BREAKING: Discover How A Slacker Makes $100,000 A Year!

WEBMASTERS! Get Your Website To The Top Of Google

How not to do a PhD on George Orwell

Thursday, November 6th, 2008

By Horatio Morpurgo | Any English-speaker to whom Vaclav Havel has mattered owes a debt they’re probably unaware of to Paul Wilson. His work as the Czech writer’s translator began thirty years ago but I discover, over a cup of coffee off Russell Square, that he first came to London from his native Canada ten years before that, to do a PhD on George Orwell. He’s dapper, friendly, the blonde hair mostly silver now. But as we talk the subject of those earlier studies recurs time after time.

As a post-graduate in London in the mid-sixties Wilson happened on a season of the new Czech cinema and felt attracted to its atmosphere. The PhD was left uncompleted: Orwell’s clairvoyance about Stalinism was already then proverbial – and already then controversial for many on the left – but clairvoyant is just what it was: except for very briefly in Barcelona, he had no direct experience of it.

It was in search of such experience that a younger, foot-loose Wilson travelled on to Czechoslovakia in 1967, where he taught English, learnt Czech and sang in a rock-band until being forcibly expelled in 1977. Those were the days. It was in Prague, not London, that he found writers and artists who seemed to be taking up where Orwell had left off. For the Czechs at that time, he explains, Orwell, ‘especially in 1984, was too pessimistic about the future of humankind… he under-estimated the natural ability of people to dig under Newspeak and create their own living language.’

The fluent Czech speaker who landed back in Canada was soon translating Vaclav Havel’s justly famous essay on this theme, The Power of the Powerless. It’s an exploration of the ways in which people do in fact, both spiritually and practically, resist dictatorship – and it’s an eloquent rejoinder to Orwell’s fatalism. Wilson’s own search for a ‘living language’ was by now well underway. The fiction by Bohumil Hrabal and Josef Škvorecky to which he also turned his hand, ‘represented the political reality that people were living without being explicit about it.’ It was their very lightness of touch which made them so threatening to a regime hampered by its own humourlessness.

Then was then, of course. For those who control our contemporary mediascape, humourlessness is not so much a symptom of existential malaise – it’s just the ultimate PR howler. ‘It’s harder to get around PR speak,’ as Wilson puts it, ‘because it’s a cleverer form of manipulation.’ But his work with the kind of language which opposes it, however undemonstratively, has continued. What had taken him to London and then on to Prague continued back in his native Canada: he edited literary magazines and got by as a freelancer for CBC and others. Such is the direction many in search of a living language end up taking – and that search is as troubled now as it ever has been.

In the anglosphere Orwell’s reputation, that barometer of political unease, has undergone a dramatic revival over the past decade. It’s English- not Czech-speakers these days who are anxiously holding up his dystopia alongside their own reality, for comparison. It is in Whitehall, after all, not Hradčany, that a man can now be arrested when he holds up a placard reading ‘In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.’ For thus quoting Orwell in too close proximity to Number 10 Downing Street, Steven Jago was charged under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act, passed by the present government.

‘With the hindsight offered by history,’ as Drew Westen recently put it, ‘it’s fair to say that Orwell got the title of his book wrong by two decades. His seminal novel should have been called 2004.’ It’s not so much ‘that Big brother rules,’ another American, Martin Kaplan, has suggested, ‘but rather that entertainment reigns.’

You might think there would be little patience with such talk in today’s Central and Eastern Europe, most of which was quick to sign up to Bush’s ‘Coalition of the Willing’. Wilson can confirm: ‘OK, the bloom is off the rose as far as market capitalism goes in the Czech Republic, but I don’t think they quite understand the extent to which this PR speak and the Big Lie approach to politics have really taken over… The wars in 1984 have no other purpose than to keep people in a state of perpetual fear – the politics of fear may not be central to Orwell’s thinking but they’re certainly central to the way Bush has governed.’

The new play which Wilson is in London for, however, Havel’s first for twenty years, points to a new awareness of how badly let down ‘New Europe’ has been by its complacency about today’s PR speak. Mafia capitalists have taken over the post-Communist state where the action is set. The country’s vain, bombastic former President continues to treat his family and the occasional reporter to speeches about ‘putting the individual at the centre of politics.’ One by one the other characters repeat this phrase back at him, out and out gangsters included, until the message is clear: the promise to ‘put the individual at the centre of politics’ means in effect whatever suits the individual who is making the promise. For Wilson, ‘it’s a play about people who use the institutions and language of democracy to establish if not absolute then a very authoritarian kind of power.’

