Democracy. Just hearing the word stirs the feelings of pride and privilege that come with living in America. In the United States, no term stirs more of a positive response in those who hear than “democracy.” Yet, what has caused “democracy” to have such a positive connotation? What has created the notion that the American brand of democracy really the best system at ensuring and protecting individual freedoms? Is it possible that because we have been so indoctrinated with the American psyche that we have grown passively resistant to questioning all that encompasses America and the intermingled system of corporate elitist politics under which it functions?
To answer any of these questions requires one to analyze the means by which information is disseminated throughout the general population, namely, through the mass media. The First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress off grievances” (Kommers 430). By mentioning the necessity of a free press so early in a section dedicated to personal liberties, it is quite clear how important the founders of our country felt an independent mass media would be in the operation of a democratic system of government. However, it through their construction of the American propaganda model in their book, Manufacturing Consent, that Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky allude to the fact that this basic freedom is being obstructed due to the ownership structure of American mass media outlets. The infringement of this basic freedom leads to one of the most elemental aspects of the American representative democracy to be altered: the ability of the people to have their voices heard and vote for a candidate that best reflects their views. And while this may seem melodramatic at first, the ultimate consequence is one where voters are manipulated into using their votes for mainstream candidates simply because they reinforce the mainstream values of big business rather than use their vote in a way that best allows for their concerns to be addressed.
To Herman and Chomsky “the mass media serve as a system for communicating messages and symbols to the general populace” in which “it is their function to amuse, entertain, and inform and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society” (Herman and Chomsky 1). The media, therefore, serve as the country’s key socializing force whose main responsibility is to promulgate the ideals and values of the civilization under which it operates. In America, it may seem that the media exist to promote democracy; that they should provide the public with the most relevant and nonbiased information so that they can develop their own opinions and vote for representatives and issues accordingly. However, it is not the tenets of real democracy that the American media system functions under. Being that our founding fathers adopted the ideals of liberal ideology, the American mass media is forced to adhere to the rules of capitalism more than those of real democracy. As a result, the ownership of the major mass media corporations is consolidated into the hands of a few business elites who have, in a sense, monopolized the entire industry. The principles of capitalism have also forced media companies to rely on revenue generated from advertising in order to operate. This has created a situation, where selling advertising has become more important that the actual news and information these companies distribute.
The consequences of a capitalist driven media are clear. Because the ownership of the media is the hands of such a small group of corporate elites, the information given to the public is manipulated to support their interests. Since the media are the main socializing force in America, elites have used this medium to develop and allocate a set of values that support their interests. By virtue of their ownership, elites control the types of news stories and information given to the public, and in doing so, instill the general population with a set of “mainstream values” that allow the existing social structure to be sustained over time. Clearly enjoying their social standing, ownership of the media provides these elites with the ability to dispense information that supports their interests while marginalizing all other interests in the process.
According to Herman and Chomsky, this is just one of the news filters that elites use to control the social order of society. The fact that advertising is the primary source of income for media companies also creates a situation where the programs and information provided by the media are filtered to protect elitist interests. Rather than provide articles and programs for the sole enjoyment of the audience, they are created with the intention of keeping the public entertained. Since “an audience gain or loss [for a television network] of one percentage point in the Nielsen ratings translates into a change in advertising revenue of $80 to $100 million a year (data from 1988)…there is a strong tendency for such considerations to affect policy profoundly (Herman and Chomsky 16). Therefore, there is an extremely large incentive for media companies to keep corporate sponsors pleased by keeping sales/ratings up and audiences interested. If ratings drop or sales fall, the amount of people exposed to advertising decreases and eventually, businesses will advertise elsewhere. In the long run, decreases in advertising revenue will prevent a media outlet from competing with other outlets and will force it to close. Outside of this incentive, the media also have the broader impetus to dilute the information they distribute to the public to keep corporate elites in the top tier of the social structure.
Other filters in Herman and Chomsky’s propaganda model include the reliance of media on information provided by experts of government and business, the denunciation or omission of flak towards an action of business or government and the use of anti-communism as a national religion. Regardless of whether the media use one of these filters or all of them in a particular case, the end result is still the same: Elitist interests are protected, a set of mainstream values are created and constantly reinforced and all other dissident interests are pushed to the margin. Through their control of the media, a sphere of legitimate discourse has been established where the media dichotomously report in favor on areas that support corporate interests and negatively convey areas that do not. Now when one hears a theory like Herman and Chomsky’s it is quite easy to dismiss their argument as the nonsensical bantering of leftist radicals. However, their perception of how things work in the United States is quite valid. To test their theory, one needs only to compare how the Green party was covered before and after the 2000 presidential election by mainstream news sources and independent news sources.
