Media Ethics, Class 3: What is The Media Doing, What should they do?

Transcription

1 Media Ethics, Class 3: What is The Media Doing, What should they do? Today: A. Review B. Chomsky (the movie) A. Review Philosophy, and the accumulation of knowledge generally, is a collective undertaking that involves presenting arguments (reasons that support our beliefs), then criticizing and defending those arguments. There are, at least for the purposes of this course, objective and universal moral norms/rules/principles (i.e., cultural relativism and subjectivism are not sustainable views in a course that presupposes the existence of meaningful moral standards). McLuhan: the very study of human nature requires that we understand the message conveyed by the medium/tools/technology humans construct as a means of helping themselves in their projects. The Message of any particular technological innovation is, according to Mcluhan, determined by assessing the extent to which human life is changed with its introduction. So, in order to come to see/hear/understand the message that is the modern mass media (i.e., industrialized print, television, the internet, etc ), we need to reflect creatively about the way human existence changed since the innovations were introduced. That we need to do so follows from the fact that our general lack of awareness of the significance of a new technology Since we are not aware of the profundity of the change presented by a new technology, we will not be able to identify the dangers such changes might present.

2 If we want to assess the ethical status of the modern mass media, we need to identify the ethical rules/norms/principles that are applicable. Inasmuch as the rise of the modern mass media is historically connected with the rise of democracy, the ethical rules we use to assess the modern mass media as a whole will be uniquely political. Democracy is an ancient Greek word that translates as rule of the people point being that the word implies a particular understanding of political legitimacy, i.e., political authority depends on the consent of the governed. In order to give their consent (i.e., to make rational, free choices about their governance), citizens need to be informed. The means by which they will come to be informed is the Media. This is where the norms/rules/principles that are normally used to assess the Media come from In order to properly inform citizens, so those citizens can make the best informed choices in respect of political decisions, the Media needs to be: a. Objective/Independent: Not under the direct control of the Government (any branch). b. Critical: Not willing to simply accept the statements/information provided by government sources. c. Neutral: Not biased in favour of any of the several competing political groups (government or otherwise) competing for dominance. In other words, the Media needs to be a fourth, independent and critical branch of government that, like all the other branches, has obligations to their fellow citizens. If the media fails to provide information according to these three ideals, then we could argue that it is failing to fulfill its ethical obligations to citizens in a democratic society. Note, we could only argue that the Media is failing to fulfill these obligations if this really is what we think the media should be doing

3 As we ve seen in Chomsky, not everyone thinks that this is what the Media should be doing. B. What did we get out of Manufacturing Consent, the Movie? I. A Sense of the Conceptual Landscape in Terms of What the News Media Does/Should Do. There are four possible answers to two questions, and we should now have a sense of how they all fit together. The Questions are, as we have seen, 1. What does the news Media do, as a matter of fact? 2. What should the news Media do, as a question of value? And the answers we now have before us are: 1a. The Media does act as an objective, critical fourth branch of government. 2a. The Media should act as an objective, critical fourth branch of government. 1b. The Media does act as a propaganda machine designed to entrench and maintain existing power structures. 2b. The Media should act as a propaganda machine designed to entrench and maintain existing power structures. We should take note of, contrary perhaps to my introduction to 1a and 2a from week 2, that Chomsky offers historical evidence that suggests 1b and 2b have been around as understandings of the media as long as 1a and 2a. That is, a and b are historically competing understandings of the role news media does/should play in society. In terms of who takes what side, it should now be clear that Chomsky endorses 1b, and some version of 2a. The reason I say some version is that Chomsky never explicitly endorses the image of the news media as a fourth branch of government but he definitely does believe that the news media should be used as a tool to question existing social power structures, be they government or corporate.

4 It is also clear that people like Walter Lippmann (mentioned by Chomsky), Leo Strauss (mentioned by me, now) and members of the powerful elite generally, endorse 2b. They also probably endorse something like 1b, though it would be odd to hear them make these sorts of endorsements publicly because presumably the public would not be happy to hear Chomsky is right. So who endorses 1a? Presumably, some media practioners, and more importantly, the public at-large. That is, most of us do believe that the media is free from, at the very least, government interference. And while we might believe that corporations control the media, I don t think that most of us believe that corporate control imposes the sort of bias that Chomsky clearly thinks it does. If we (society at large) did believe Chomsky s claims, how could we leave this situation intact? The assumption that follows is that society also endorses 2a. II. A Sense of How the Five Media Filters Work. The comparison between the media coverage of the atrocities in East Timor and Cambodia are supposed to be evidence of the five filters at work. In his book Manufacturing Consent, Chomsky doesn t actually perform the comparison we saw in the movie, though he does discuss the circumstances and media coverage of Cambodia throughout the 1970 s in detail. If Chomsky s position has any merit, we should be able to figure out how the filters are supposed to be at work in this example armed merely with our understanding of the filters. But first, we need a list of the relevant facts. There are four relevant comparative facts that, in combination, I think Chomsky s filters need to be able to explain if they are going to be able to provide a plausible interpretation: a. From parallel atrocities (i.e., innocent civilians were killed in large numbers) took place in Cambodia at the hands of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge and in East Timor at the hands of Indonesia.