It’s a play, then, about concerns many in the English-speaking world now share, but none of the London reviews picked up on this. Wilson: ‘In the London production the former president is played as a bit of a buffoon, but he doesn’t have to be. In the Czech production his capitulation to the new order played more on an element of the sinister.’ More specifically it heralds the return of a surveillance society.

That nothing was made of this in the very country, Britain, where state surveillance is now the most intrusive in Europe, is itself noteworthy. Havel’s hero-status suits us just fine: it permits us to admire without listening. Or perhaps, as some reviewers suggested, the very medium of theatre for messages like this is now something of a throw-back. The translator’s art in particular, with all that meticulous verbal stitching and unstitching, might seem perhaps at best unglamorous, at worst downright quaint. Ill-suited to the present, anyway: just who in their right minds is banking on prose style or snappy dialogue in a world like this?

Actually all kinds of people are. Our ‘language of democracy’, or modern PR speak, is often written much more carefully the Newspeak Orwell satirised. As Wilson himself says, as a form of manipulation it is far cleverer than its predecessors. But translating from ‘obscure’ languages, reporting on far-away countries of which we know very little, editing small magazines – the kind of culture Wilson has devoted himself to suggests something we tend to overlook perhaps. That one way round PR speak might be via the right kind of attachment to something we already know.

We do ourselves a disservice when we overplay the impact of PR on human nature. Novelists and playwrights have after all understood, for centuries and millennia respectively, what advertisers and political advisers have only in the last few decades fully grasped: it’s stories that people listen to. Money which wants to talk has learnt to bear that in mind.

Writers as distinct from advertisers, however, have continued to insist on an idea the PR professionals long ago discarded: that severed from its roots in the truth, no story can flourish for long. The PR industry was built up on a very different premise: uncouple your story from any corresponding reality, it says, then repeat it often enough, flavour it with pleasurable associations, and people will go on listening. Even if they scoff outwardly, just enough inside each member of your audience will go on listening to make the continual repetitions worthwhile.

To that extent the mixture of trivia, crisis porn and political advertising which now passes for ‘news’ presents us with an authentically new problem, but is the vigilance it requires of us so unprecedented? The skills cultivated by good writers are essentially those by which we keep the stories we tell responsive to what is actually happening around us.

Wilson quotes the motto from Orwell at the top of a well known blogsite which he follows and which has set out to track each lie told during the US Presidential campaign. That’s a tall order but the motto runs ‘To see what is in front of your nose needs a constant struggle.’ It was as a novelist himself that Orwell once said that he had wanted above all ‘to make political writing into an art’. Far from some retreat into subjectivism he meant it should be held to the most exacting standards there are. The ghost of that unfinished PhD hovers over our discussion.

It is by operating within a verbal and narrative syntax which may not seem at all outwardly ‘original’ that genuine writing achieves its originality now. ‘When I was at school we were given these exercises where there was a sentence with a mistake in it which you had to find and correct,’ Wilson fondly recalls, ‘or there was a bad sentence and you had to turn it into a good one, or a weak sentence, say, and you had to turn it into a strong one.’

The inconspicuous labour of reading, understanding and then transposing a literary text from one language into another is surely as radical a challenge to the present mediascape as any. Because to translate well is never to translate merely from one language into another, but from one sensibility and history into another. To translate well is to believe in the kind of language which grows from an author’s clear-sighted, patiently integrated vision up, even if there is more and more language which grows from some well funded plausible deception down. Done properly, the creating and translation of such work cannot but mitigate against the sound-bite and the slogan, against everything slick and misleading.

Dvorak in Love, the superb novel by Josef Škvorecky, to take one example, had to be re-organised in its entirety because its narrative structure in Czech assumed an outline familiarity with the composer’s life, and with the emigrant experience of Czechs in North America. This could not be assumed for an English-speaking audience.

Wilson and Škvorecky collaborated and a new work emerged. To translate is often to act effectively as an editor too, which can require the skills of a diplomat as much as those of a linguist. ‘There’s this huge suspicion of editors in what was Czechoslovakia, because of the history of censorship – so you can talk even now to young writers who will say ‘Do not touch my work – I want it exactly the way it is.’ Even Havel can be like that.’

