People's Democracy
(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)
No. 43
October 28, 2012
|
Vol. XXXVI
No. 43 October 28, 2012 |
ON
CERTAIN KERALA
EPISODES Media Manoeuverings
for Manufacturing
Consent-III K K Ragesh IT is
precisely to
target the CPI(M) that its leaders were
deliberately made accused in these
cases as part of the wanton political plot of
the ruling political leadership
in the state. Capitalising on fortuitous
incidents, the UDF-media nexus
launched a vigorous campaign to destabilse the
CPI(M). Ridiculously, the same
media is attempting to portray the UDF
leadership as an icon of integrity and
virtue. In order to avoid arresting the former
UDF minister who was convicted
by the Supreme Court for corruption, the UDF
leadership had propagated that he
was seriously ill and subsequently got him
admitted in a five star private
hospital. The UDF governments blatant bias that
protected its minister P K
Kunhalikkutty through a special investigation
and its reluctance to file
charges against K Sudhakaran MP and P K Basheer
MLA were never interrogated in
the media trial. Rather the media deceitfully
blacked out these pertinent
questions and subtly projected that the law
proceeds in its own direction. When
the law moves according to the vindictive
direction set by the UDF leadership,
the media cleverly covers it up under the
rhetoric of equality before law and
equal protection of law. The
rhetoric of Marxist
violence is an all-time weapon of the rightist
forces used to conceal their
anti-people policies. The chief minister Oommen
Chandy and team experiment the
same jackal-trick to cover up its ruthless
policies by painting the CPI(M) as a
party of killers. The right wing media in the
state subsequently become a mere
megaphone of the UDF, so as to suit the UDF
objective to implement its ruthless
policies. The CPI(M) had to make tremendous
sacrifices all through its way in
the past. Even today, hundreds of comrades are
being attacked and killed
throughout the country, especially in The first
episode of
killing by stabbing in Kannur district was the
murder of Ashraf, who was
chairman of the Brennen College Union. He was
stabbed by the Congress goons.
The first event of bomb attack took place on
Dinesh beedi company and
Kolangareth Raghavan was killed in the attack.
The Congress goons attacked the
beedi company because its workers were
supporters of the CPI(M). Former
Congress leader Moyarath Sankaran, who had
written the history of the INC, was
beaten to death by Congress goons because he
left the Congress and had joined
the Communist Party. Nalpadi Vasu was shot dead
on the direction of the
Congress leader K Sudhakaran and it was the
first incident of using gun against
political opponents. Four comrades were burnt
alive at Cheemeni by the Congress
goons. It was the Congress party that initiated
killings by various forms but
the killers, hidden behind the fraudulent
advocates of non-violence, were
always described as angels in the media.
Unfortunate murders were celebrated
for scores of months not because of their
genuine protest against a heinous
crime but as a tool to hunt the CPI(M). The
right wing agenda inherent behind
this propaganda is nothing new because their
anti-communist attitude is meant
to protect the capitalists interests. FREEDOM
OF PRESS? OR
FREEDOM OF
OWNERS? Most of the
working
journalists in Kerala have been Left-minded.
While watching the reports filed
by these journalists, most of who are former
activists of the progressive
student movement, one is left surprised. During
personal talks, most of them
express their helplessness as they were directed
to file such reports. In that
case what is the meaning of the freedom of
press? Is it the right of the people
to know? Or a journalists responsibility to make
the people aware of? Or sheer
affair and concern of the owner of the media
enterprise? The freedom of the
press should not be confined and defined as a
mere freedom of the financier or
the owner of the media establishment. Let us
sympathise to the reporters who
perform their part in the channel rooms and push
their pen in the news paper
desks as everyone cannot become Swadeshabhimani
Ramakrishnapillai who made his
pen as a sword to fight against injustice. It is
a possible corollary when
media activism is converted into paid-writings
and presentation of sponsored
news programmes. Most of the journalists have
confined themselves under the
perception that media activism is a mere show to
impress upon the owner of the
media. The ruling classes have the capability to
confine the whole society
under the ruling ideas by manufacturing consent
using the mass media. Karl Marx
and Antonio Gramsci established the fact how the
ruling ideas get to be
accepted by the people without any dissent.
