Essay Example on Propaganda Model: Exploring Imbalances in Wealth & Power

Introduction

A propaganda model points out the imbalances in the society on wealth and power possessed by few individuals. The components that make up the propaganda model include, but not limited to: Structure, Proprietorship, and Primary Objective of Mass Media (Greenwald, 2015). The existence of middle-class-working force media houses poses a threat as seen by the ruling elites as they emphasize and promote superior communal sureness by continually demonstrating the prospective supremacy of human resources to influence community revolution employing combined efforts. The result was to impose new defamation rules and apprehensions, by necessitating these media houses to pay heavy levies intended to scare away competitors by inflating their running overheads. At the onset of the twentieth century, the capital cost associated with newspaper production increased, based on technical advancements besides proprietors' thirst to reach out to a bigger audience.

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Around 1867, the projected capital of a new London daily was fifty thousand pounds (Chomsky, 2020). It saw the rise of giant media houses with local media houses left to stream their news from these big houses. Ownership of these firms become consolidated, resulting in these firms creating like a ministry by itself able to manipulate news as they wish. Autonomy makes them supply all the news to the lower ranks press since they are profit-oriented entities being taken over by extremely influential personalities or directors constrained by stakeholders and other trading powers.

Publicizing as the Core Basis of Income for the Public Press

Sir George Lewis, who was the Liberal Chancellor of the British exchequer, commented on the market that it has a likelihood to propagate and endorse newspapers, "enjoying the preference of the advertising public." Promoting undermined and debilitated the functioning level of employees in media houses. Advertising was paramount to subdue costs incurred as start-up capital, and thus "advertisers acquired a de facto licensing authority since, without their support, newspapers ceased to be economically viable."

For this reason, media houses apply a marketing-based structure, which tends to initiate small media firms to fall out of survival or into eccentricity the media firms that solely rely on revenues from trades alone. The use of ads is ideally directed to those who can buy after the effect takes place. All illuminate the sudden disappearance of certain large-spread magazines as well as papers and the slow destruction of people who corresponds to it (Greenwald, 2015). The ads that receive bigger pay-offs get much undue attention and are run at the advertisers' discretion. Advertisers victimize the middle-working class press who fail to meet the threshold for costs associated with marketing.

Reliance on the Broadcasting on Information

The press and the public have a mutual affiliation, one that requires dominant bases of data because of fiscal inevitability and mutuality of importance. The broadcasting houses thus have a prerequisite of a consistent and steady relay of news from reliable sources. They have day-to-day requirements to provide news and, therefore, all-important report schedules that must be met. The media concentrates its resources in places such as parliament, major police departments where they are likely to get important news. Much of the information offered on a large scale depends on government bureaucracies and operations of the system. The mass media feature "experts" to capture the attention of many regardless of the character of these experts. For example, ABC-TV and the New York Times featured the defector Arkady Schevchenko despite his tarnished image because he was a specialist on Soviet weapons and information gathering (Chomsky, 2020).

Blackmails meant to Discipline the Media

The media may be subjected to negative responses because of its statements, programs. The responses may be in the form of letters, telegrams, lawsuits, speeches, petitions (Greenwald, 2015). If persistence, they may be costly and uncomfortable with the media. Flak mainly happens when the advertisers are questionable. Employees get blacklisted and even sacked. The media has to be protected from all corners. Some facts which may elicit flak are deliberately left out. The relativity of flak is dependent on power. Any person or a group of individuals able to elicit flak is a major threat to any media house.

Anticommunism as a National Religion

It is a mechanism meant to control, and the ideology of anticommunism propagates it. Communism advocates for personal ownership of property, class position, and superior status. Those against the spirit of communism mobilize and populace their ideology because communism is seen as a political-controlled mechanism. Leaders have been forced to act as if they were reactionaries to be at peace with the majority, the anticommunism, as political costs are usually heavy. Pascal Delwit and Jean-Michel note that in France, anticommunism "can do or say anything" (Chomsky, 2020). It is a system formed to exercise an intense impact on the mass media. It is unfair to attack those criticizing the press houses for the information they have aired.

Analysis of the Uncovered: The Iraq War

Media firms in the US relied on news supplied by the Central Intelligence Agency tasked with intelligence on matters on security both within and outside borders. In 2001, the CIA did not agree with what President Bush was willing to furnish the people to listen to. There were speculations that Iraq had constituents and elements that would be used to make weapons of mass destruction. Richard Clarke points out that adminstration wanted to believe that there a connection between terrorism and the Iraq administration." It was not factual since there was no physical evidence of such claims.

Small media firms relied on news fed to them by the CIA. When Iraq did not account for all nuclear warheads that they were accused of having, a conclusion was deduced that they had them. A group of people was propagating a reason for war. The agenda sailed since the kind of intelligence at play was so powerful not affordable by small firms. The administration promised support, and therefore the agency had to comply. It is unfair trying to silence the voice of criticism because news offered was an exaggerated, biased, and partial information. Journalists did not dig enough, and when the heat was on, some exiled and others terminated in the name of contradicting information given by the agency. There was no physical evidence that Iraq had these nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons for mass destruction. It was like a treasure hunt. The Defence Secretary said that they would find people who would show them where these weapons might be. Billions were spent searching for evidence of these weapons because the administration feared admitting error. Money was too drawn from Iraq's oil revenue.

War broke on March 19, 2003 (Greenwald,2015). The damage had already happened. To a group of people, this was the right course to pursue. Media houses would not question the credibility of the news given because they did not take part in gathering this kind of intelligence.

References

Robert Greenwald. "Uncovered: The War on Iraq FULL DOCUMENTARY BRAVE NEW FILMS (2004)" YouTube. August 21 2015, Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7MBv9FixxE

Noam Chomsky. (2020). "A Propaganda Model," .23 February 2020.Retrieved from https://chomsky.info/consent01/