This version of culture, then, starts from a personal engagement with a particular vision and a particular place. It can only work as a collaborative venture. ‘A life that is not dedicated to that which gives it meaning is not worth living,’ the philosopher Jan Patočka once wrote – the quote is as rendered into English by Wilson, as quoted in a prison letter of Havel’s. In our ratings-driven world such sentiments might seem a risky strategy but they have always been a risky strategy: Patočka himself died ‘whilst in Police custody’ in 1977. Western societies have since perfected more entertaining ways to call off the search for a living language.

That the search for it continues is not only the achievement of the Orwells and the Havels – though they tend to get most of the credit. It is decisively down to the Paul Wilsons too. And if the present cycle of perpetual war abroad justifying ever more controls at home, is going to be broken, ‘old-fashioned’ literary culture like this could come in useful. Its long experience of how to phrase the awkward questions is still worth listening to.

Have Your Say: How not to do a PhD on George Orwell
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Obama advisers discuss preparations for war on Iran

Thursday, November 6th, 2008

By Peter Symonds | On the eve of the US elections, the New York Times cautiously pointed on Monday to the emergence of a bipartisan consensus in Washington for an aggressive new strategy towards Iran. While virtually nothing was said in the course of the election campaign, behind-the-scenes top advisers from the Obama and McCain camps have been discussing the rapid escalation of diplomatic pressure and punitive sanctions against Iran, backed by preparations for military strikes.

The article entitled “New Beltway Debate: What to do about Iran” noted with a degree of alarm: “It is a frightening notion, but it not just the trigger-happy Bush administration discussing—if only theoretically—the possibility of military action to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program… [R]easonable people from both parties are examining the so-called military option, along with new diplomatic initiatives.”

Behind the backs of American voters, top advisers for President-elect Barack Obama have been setting the stage for a dramatic escalation of confrontation with Iran as soon as the new administration takes office. A report released in September from the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington-based think tank, argued that a nuclear weapons capable Iran was “strategically untenable” and detailed a robust approach, “incorporating new diplomatic, economic and military tools in an integrated fashion”.

A key member of the Center’s task force was Obama’s top Middle East adviser, Dennis Ross, who is well known for his hawkish views. He backed the US invasion of Iraq and is closely associated with neo-cons such as Paul Wolfowitz. Ross worked under Wolfowitz in the Carter and Reagan administrations before becoming the chief Middle East envoy under presidents Bush senior and Clinton. After leaving the State Department in 2000, he joined the right-wing, pro-Israel think tank—the Washington Institute for Near East Policy—and signed up as a foreign policy analyst for Fox News.

The Bipartisan Policy Center report insisted that time was short, declaring: “Tehran’s progress means that the next administration might have little time and fewer options to deal with this threat.” It rejected out-of-hand both Tehran’s claims that its nuclear programs were for peaceful purposes, and the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate by US intelligence agencies which found that Iran had ended any nuclear weapons program in 2003.

The report was critical of the Bush administration’s failure to stop Iran’s nuclear programs, but its strategy is essentially the same—limited inducements backed by harsher economic sanctions and the threat of war. Its plan for consolidating international support is likewise premised on preemptive military action against Iran. Russia, China and the European powers are all to be warned that their failure to accede to tough sanctions, including a provocative blockade on Iranian oil exports, will only increase the likelihood of war.

To underscore these warnings, the report proposed that the US would need to immediately boost its military presence in the Persian Gulf. “This should commence the first day the new president enters office, especially as the Islamic Republic and its proxies might seek to test the new administration. It would involve pre-positioning US and allied forces, deploying additional aircraft carrier battle groups and minesweepers, [and] emplacing other war materiel in the region,” it stated.

In language that closely parallels Bush’s insistence that “all options remain on the table”, the report declared: “We believe a military strike is a feasible option and must remain a last resort to retard Iran’s nuclear program.” Such a military strike “would have to target not only Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, but also its conventional military infrastructure in order to suppress an Iranian response.”

Significantly, the report was drafted by Michael Rubin, from the neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute, which was heavily involved in promoting the 2003 invasion of Iraq. A number of Obama’s senior Democratic advisers “unanimously approved” the document, including Dennis Ross, former senator Charles Robb, who co-chaired the task force, and Ashton Carter, who served as assistant secretary for defense under Clinton.

Carter and Ross also participated in writing a report for the bipartisan Center for a New American Security, published in September, which concluded that military action against Iran had to be “an element of any true option”. While Ross examined the diplomatic options in detail, Carter laid out the “military elements” that had to underpin them, including a cost/benefit analysis of a US aerial bombardment of Iran.