5 b. The atrocities in Cambodia were widely reported in the Western News media, to the point of absurd exaggeration. The atrocities in East Timor received almost no Western media attention. c. The reign of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge was the product of a populist, communist uprising, not the group supported (funded) by the West (US) during the civil war that took place from d. The Indonesian government that invaded East Timor was a tyrannical dictatorship supported by the US, and the invasion itself created an increase in sales by Western arms manufacturers. So, if Chomsky s Propaganda Model is useful, we should be able to apply its five parts to these four facts in such a way that they yield a compelling/plausible explanation of how the facts of this story unfolded. NOTE: It is not the case that the interpretation of events understood through Chomsky s lens has to produce THE ONLY plausible interpretation of events for his Propaganda Model to be useful. 1. Media is big business, related to all other businesses. All businesses share the same motive, i.e., profit. If the actions of one business threaten the profit of another, then those actions have the potential to threaten all profit making, i.e., to threaten capitalism. For one profit maker (i.e., the media) to threaten the profit making of another profit maker (i.e., arms manufacturers) is therefore to admit the possibility that this action will undermine the original profit maker s future ability to generate profits. So in the context of East Timor and Cambodia, media reports of US involvement with Indonesia would threaten to undermine the profits being generated by that invasion (on the assumption that the US population would force US government and businesses to stop supporting the invasion if they knew about it). Profits were not, however, being generated in Cambodia, so media reports on that topic present no threat to profit.

6 2. Advertising. This filter is obviously part of the story of the first filter this is how nonmedia, non-arms companies have an influence. The idea is that if a media company threatens to expose the wrongdoing of an arms company, then other non-arms corporations might be concerned that the media would expose their wrongdoing. The fear would then be that these non-media corporations will withhold their advertising dollars from the media corporation in question, affecting the media corporation s profits. So again, to the extent that the atrocities in East Timor represented a profit for Western corporations, there was a strong disincentive for the media to report those events. No profit in Cambodia, no disincentive. 3. Sources. In the notes to Manufacturing Consent, a lot of Chomsky s references come from the New York Times. We know, based on reading the first chapter and the movie that the New York Times is for Chomsky, the emperor s lapdog. That is, the New York Times is the mouthpiece for the powerful elite. It sets the agenda accordingly, and it chose to report extensively on the atrocities in Cambodia, not those in East Timor. The assumption has to be that the reason the New York Times itself chose to report Cambodia and not East Timor has to do with the other filters, and with the PRESUMED fact that the Times received its information from official government or corporate sources. I have no evidence that this is/was the case, but we can infer that Chomsky would at least believe it to be true (he probably has some evidence). 4. Flak. Chomsky made no mention in the movie of flak with respect to Cambodia and East Timor.

7 That having been said, we can guess that IF there was flak in this instance, it was probably not designed to prevent reporting on East Timor. In this instance, it was probably loads of flak designed to promote reporting on Cambodia. Why? Because the atrocities in Cambodia were an exemplar of filter #5. Ironically, the one type of flak that was reported in the movie was the flak created by those trying to draw attention to the invasion of East Timor (including Chomsky). The fact that these efforts did not succeed (until 1999) likely shows us something else about flak; the people exercising it need to be able to actually intimidate the media corporation. 5. Anti-Communism Think of how perfectly Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge fulfill the requirements of the anti-communism filter. They are the paradigmatic example of the wrongdoing/injustice promoted as an intrinsic part of communism. That is, if you re a nation bent on convincing your population that communism, and by extension communists, are intrinsically evil (i.e., the US), there s nothing you could want to publicize more than the brutal actions of a communist leader. East Timor was shaping up to be a relatively peaceful communist state, and was subject to an external invasion, so it does not provide a similar example of the moral corruption of communism. To make this application of Chomsky s Propaganda Model better, we would need more facts about the nature and motivation for the reporting on Cambodia as opposed to East Timor, specifically to answer questions about filters #3 and 4. That having been said, I think the account I have provided here is roughly the account Chomsky would provide. Whether this account offers a plausible explanation of the fact that atrocities in Cambodia were widely reported while similar atrocities in East Timor were not, is up to you to decide.

8 III. Other Interesting Questions from Chomsky s Movie. a. Libertarianism: Right and Left? Typically, Libertarianism is the political philosophy that all persons should be free from government interference. It began in the US following their historical emphasis on being free from government interference. In its most common form, Libertarianism is right-leaning because Libertarians (e.g., Robert Nozick and David Gauthier) believe that, when free from government intereference, individuals will choose a free-market system of interaction, one that emphasizes the importance of private property. But Chomsky presents a left-leaning version of Libertarianism; when individuals are free from government/corporate interference, they will choose to live in an egalitarian society that has no unjustifiable power structures. Why am I explaining this bit? Because it helps to shed light on a question you re probably asking, i.e., what will the world look like if we follow Chomsky s recommendation and question all power structures, removing those that cannot be justified? It would be an egalitarian world, characterized by the free and productive association of individuals, with no unjustified power structures amongst individuals/groups. b. Falsifiability? How much of a problem is it for Chomsky s view that every instance of investigative journalism actually offers support for his view? To ask this question is to raise a concern first arising in the philosophy of science If everything I could possibly cite as evidence against your theory counts in favour of your theory, then there are no conditions under which your view could be false.

9 In other words, in order to present a theory (Theory X) that can make reliable explanations of and predictions about empirical causes, we need to be able to specify what conditions would need to be like in order to show that Theory X is false. If we cannot specify those conditions, then Theory X is not falsifiable. Theory X is not necessarily wrong if it is not falsifiable, but it does mean that there is no basis to disagree with Theory X because no matter what objections are presented, Theory X bends and adapts to the challenge. So is Chomsky s position not falsifiable? Does it matter? c. Conspiracy Theory or Institutional Interpretation? Is Chomsky s assertion that his view is not a conspiracy theory plausible/compelling? Surely if the propaganda model worked with the sort of effectiveness he attributes to it, it would demand some species of explicit direction. If it is a conspiracy theory, does that guarantee that it s wrong? Next Time: We ll consider two types of objection to Chomsky s view.