While becoming the obedient
devotees of the ruling class ideological
hegemony, our journalists further
produce breaking news and banner headings out of
emptiness. Media
serves the
interests of the dominant elite. In
authoritarian States where monopolistic
control over the media rests with the State
through official censorship, such
interest is apparent. But in the so-called
democracies, where official
censorship is absent, it is very difficult to
make out a propaganda system at
work that serves the dominant class. While
blatantly serving the dominant elite
the media poses to be independent by trying to actively
compete,
periodically attack and expose corporate and
governmental malfeasance, and
aggressively portray themselves as spokesmen
for free speech and the general
community interest. What is not evident (and
remains undiscussed in the media)
is the limited nature of such critiques, as
well as the huge inequality in
command of resources, and its effect both on
access to a private media system
and on its behavior and performance. (Manufacturing
Consent -- The
Political Economy of the Mass Media;
Edward S Herman and Noam Chomsky). It
is a fact that the owners of the most of the
mass media firms have not set them
up for the sake of the fourth estate, rather to
serve the capitalists
interests. Hence such critiques of the media
cannot proceed further ahead of a
certain boundary and thus it withdraws and
covers up those issues from the
public by way of its subtle focus on
insignificant issues. Media world
today is
highly professionalised and the professionals
identify themselves as a
commodity in the job market. Almost all so
called professionals are under the
perception that undermining of social commitment
is an essential ingredient of
a professional. Thus professionalisation of news
becomes a significant
objective and the media professionals take it as
a task to manufacture targeted
news-making and such professionals effectively
shape the consciousness of the
viewers thus proving themselves proficient media
professionals. They are
honored and being labeled as model journalists
as their news effectively serves
the interests of the ruling elite. The media
today is eagerly involved in the
investigation of making big news by filtering it
using the filters that suite
the ruling class elite.
MANUFACTURING
CONSENT In the
German Ideology,
Marx and Engels wrote that The ideas of the
ruling class are in every epoch the
ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling
material force of society, is
at the same time its ruling intellectual force.
The class which has the means
of material production at its disposal, has
control at the same time over the
means of mental production, so that thereby,
generally speaking, the ideas of
those who lack the means of mental production
are subject to it. The ruling
ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression
of the dominant material
relationships, the dominant material
relationships grasped as ideas; hence of
the relationships which make the one class the
ruling one, therefore, the ideas
of its dominance. As Karl
Marx explained
in the above mentioned quote the ruling class,
in order to confine the whole
society in their class interest and to impose
its ideological hegemony in the
society, use the mass media also as a tool among
many others. And the media
professionals often become obedient followers of
the ideological hegemony of
the ruling class. Antonio Gramsci argues that
the State is made up of two
components, a political society which rules
through coercion and a civil
society which rules by way of manufacturing
consent. He argues that hegemony is
manufactured consent, created through the
articulation of intellectuals in a
public sphere, where bourgeois hegemony is
reproduced in cultural life through
the media, universities and religious
institutions to manufacture consent and
legitimacy. In a capitalist society, the
ideological hegemony of the ruling
class subsists as a common sense even in the
absence of the ruling class
political party. Such a common perception is
moulded by the right wing media
and the traditional intellectuals aid the ruling
class. THE MEDIA
FILTER OF
ANTI-COMMUNISM The mass
media today
adheres to a pre-designed propaganda model.
Edward S Herman and Noam Chomsky in
their book focus on how inequality of wealth and
power and its multilevel
effects on mass-media interests and choices.
They reiterate the routes by which
money and power are able to filter out the news
fit to print, marginalise
dissent, and allow the government and dominant
private interests to get their
messages across to the public. The essential
ingredients of our propaganda
model, or set of news "filters," fall under the
following headings:
(1) the size, concentrated ownership, owner
wealth, and profit orientation of
the dominant mass-media firms; (2)
advertising as the primary income
source of the mass media; (3) the reliance
of the media on
information provided by government, business,
and "experts"
funded and approved by these primary sources and
agents of power; (4)
"flak" as a means of disciplining the media; and
(5)
"anti-communism" as a national religion and
control mechanism. These
elements interact with and reinforce one
another. The raw material of
news must pass through successive filters,
leaving only the cleansed
residue fit to print. They fix the premises of
discourse and interpretation,
and the definition of what is newsworthy in the
first place, and they
explain the basis and operations of what amount
to propaganda campaigns.
The elite domination of the media and
marginalisation of dissidents that
results from the operation of these filters
occurs so naturally that
media news people, frequently operating with
complete integrity and
goodwill, are able to convince themselves that
they choose and interpret
the news "objectively" and on the basis of
professional news
values. Within the limits of the filter
constraints, they often are
objective; the constraints are so powerful, and
are built into the
system in such a fundamental way, that
alternative bases of news choices are
hardly imaginable. The
five filters narrow the range of news that
passes through the gates, and even
more sharply limit what can become "big news,"
subject to sustained
news campaigns. Contrasting the objective
conception of the media as
cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their
search for truth and their
independence of authority, substituted the
"societal purpose" of the
media with instilling and defending the
economic, social, and political agenda
of privileged groups that dominate the domestic
society and the State. The
media serve this purpose in many ways: through
selection of topics,
distribution of concerns, framing of issues,
filtering of information, emphasis
and tone, and by keeping debate within the
bounds of acceptable premises. And thus
Noam Chomsky argues "Propaganda is to democracy
as violence is to
dictatorship". The same propaganda technique is
at work in Kerala too
while attacking the CPI(M) with repeated news
bulletins and manufactured big
news and hence hide the policies of the
government and its harmful impact on
the people.