Other senior Obama foreign policy and defense advisers have been closely involved in these discussions. A statement entitled, “Strengthening the Partnership: How to deepen US-Israel cooperation on the Iranian nuclear challenge”, drafted in June by a Washington Institute for Near East Policy task force, recommended the next administration hold discussions with Israel over “the entire range of policy options”, including “preventative military action”. Ross was a taskforce co-convener, and top Obama advisers Anthony Lake, Susan Rice and Richard Clarke all put their names to the document.

As the New York Times noted on Monday, Obama defense adviser Richard Danzig, former navy secretary under Clinton, attended a conference on the Middle East convened in September by the same pro-Israel think tank. He told the audience that his candidate believed that a military attack on Iran was a “terrible” choice, but “it may be that in some terrible world we will have to come to grips with such a terrible choice”. Richard Clarke, who was also present, declared that Obama was of the view that “Tehran’s growing influence must be curbed and that Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon is unacceptable.” While “his first inclination is not to pull the trigger,” Clarke stated, “if circumstances required the use of military force, Obama would not hesitate.”

While the New York Times article was muted and did not examine the reports too deeply, writer Carol Giacomo was clearly concerned at the parallels with the US invasion of Iraq. After pointing out that “the American public is largely unaware of this discussion,” she declared: “What makes me nervous is that’s what happened in the run-up to the Iraq war.”

Giacomo continued: “Bush administration officials drove the discussion, but the cognoscenti were complicit. The question was asked and answered in policy circles before most Americans know what was happening… As a diplomatic correspondent for Reuters in those days, I feel some responsibility for not doing more to ensure that the calamitous decision to invade Iraq was more skeptically vetted.”

The emerging consensus on Iran in US foreign policy circles again underscores the fact that the differences between Obama and McCain were purely tactical. While millions of Americans voted for the Democratic candidate believing he would end the war in Iraq and address their pressing economic needs, powerful sections of the American elite swung behind him as a better vehicle to prosecute US economic and strategic interests in the Middle East and Central Asia—including the use of military force against Iran.

Have Your Say: Obama advisers discuss preparations for war on Iran
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Forget ID cards, those in charge can’t keep anything secret

Thursday, November 6th, 2008

By Ross Brewster  | It’s exactly a year since a computer disc holding the details of 25 million people mysteriously went missing.

You would think that a Government still misguidedly propagating the idea of ID cards would, at the very least, have tidied up its act over the protection of information about the public.

But no. Since last November there has been a catalogue of incidents which show that Whitehall still has a casual disregard for the security of this data.

Data protection is often used as an effective block on us getting hold of important information.

Yet the protection of data about us, by government departments, is about as lax as it can get.

Why, even a Government Minister, in this case Works and Pensions Secretary John Purnell, left confidential papers on a train.

Mr Purnell was luckier than the intelligence officer who was fined for leaving classified documents on a commuter train.

The Department of Works and Pensions reared its ugly head again recently when a memory stick relating to its computer system was found lying in a pub car park.

Well, I’ve heard of taking work home with you. But this is ridiculous.

What on earth is going on when staff can simply remove bits out of computers containing what may well be sensitive data, and wander off home for the weekend.

The level of complacency is terrifying. Inevitably one of these security lapses is going to lead to serious trouble. Possibly the acquisition of home addresses of the military might even fall into the hands of terrorists.

ID cards will cost an arm and a leg to introduce. There is no clear evidence that they will be effective.

The Government has not made out a convincing case for them and it certainly hasn’t shown a capacity to handle them responsibly.

We are already in danger of being snooped upon at every street corner, even in our own homes, by Big Brother bureaucrats.

Every new case of mislaid data makes you wonder just who has information about us and how secure it is.

They shouldn’t be bringing in new measures until they have proved they can be trusted with what they have pinned on us now.

Have Your Say: Forget ID cards, those in charge can’t keep anything secret
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

City Airport to run ID cards trial

Thursday, November 6th, 2008

By Danny Brierley |

LONDON City Airport has agreed to a trial of the Government’s identity card scheme, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith was due to announce today.

Workers at the site in Newham and at Manchester Airport will be the first to be issued with biometric cards, which will contain fingerprint information.

The airports will roll out the cards during an 18-month evaluation period.

A Home Office spokesman denied the trial was a scaling back of plans unveiled this year for up to 200,000 airport workers to carry the cards from the middle of next year.

