast  amounts  of  support  for  enquiry  into  terrorist  threats  to  the  United States and  relatively  little  for  enquiry  into  US  support  for  terrorism. Chomsky’s work facilitates  the  consideration  of  these  important  issues  which  most  academics neglect.

It is not that academics are uncritical: that is the opposite of Chomsky’s position. Like journalists,  it  is  vitally  important  that  academics  are  critical  because  that criticism makes it look as if there is a serious debate. However, the boundaries of the debate are  drawn  in  such  a  way  that  more  fundamental  challenges  to  corporate  as well as political elites are rarely considered and rejected but made invisible or made to seem  completely  out  of  touch  with  reality. Chomsky focuses  primarily  on  the repression promoted  by  the  United  States, although  he  also  writes  about  repression by its official enemies. This is often treated by his critics such as Owens quoted at the beginning of this article as particularly damning, and proof  that he is not interested in opposing repression but in indulging anti-American self-flagellation. However, his position is  based  on  what  he  sees  as  moral  truisms  which  have  been  obscured  by indoctrination,  namely,  that  people  have  responsibility  for  the  foreseeable  conse- quences of  their  actions  and  that  they  should  concentrate  their  efforts  where  they will help  the  most  people. On the  whole, that  is  likely  to  be  within  their  own  state, and this  is  especially  the  case  with  the  United  States  which  he  sees  as  a  relatively open society. 69

Chomsky interprets the marginalisation of his work within academia as reassuring evidence that he is indeed challenging elite power while acknowledging that work  aimed  at  producing  more  political  space  for  analyses  which  contribute  to effective challenges to elite power is valuable. His central (and hence least addressed) point is  that  being  an  academic  while  doing  at  best  nothing  to  assist  those  who  are opposing the  exploitation  of  the  ordinary  people  who  pay  your  wages  is  morally reprehensible and  yet  is  made  normal  and  acceptable  by  the  class  structure  of society.

70 Chomsky gets immense numbers of invitations to speak at universities and sells many  books, and  so  one  might  conclude  from  this  that  he  is  not  marginalised. However, we have  shown  that  he  is  marginalised  by  the  academic  specialists  in  his area. More importantly, in the end this is not about Chomsky, but about the overall marginalisation of  the  perspective  which  he  represents. Analysis of  Chomsky’s marginalisation by  academia  is  worthwhile  only  to  the  extent  that  it  contributes  to academia  facing  up  to  its  responsibility  to  acknowledge  and  end  its  active  and passive participation in supporting elite interests. 568 Eric Herring and Piers Robinson 69 Ibid., pp. 286–8. 70 In Mitchell, Schoeffel, Understanding Power , pp. 351–5.