Propaganda Models
The attacks on the National newspaper by the BBC Scotland’s Business and Economy Editor were unprecedented (‘BBC responds after The National branded ‘propaganda’ by journalist‘). You can’t imagine him (or anyone else) from the BBC publicly attacking another newspaper. The National is beyond the pale in mainstream Scotland. It is excluded from press conferences and routinely attacked. This is not the role of the public broadcaster which is supposed to at least walk through a pretence of impartiality to attempt to sustain credibility.
The attacks fit with Noam Chomsky’s outline of ‘propaganda models’ which filter our views through acceptable media. In his model he “traces the routes by which money and power are able to filter out the news fit to print, marginalize dissent, and allow the government and dominant private interests to get their messages across to the public.”
If you want some models for this – and an example of staggering hypocrisy – this afternoon you can listen to Douglas Fraser extolling the need to ‘Rearm the UK’ on BBC Radio, in which we’re told: “Rearming the UK. Douglas Fraser asks what it will take to get the UK defence sector on a war footing.”
Why is BBC Scotland’s Business and Economy Editor doing this? Listen here.
Of course Scotland has propaganda in many forms, not just the public broadcaster. Lobbyist Andy McIver here chastises the Scottish Government ‘The SNP: party with global ambition or a left-wing pressure group?‘ It’s a textbook schooling of propaganda models discerning the precise lines of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour and discourse.
Writing in his Herald column McIver says of the Angus Robertson affair: “The fallout over this rather humdrum meeting has been, more than anything else, an instructive window into the modern day SNP. It has been a window into a party which is struggling to define itself, and to decide what it wants to be. On the one hand, it is a player. A party of government with global ambition and a desire to sit at the top table. On the other hand, a left-wing pressure group.”
But if you stand back from the ‘common sense’ chummy tone you see something horrific. The treatment is a moral vacuum in which ‘both sides’ have equal status. As Ussama Makdisi writes of the conflict:
For McIver, none of this matters, and any attempt to hold Israel to account, or yes to cut diplomatic links with them is to act as a ‘left wing pressure group’.
To oppose genocide is not left wing, it is human.
And, despite all the swagger and self-confidence from the likes of McIver who hold considerable propaganda power, his view is completely out of kilter with people in Scotland, of all persuasions and outlooks, who are shocked and disgusted by the carnage they are witnessing.
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Genocide is dismissed by indirection, never named, swept along in rhetoric. This is the way of the official voice, the one for which moderation means the power of the already powerful, garnering the perks and profits that are rightly theirs. As usual, business; anything else is not to be taken seriously, or else tastes of terrorism.
Mike – from my experience there are many people (mainly older & middle class) who not only do not see independence as a legitimate aspiration and consequently do not see the SNP as a legitimate political party or The National as a legitimate newspaper. This group of individuals, due to their background, tend to be given a more prominent position by the media who are overwhelmingly openly (or covertly) opposed to independence.
With the recent travails and loss in popular support for SNP they now feel more emboldened to publicly state this view.
I also think that they have a view that devolution enabled the SNP to further support for independence especially among younger voters. This explains why Westminster is bypassing Holyrood with funding or intervening in policy to a greater extent.
I don’t think any future Labour led Holyrood government will abolish the Parliament but they may look to neuter it. I am sure they will firmly oppose any enhancement of Holyrood powers.
The branch manager will do what his boss tells him.
You’re exactly right John, these people do exist with these views. It is part of the permanent cringe and an immature country. The problem for Labour of aspiring to inherit it and also neuter it is a dilemma for them.
Excellent piece, Mike.
I remember Siobhan Synnot dismissing ‘The National’ as a propoganda vehicle which cannot be taken seriously in a Twitter exchange with me some years ago. This may be the accepted wisdom in the Pacific Quay canteen. Douglas Fraser’s disdain for Scotland goes well beyond hostility to independence. I remember him sneering at progressive initiatives by Lab-Lib ministers in the early days of devolution. Scottish aspiration generally irritates him. David Leask is another zealous guardian of the lace curtains on Scotland’s political discourse.
Thanks Graeme. Yes there’s quite a lot of sneering going on.
”The Press is a gang of cruel faggots . Journalism is not a profession or a trade . It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits – a false doorway to the backside of life …” Hunter S Thompson .
Quite apart from anything else, Israel is not a democracy and never has been. An apartheid state and democracy are contradictory.
Yes Margaret, good point
Thank you Mike … you speak for many of us in despair… the Herald has unforgivingly gave voice to the defenders of genocide.
Thank you Mike… you speak for many of us in despair. The Herald! Despairing at the defence of Israel executing genocide ..describing Israel as an ally?? What has happened to journalism… Herald editorial board hang your heads in shame.