The Government will waive a £30 fee for the cards in a concession to the airline industry and unions, who objected to being the guinea pig for the scheme.

Ms Smith is also set to reveal the latest cost for the scheme, estimated at £4.7billion over 10 years.

The British Air Transport Association said plans for airport staff to be the first British nationals to carry the cards were “half-baked”. Its secretary general Roger Wiltshire said airport workers were already subject to rigorous security checks.

Foreign nationals from outside the EU will become the first to be issued with the cards from 25 November.

Have Your Say: City Airport to run ID cards trial
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Post Offices could take your fingerprints

Thursday, November 6th, 2008

By Karl Flinders | Government will ask businesses to bid to become centres to collect biometric data for ID cards, in the latest move in its plan to create a biometric database of the population.

 

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is today expected to call on businesses to help the government run booths where people could give their fingerprints.

The Post Office is being tipped to be one of the companies that could provide this service.

A Post Office spokesman said, “The Post Office is very pleased to have the opportunity to explore new work from the Home Office as any new business we can get helps strengthen and secure the future of the Post Office network.”

Prime Minister Gordon Brown plans to introduce ID cards at a cost of £5.4bn over 10 years. The national identity card scheme will be launched this month with ID cards issued to foreign nationals from outside the European Economic Area.

The project has been criticisedby campaigners and MPs following recent losses of personal data from government departments.

Shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve slammed the “creeping growth of a surveillance society” at the Conservative Party conference.

He said the public was “fed up with the creeping growth of a surveillance society, which intrudes into their private lives and loses their personal data”.

Grieve said the government had “created the worst of all worlds”. It had increased surveillance while levels of crime had heightened. “We’re less free. We’re less safe,” he claimed.

Have Your Say: Post Offices could take your fingerprints
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Daunting Set of Crises Face First “Wartime” Transition Since 1968

Thursday, November 6th, 2008

By Jason Ditz |

President-elect Barack Obama will be the first United States President inaugurated during wartime since Richard Nixon won the 1968 presidential election in the midst of the Vietnam War. And while the Pentagon says that they are prepared to make the transition as smooth as possible, the new administration faces a myriad of challenges both foreign and domestic that won’t lend themselves to the new president taking his time getting comfortable with his new position.

Technically, of course, neither was a “wartime,” as neither was a declared war. The last time Congress issued a formal Declaration of War was on June 5, 1942, when they declared war on Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania.

Obama will work to repair the harm done to trans-Atlantic ties by the Bush Administration and seems eager to increase the number of US troops in Afghanistan as soon as he can. As for Iraq, however, US Ambassador Ryan Crocker says the US policy there will not change on January 20.

But the challenges don’t end with Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama will also be expected to tackle growing unrest in Pakistan over the unilateral US strikes he has been a staunch advocate of. He will face decisions on improving diplomatic ties with North Korea and Cuba. He will likely also have to do something about Syrian relations harmed by a US raid just nine days before the election.

And then there’s Iran. President-elect Obama left open the possibility of talks with Iran, though not without preconditions, during the presidential debates. But he’ll also struggle with his promise to ratchet up sanctions on the nation, and may face decisions on whether or not to back a new Israeli administration that may wish to launch an attack on the Iranians.

Have Your Say: Daunting Set of Crises Face First “Wartime” Transition Since 1968
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

NewScientist: Packs of robots will hunt down uncooperative humans

Thursday, November 6th, 2008

NewScientist | The latest request from the Pentagon jars the senses. At least, it did mine. They are looking for contractors to provide a “Multi-Robot Pursuit System” that will let packs of robots “search for and detect a non-cooperative human”.

One thing that really bugs defence chiefs is having their troops diverted from other duties to control robots. So having a pack of them controlled by one person makes logistical sense. But I’m concerned about where this technology will end up.

Given that iRobot last year struck a deal with Taser International to mount stun weapons on its military robots, how long before we see packs of droids hunting down pesky demonstrators with paralysing weapons? Or could the packs even be lethally armed? I asked two experts on automated weapons what they thought - click the continue reading link to read what they said.

Have Your Say: NewScientist: Packs of robots will hunt down uncooperative humans
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

17 US Attacks On Pakistan Since September - Media Applauds

Thursday, November 6th, 2008

By Bzangy Groink |

One of the issues most vexing to Pakistan is the ongoing missile strikes by US unmanned Predator drones, or UAVs, into Pakistan’s tribal areas.
Since 1 September, there have been at least 17 of these strikes and, while US officials say al-Qaeda leaders are being successfully targeted, local tribesmen say scores of civilians have been killed.

