Andrew Mullen

Twenty years on: the second-order prediction of the Herman-Chomsky Propaganda Model

October 2008 marked the 20th anniversary of the publication of Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky. Their Propaganda Model (PM), which attempted to explain the behaviour of the media in the United States, found that it consistently served the interests of corporate and state power. Furthermore, they anticipated that the PM would be generally ignored within academia, which, all too often, also served the interests of corporate and state power. This commentary breaks new ground by focusing upon their second-order prediction, concerning the reception of the PM within academia; it demonstrates that the PM has been systematically marginalized within the field of media and communication studies, just as Herman and Chomsky forecast it would. The commentary is divided into six sections. The first section highlights the contrast between the liberal pluralist perspective and the Marxist-radical critique of how political and media systems function in capitalist, liberal-democratic societies. The second section situates the PM within the Marxist-radical tradition of media and communication studies. The third section provides an overview of the PM, more specifically its three hypotheses, its five operative principles and the evidence presented by Herman and Chomsky in support of the PM. The fourth section, which assesses how the PM has been received within the field of media and communication studies since 1988, is concerned with the second-order prediction that the PM would be neglected. More specifically, it surveys the way in which scholars have engaged with the PM; it provides data on the proportion of media and communication journal articles that have attended to the PM; and it submits data on the number of media and communication texts that refer to the PM. The fifth section suggests a number of reasons to explain why the PM has been generally dismissed, while the sixth section makes the case for the continued relevance of the PM.

European Integration and the Battle for British Hearts and Minds: New Labour and the Euro

Pro-Europeans have organised three concerted propaganda campaigns to date: in 1962-63 to secure public support following Britain’s first application to join the European Union, in 1970-1 to prepare the public for accession, and in 1974-5 to ensure continued EU membership in the 1975 referendum. This article looks at New Labour’s preparations and strategy for what is likely to be Britain’s fourth concerted pro-European propaganda campaign to ensure a ‘Yes’ vote in a referendum on British membership of the European single currency. The central arguments of this paper are six fold. Firstly, that the state of public opinion on euro membership currently represents an obstacle to the government’s policy of staging and winning a referendum , and joining the single currency. Second, that New Labour’s actual policy on the euro is one of ‘prepare and persuade’ rather than ‘wait and see’. Third, that the central components of the government’s euro referendum strategy can already be identified. Fourth, that – in contrast to the situation before the 1975 referendum – the press is divided on the issue of the euro, supporting both the ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ campaigns. Fifth, that there is an imbalance of forces between the ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ campaigns in favour of the former, but to a lesser extent than during the 1975 referendum. Sixth, that, given the current balance of forces, the government’s success in any euro referendum is by no means assured. The article is divided into seven parts. The first outlines the government’s policy on euro membership. The second considers the first contention – that public opinion on euro membership is currently an obstacle to the government policy – by looking at the state of public opinion polls on the issue. The third presents evidence to support the second contention – that New Labour’s actual policy is one of ‘prepare and persuade’ – by revealing the institutional and legislative preparations for entry that have been made, the two ‘low intensity’ pro-euro propaganda campaigns, and the intervention by external actors to augment those campaigns. The fourth looks at the emerging components of the government’s euro strategy and the possible problems of winning a referendum. The fifth discusses the likely role of the media in a euro referendum propaganda campaign. The sixth looks at the present balance of forces on euro membership. The seventh part concludes.

Rebooting the Herman–Chomsky Propaganda Model in the 21st Century

probability that an issue reaches more people. Overall, The News Gap leaves an ambivalent impression. On the one hand, the amount of empirical evidence that supports a gap is impressive and the authors show a profound knowledge of the journalistic field. On the other hand, however, the book provokes contestation against a simplification of the reflexive relationship between journalistic supply as the “most newsworthy” and audience demand as the “most clicked” news items. But it is that ambivalence which makes the perfect mixture for a book to stimulate a lively discussion.

The British left: For and against Europe? A historical survey

Employing a neo-Gramscian approach, and more specifically, Coxian historicism, this article argues that the European policies of the British left underwent three significant shifts during the post-war period: the first during the period 1945 to 1970 (from indifference to support), the second in the period between 1971 and 1987 (from support to opposition), and the third during the post-1988 period (from opposition to support). It further argues that these changes resulted from transformations in the balance of power between antiand pro-EU forces, themselves linked to competing social forces at the global, European, national and institutional levels.

Media performance in the ‘age of austerity’: British newspaper coverage of the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath, 2008–2010

This article explores how British newspapers framed the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession and austerity that followed. Analyzing a sample of 1586 articles published between 2008 and 201...

Election Strategies, Campaign Themes and Target Voters

This chapter explores the election strategies, campaign themes and targeting pursued by the seven key political parties—the Conservative Party, the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats, and the four challengers: the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) from the right and the Green Party, Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party (SNP) from the left—in mainland Britain during the 2015 General Election. The first section focuses on the unofficial long campaign, which began in April 2009, and assesses its impact upon the 2015 General Election. The second section concentrates on the official short campaign, which began in March 2015. The main contention of this chapter is that it is not possible to explain the results of the 2015 General Election without understanding the broader context of the unofficial long campaign.