In what ways do sociological and political economic theories of news Essay

In what ways do sociological and political economic theories of news production explain the relatively easy generation of popula - Essay Example This is a reflection of the general public disillusionment with the functioning of government institutions. More importantly, it is an indication of the distrust of mainstream media sources and the information (misinformation) being generated by them. Sadly, though, such expressions of disagreement and distrust only account for a politically aware minority, whilst a large majority of the population are subject to government propganda, orchestrated and implemented by major media institutions. Indeed, the ruthlessness and brazenness with which the Bush Administration went about achieving its strategic goals can be learnt from the following quote: â€Å"The issue of whether the Pentagon was waging an orchestrated domestic propaganda campaign was first openly acknowledged in the fall of 2002. Donald Rumsfeld was asked whether the Pentagon was engaged in propagandizing through the Defense Department's Office of Strategic Influence (strategic influence is military jargon for propaganda). Military officials said they might release false news stories to the foreign press, but they had to retract that when news organizations expressed concern that the bogus stories could be picked up in the domestic press. Mocking concerns about propaganda blowback, Rumsfeld informed the media on November 18, 2002, that he would eliminate the program in name only. (Goodman & Goodman, 2004, p.253) One might wonder why such a nexus between apparently two different kinds of institutions should exist and what benefits would its leaders attain in the process. There are a few sociological and political economic theories of news production that attempt to answer this most pressing question of modern democratic societies. The rest of this essay will try to encapsulate the essence of such theories and find out if they resonate in the case of the Iraq War. One of the major contributions to the subject of government-media propaganda is made by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman. Their seminal work ti tled Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of Mass Media is perhaps the most illuminating work on this subject, alongside Ben H. Bagdikian's another path-breaking work 'Media Monopoly'. In Manufacturing Consent, Chomsky and Herman layout a template for how propaganda works. This they called the Propaganda Model. In it they identify a set of five key factors that contribute to the functioning of propaganda machinery. These are: 1. Ownership of the medium 2. Medium's funding sources 3. Sourcing 4. Flak and 5. Anti-Communist Ideology. (Mcchesney, 1989, p.36) It should be remembered that during the time of the book's publication, Soviet Union was still in existence and Anti-Communist ideology comprised the dominant American foreign policy paradigm. In the context of the ongoing occupation of Iraq, one could replace it with such contrived fears as Terrorism and Islamophobia. (Edgley, 2000) What follows is a brief overview of these five factors that helped propaganda efforts in the lead-up to the Iraq war to be successful. First, mainstream media outlets in the United States (a fact that is equally applicable to most capitalist countries) is largely privately owned. Let us take the case of Television news. The facade of diversity created by hundreds of news channels breaks down with the realization that most channels are owned by a few major media houses such as CBS,