(Source: BBC News)

Look at this picture.

Notice anything strange about it?

It shows the result of illegal US bombing of Pakistan, via robot drones. It shows one of many building destroyed in 17 separate such terrorist attacks. And the words under the picture read:

“Damage to civilian life and property is making Pakistan’s leaders uneasy”

Now, imagine a picture of the 7/7 London bombings. Visualise the carnage and imagine a subtitle saying, “Damage to civilian life and property is making Britain’s leaders uneasy.”

Our leaders weren’t “uneasy,” they were, as any sane person would be, angry and outraged. British people were murdered by an act of terror. Our media, rightly, was horrified by the attacks.

But, apparently, when Pakistanis get killed by 17 US missile attacks, that doesn’t warrant the same outrage. Instead, the whole of the article I quote sees the death of innocent Pakistanis as an unfortunate side-effect of the USA’s commendable pursuit of al-Qaeda. The article worries, not about the loss of civilian life but how effective the attacks are!

There is no outrage at the innocent Pakistanis killed by missiles fired by US drone planes. None whatsoever.

Our media is so in the pocket of the US, so in thrall to its holy crusade against whoever-it-pleases that normal morality goes out of the window. And the article hints, without any proof, that Pakistan’s leaders probably secretly okayed the attacks.

So that’s okay then. After all, if our government agreed to let us be bombed and killed by a foreign nation, that would make our deaths totally un-important too, wouldn’t it?

If you think I’m over-reacting, please just do this. Replace the countries in the article and see if it still makes any sense. How about:

“Britain launched 17 missile attacks on rural areas of Ireland, killing scores of civilians. But they were successful in killing two IRA leaders.”

Would that be okay? Would that be as under-reported in the media as these attacks have been?

Have Your Say: 17 US Attacks On Pakistan Since September - Media Applauds
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Mass Media and Mass Politics

Thursday, November 6th, 2008

By James Petras |

The role of the mass media (MM) in influencing mass and class behavior has been a central concern among critical writers, especially since the turn of the Twentieth century.  Debates and studies on the MM have focused on its political bias, ownership and links to big business, relationships and ties to the state, relative openness and diversity, promotion of wars and corporate interests among other major issues affecting the relations of power, wealth and empire.  Of particular interest to writers opposing and supporting the role of the MM is the impact of the MM in influencing mass outlook, opinions and behaviors.  Essays, monographs and empirical studies have been published as to the extent of MM influence, the time frame in which it retains control, the ‘depth’ of loyalty to MM inculcated opinions, and the ‘place’ in which MM messages have the greatest influence in inducing mass opinion in conformity with ruling class interests.

            An understanding of the role and power of the MM in contemporary capitalist society requires us to organize the debate according to three major schools – conservative, liberal and Marxist – before proceeding to a critical analysis and finally presenting notes towards setting alternatives to elite-controlled communications networks.

Competing Paradigms: Conservative, Liberal and Marxist

            There are three paradigms on the role, power and relation of the mass media to mass opinion and action:  the conservative, liberal and Marxist.

            The Conservative, or ‘pluralist’ paradigm, propagated largely by US and European social scientists emphasizes the multiple voices, competing networks and outlets and diversity of opinions.  The conservative – ‘pluralists’, contend that even if the ownership of the mass media is concentrated and its message biased in favor of the status quo, the mass media are simply one ‘resource’, countered by other ‘resources’ such as ‘large numbers’ of low income voters.  Though conceding the unequal access to the mass media between labor and capital,  pro-war regimes and anti-war opposition, they argue the opposition does have some outlets, numerous writers and publicists: Control over the mass media is ‘unequal but dispersed’.  Moreover, they argue, that with the growth of the internet, there are multiple sources of information, and the mass media monopoly has been severely diluted, in effect ‘democratizing’ the ‘communication system’.  The more astute pluralist ideologues cite empirical studies, which show that most individuals’ views are shaped by their family, friends and neighbors – face-to-face relations, much more so than the ‘impersonal media’.  In summary, the conservative argue there is no all powerful mass media power elite, and to the extent that it exists, it is counterbalanced by alternative media, local opinion and its own tolerance of diverse and competing opinions.

