How Does The Mainstream Media Work?

The elites who run this country exercise power in two ways, one private, one public. Politicians and policy are manipulated through registered lobbyists on Capitol Hill, and in private meetings at lavish fundraisers. It's all about money and access. All of this takes place behind closed doors, out of the public's sight. The manipulation of American citizens is carried out through the corporate owned media (image left, click to enlarge). There's nothing private about it; it's right there in front of you on the TV. How does this work?

The primary functions of the mainstream media (MSM) are to make money by catering to their advertisers and to maintain the socioeconomic status quo. Each goal reinforces the other, i.e. they are mutually supporting. Special interests seek to maintain their privileged status. This is accomplished by 1) narrowing the frame of debate; 2) omission of crucial information; 3) taking the political system seriously when it obviously should not be taken seriously; 4) propaganda telling us how well we're doing; and 5) distracting citizens with ever dumber (and ever more insidious) entertainments of various sorts—sitcoms, "news" shows, "reality" shows, gladiatorial contests, and so on, all interspersed with advertising so manipulative and shallow that one is constantly embarrassed to be a member of our species.

But the dumbing-down process through which harmless docility is encouraged and reinforced is subtle. In this conversation with David Talbot, Salon's Glenn Greenwald explains how it works, using the Occupy protests as an example. We'll have to overlook the fact that Salon also features many glowing reviews of various TV shows which serve the functions just described, regardless of their story-telling or entertainment value.

I should also note for the record that many TV shows or movies nowadays feature—

• bloodsucking vampires or flesh-eating zombies (e.g. The Walking Dead)

There are vampires or zombies spawned by an alien invasion. There are vampires or zombies in some dystopian future. There are vampires or zombies of unknown provenance. And so on. No one seems to tire of vampires or zombies, although hoards of zombies are far more common.

You have a few bloodsucking vampires (America's elites) preying on the mass of ordinary people, who must fend them off by any means available. Just like real life. Or you have a few "normal" people (the elites again) fending off an army of marauding, mindless zombies (the American people). Just like real life. Sigmund Freud or Carl Jung would have had a field day with this stuff.

The Greenwald video is 6 minutes long. Watch it first, and then I'll make a few concluding remarks. There will of course be a short advertisement at the start.

 

Thus we find that those in the mainstream media are merely servants of the ruling elites. The media stars have internalized the values of those elites, thus they need not be told explicitly what to say or do. (The "conspiracy" interpretation of the MSM.) Indeed, these well-heeled folks imagine themselves to be part of the ruling class, and sometimes they are (e.g. CNN's Erin Burnett, formerly at CNBC).

The Occupy protesters are threatening to the elites, and must be relentlessly marginalized until they are rendered harmless. Alternatively, if that doesn't work, they must be swallowed up by that co-optation monster called the Two Party System. In the case of the Occupy protests, marginalizing them failed, so now every method is being applied to co-opt them. (They are the Democrat version of the Republican Tea Party.)

Some of the flesh-eating zombies woke up. The bloodsucking vampires are fighting back

Bonus Video — They're Made Out Of Meat

 

Comments

[db]

Back in the late 80s there was a "homeless" people's march held in Washington and a number of other places. There was scant media coverage and it cycled out of the news within a day or so. That event was the first time I really noticed the media actively minimizing a protest that was off-script and drew attention to what has since spread to become undeniably an underclass -- the 99%

[Bill]

@db - I remember the homeless march on DC - it was Larry King's wedding day (second, or fourth, I don't remember which), an event which received more MSM attention.

[CHilke]

In fact, the broadcast media is almost totally inaccessible to those not in the upper class by design. And it’s getting worse. Anderson Cooper is member of the Vanderbilt family. Thomas Friedman’s wife is heir to a real estate fortune worth billions. And so on. How unbiased are these guys? It’s amazing people think the press is just an unbiased source of facts. These people attend the same universities, send their kids to the same private schools, dine in the same five star restaurants, live in the same gated communities and attend the same dinner parties as the people they cover in the beltway. Where do their loyalties lie? To cite one example, Obama’s former budget director Peter Orszag is married to Bianca Golodryga, currently the host of the weekend version of Good Morning America. Before GMA, she was a correspondent for CNBC. And before that? You guessed it – she worked for the financial services industry! (source:Wikipedia). Sleeping with the enemy?

The coopting of the media is one issue that distinguishes today from the 1930’s, when journalists were much as Greenwald describes, and I wish this got more attention. Why hasn’t there been the outrage today like there was back then? Well, what media was there in the thirties?. No television. Some radio. The closest thing back then was William Randolph Hearst’s empire, but that’s nothing compared to the six corporations that run the media today. Fortunately, I think people are starting to wake up to this fact as what the media are describing is more and more at odds with what they actually see in their daily lives. The Russians knew their media was lying to them. It’s time for all Americans to come to the same realization.

BONUS: A Nation of Vidiots commentary by Jeffrey Sachs:
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/sachs183/English

[JC]

Dave - thanks for bringing this and the Steve Jobs issue up yesterday. Now watching Erin Burnett take down Herman Cain for his untoward advances. One thing that strikes me is how packaged our information has become. You can almost imagine wrapping up the Cain story in paper and putting a bow on it, just as you can any other story we hear. And the package can be regifted whenever needed to bring out appropriate feelings. Need fear? Bring out the "9/11" package. Need inspiration? The package about the guy burned in war and now dancing on network TV will do. Need sex (distraction)? Yes, please!

[Diogenes]

Great post - thanks.

I haven't thought of "They're Made Out of Meat" for about 30 years - glad you did.

Re: "4) propaganda telling us how well we're doing"

There's also the propaganda telling us how to do what it is we're doing so well.

I recommend everyone view the "Century of the Self" documentary series by Adam Curtis:

http://thoughtmaybe.com/video/the-century-of-the-self

"The Persuaders" by Douglas Rushkoff (Frontline) is a very good companion:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/video/flv/generic.html?s=frol02p74&continuous=1

We should all learn what has been and is being done to us.

Keep swinging away...