The Liberal Paradigm of the Mass Media

            The liberal paradigm describes the MM as the key instrument of ruling class domination in a liberal democracy.  Beginning with a historical account of the concentration of ownership in the hands of a small number of corporations interlocked with business and the state, the MM is seen as an essential component in the ‘system of control’ which perpetuates the ruling class and empire-building by its control and indoctrination of mass opinion.  The majority are converted into a malleable mass, induced to conformity to the interests and policies of the ruling class, thus preventing change and perpetuating the rule by the corporate elite.  For the liberals the top-down control by the mass media explains the ‘paradox’ of a highly unequal, military-driven empire in the context of a free and democratic political system.  The principle role of the academics is to convince other academics to unmask the media, to expose its fabrications, deceptions and hypocrisy, by emphasizing the ‘contradictions’ between ‘our’ democratic values and the lies of the powerful.  The more radical version of the ‘liberal’ view of the mass media attributes the high degree of consensus between elite and masses in the United States to the omnipresence and omniscience of the mass media.

Marxist Critique

            The Marxist approach to the mass media begins necessarily with a critique of the conservative and liberal perspectives.  Against the conservative critique, it points out that ‘power’ is not a disembodied resource but a relationship in which the owners of wealth and power can multiply and accumulate political and economic assets.  The presumption that ‘everyone’ or all groups can have some influence overlooks the fact that ownership of the means of communication is linked to other powerful economic groups, which wield power over banks, investment, trust funds, and these, in turn, influence political leaders and parties controlling legislation, candidate selection and government spending and agendas: this undermines the foundations and validity of the pluralist paradigm.  On all the major events of our time, the mass media loyally echoed the political line of the capitalist state, justifying the invasion of Iraq, the demonizing of Iran and echoing the state line on Iran’s nuclear program, Israel’s blockade of Palestine and invasion of Lebanon and the bailout of Wall Street.  In all the major events, a unified mass media played a leading role in propagating the message of the ruling class, among the masses, with varying degrees of success.

            The liberal paradigm of ‘mass media determinism’ appears to have more credibility as its diagnosis of the structure of power and ownership of the MM corresponds to reality, as does its role in propagandizing the lies of the state on war and the economy.  However, when we turn to the liberals’ image of MM control over mass opinion and attitudes, the assertions of all-powerful, all-controlling mass media successfully manipulating the public, these assumptions are questionable.

            Historically, monopoly-oligopoly control of the mass media has been unsuccessful in shaping mass attitudes and action in a number of important political contexts.  This is true even in the United States.  For example, despite unanimous MM support for the privatization of the Federal Social Security Program, the huge public bailout of Wall Street, the continuation of the military occupation of Iraq and military escalation in Afghanistan and the current private for profit health system, the great majority of the US public is strongly opposed to the MM line.  Despite the fact that the leaders and the majorities of both ruling political parties do not reflect mass opinion, a majority of Americans have consistently backed a national, universal public health care, the withdrawal of US troops and they have vehemently opposed the Congressional support for Wall Street and the big finance industry.  An analysis reveals that the MM are influential in shaping mass opinion in line with ruling class and state policies on foreign policies, particularly the war policy, at the start of a war, aggression or militarist posture before the economic and human costs are brought home to US citizens in their everyday lives.  The MM is relatively ineffective when it supports domestic measures, which adversely affect the everyday socio-economic life of the mass of the American people.  The MM operate most successfully when they dominate the flow and access of information, as in foreign policy, where they can fabricate, distort and emotionally charge what is heard and seen by the public.  In contrast, MM ruling class propaganda is severely weakened by the evidence of empirical experience, which Americans live in relation to their health, pensions, wages and employment.  Marxists would argue that particular economic conditions create a class awareness, which counterbalances the power of the MM.

            The weakness of the liberal view of the dominance of the mass media is found in its failure to take account of the impact of class contexts, the constraints of economic crises , the costs of war, the impact of downward mobility and the importance of basic social security in measuring or describing the operations of the mass media.  Most liberal theory of the mass media is based on a selective view of contexts, issues, time and places to back their theory.  For example, mass media and mass conformity ‘fits’ with the period of an expanding economy, upward social mobility, relative peace or less costly military interventions, particularly with regard to foreign policy issues.  The MM’s long term backing for capitalism or the ‘free market’ dominates mass opinion up to the collapse of capitalism: With the crises and breakdown of the financial system and especially the loss by millions of people of their pensions, even some propagandists in the MM realize that position is indefensible.  The liberal view of MM omnipotence and dominance of mass opinion is deeply flawed and fails to account for political-economic changes resulting from mass opinion which strongly deviates from MM propaganda. 

The Marxist Perspective on the Mass Media

            The Marxist perspective relativizes the influence of the MM making its power over the mass contingent on the degree to which the working and allied classes depend exclusively on the MM for information and for defining their political interests and social action.  Marxists argue that the MM exercises maximum influence where there is little or no class organization or class struggle (like in the US).  In contrast, where there is or was class organization, as in Venezuela or Bolivia, Chile in the 1970’s, and Central America in the 1980’s, the mass media have a far weaker impact on mass public opinion.  Marxists argue that where there is a history and culture of working class, peasant, Indian or other class-based movements and class solidarity the ruling class/state propaganda promoted by the MM has only a weak effect.  The masses have a preexistent framework, communication network and local opinion leaders, which filter out messages/propaganda that violate social/class/ethnic/national solidarity. 

            For example, in Chile during the Presidency of Salvador Allende (1970-73), the vast majority of the print and broadcast media were violently opposed to the Democratic Socialist President—yet President Allende won the election, the left increased its vote in subsequent municipal and congressional elections based on overwhelming support from the workers, poor peasants, Indians and unemployed shanty town residents. 

            More recently in Venezuela, the vast majority of MM has opposed President Chavez (1998-2008) in every congressional and municipal election, yet he has won massive electoral victories.  In both cases, socio-economic programs (vast increases in health and education, programs, land distribution, upward mobility, progressive income programs, nationalization of basic resources), strong class based organized support and mass mobilizations creating class consciousness undermined the effectiveness of the mass media. 

            Throughout Latin America during the first decade of the new millennium, powerful popular movements grew in membership and organization despite the intense demonizing by all the major MM.  In Brazil, the Landless Rural Workers expanded its membership and support for land occupations despite the criminalization of its activity by the MM.  The same was true of the miners, workers, peasant and Indian movements in Bolivia – leading to the overthrow of MM-backed neo-liberal presidents.  Similar mass uprisings overthrowing MM-backed Presidents took place in Argentina (2001) and Ecuador (2000 and 2005). 

            These cases illustrate the contingent and circumstantial conditions, which influence MM dominance of mass opinion.  There are several common conditions in all these cases:

1.      History, cultural, community and family linkages may create a ‘block’or ‘filter’ on MM propaganda, especially on socio-economic issues affecting workplace, neighborhood and living standards.

2.      Class struggle creates horizontal class bonds, especially in response to state and ruling class repression, declining living standards, concentration of wealth and mass evictions and displacement.  Class struggle creates positive responses to messages reinforcing the struggle and a negative rejection to messages from publicly identified media taking the side of the ruling class.

3.      Class organizations provide an alternative framework for understanding  events,and for defining mass interests in class terms which resonate with their everyday experience and provide information and interpretation that counters the MM.  The higher the degree of class organization, the greater class solidarity and struggle the weaker the MM impact on mass opinion.  The converse is also true.  Whereas in the US, trade unions are run by officials drawing $300,000 dollars or more a year, who emphasize collaboration with the bosses (and publicly reject class struggle politics) and fail to organize 93% of the private workforce, the MM have an easier time influencing mass opinion.

4.      The stronger the alternative class networks of opinion formation, the weaker the influence of the MM.  Where social movements develop local cadre, opinion leaders and community rooted activists, the less likely the masses will take their ‘cues’ on events from the formal, distant MM.  In many cases the masses selectively tune into the MM for entertainment (sports, soap operas, comedies) while rejecting their news reports and editorials.  Multi-generational families living in close proximity, located in homogenous occupational neighborhoods, with strong histories of class-based construction of communities generate class solidarity and social messages which come in conflict with the ruling class messages which promote ‘private initiative’ and ‘successful micro-capitalism’ or the criminalization of collective class action.  Both liberal and conservative views of the MM fail to account for the class context of media receptivity and power; the pluralists understate its capacity to dominate in times of weak class organization; the liberals overstate the power of the MM by ignoring the countervailing power of class-based organization, class struggle, culture, history and family traditions and solidarity that link individuals to their class and undermine receptivity to the ruling class message of the MM.

Have Your Say: Mass Media and Mass Politics
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Related News

• Big Brother was watching George Orwell for ‘communist views’
• Government considers Wales as ID card guinea pigs
• SEO Internet Marketing Skyrockets
• CND conference attacks missile defence
• It’s no secret - the election was a fraud

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 6th, 2008 at 8:51 pm and is filed under Contributions & Guests . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.