Of all the Presidential elections in American history, none have been more controversial and gone so long before a winner was officially announced than the election in 2000. 2000 brought more than just the Y2K virus and the celebration of the new millennium; it brought Ralph Nader into the public spotlight and made him one of the mainstream’s most marked men. Although Nader had run for President in 1996 and was one of the nation’s most famed consumer advocates for decades before, the months leading up to the 2000 Presidential election brought Nader into mainstream discourse because of the feared impact he would have on the election chances of incumbent Vice President and Democratic nominee Al Gore (Weisbrot 1). In the weeks leading up to the November 2000 election, Gore campaigners mounted a sizeable effort to convince Nader’s supporters that “a vote for Nader was a vote for [George W.] Bush” (Weisbrot 1). However, as Mark Weisbrot titled in an article on the progressive website, ZMag.org, “A vote for Nader [was] a vote for democracy” (1).
As the Green Party’s candidate in 1996, Nader spent only $5,000 and refused to raise any funds in an attempt to protest against the system under which elections are held (Dao 1). However, in 2000, Nader made a vow to campaign hard and get his views out to the general public. According to Weisbrot, Nader was there “to bust open the gates” (1). He visited all 50 states, gained celebrity endorsements from actors like Paul Newman, Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, and focused on issues that separated him from Gore and Bush. To writers of the independent U.S. media, Nader was “the candidate of the Center” (Weisbrot 1). In other words, he was the one candidate whose ideas and policies best reflected what most individual Americans wanted. He promoted grassroots democracy, universal health care, feminism, diversity, the abolition of NAFTA, IMF and WTO due to the deleterious effects they have had on American workers, decreased military spending, proportional representation in government, humanitarianism, environmentalism, campaign finance reform, consumer rights and other enhanced civil liberties (2000 Green Party Platform).
Above all else, however, Nader and the Green Party promoted the elimination of the very system that Herman and Chomsky describe in Manufacturing Consent. The Party platform reads as follows: “The separation of ownership of major societal assets from their control permits the concentration of power over such assets in the hands of the few who control rather than in the hand of the many who own. The owners of the public lands, pension funds, savings accounts, and the public airwaves are the American people” and these people “have essentially little or no control over their pooled assets or their commonwealth” (2000 Green Party Platform) It goes on to state that “a growing and grave imbalance between the often-converging power of Big Business, Big Government and the citizens of this country has seriously damaged our democracy” and declares that “it’s time to end ‘corporate welfare’ as we know it” and “rekindle the democratic flame. (2000 Green Party Platform). From this and other parts of the party’s platform it becomes clear why the independent media felt that a vote for Nader would be a vote for democracy; he called for democracy and the destruction of corporate driven politics above all else.
Despite his calls for drastic change, the mainstream media refused to cover Ralph Nader’s positions. Rather than portray him as a man of the people, the mainstream simply looked at Nader as a “spoiler” to Al Gore’s chances of becoming President and as “an enormous zit on prom night” (Naureckas 2). In fact, when Gore lost the election, it was Nader that was blamed for engaging in a “self-indulgent exercise that distract[ed] voters from the clear-cut choice represented by the major party candidates” (Naureckas 1). While independent sources assert that Gore lost the election because a combination of a lackluster campaign, an inconsistent environmental policy, voting error, voter intimidation and fraud, mainstream sources placed the majority of the emphasis on Nader and the Green Party (Albert 1). The fact that the blame was placed almost squarely on the shoulders of Nader emphasizes the media’s desire to marginalize dissidents to the existing system. Although Nader stood on a stable platform of social change and political and economic restructuring, his intentions for entering the race were questioned to reduce his credibility and to prevent his counterculture discourse from gaining momentum.
In an April 15, 2000 New York Times article titled, “The 2000 Campaign: the Third Parties; Nader Runs Again, This Time with Feeling,” Nader and the Green Party are portrayed with extreme bias. The article starts by depicting a crowd at one of Nader’s campaign stops and reads as follows: “the students with purple hair, the graying academics with Jerry Garcia beards and the union organizers their anti-WTO buttons had crowded into a college auditorium in Minneapolis…” (Dao 1) Simply by starting the article is this manner; it is clear how the New York Times want Nader to be depicted. They want him to come off as a bleeding heart radical who is 40 years out of touch with the current political environment. They want to reduce his credibility before addressing his beliefs so that the general public will not buy into whatever he has to say later on. The means they use are effective. What professional or elderly person is really going to support a candidate who is already supported by someone with purple hair? The Times also mentions how Nader refused to raise money in the ’96 election and states that, “this time he is serious” (Dao 1). The Times also questions his integrity by asserting that “the goal of Mr. Nader’s run is not to win, of course, but to get more than 5% of the vote, the number that would qualify him for millions in federal campaign matching funds that he says he would use to build the Green Party” (Dao 1). The anti-Nader propaganda campaign fails to stop here. Shortly beyond this section, the Times states that “aides to Vice President Al Gore say they are not losing sleep over a Nader challenge” because Nader does not possess the political ego of a skillful campaigner and because the Green Party is better known for its internal squabbling than its ability to raise money or run a campaign (Dao 2). One must also look at the location of this article in the Times. Although the article goes on to describe some of the aspects of his platform, it is clear that the Times is doing all it possibly can to discredit Nader in the eye’s of their readers and to dissuade them from supporting him come election time. Nader could have been the most qualified candidate running, but if you read the New York Times, you would not have known it.
To the ordinary person, an article like the one previously described, on the front page of the New York Times (Actual Location: Section A Page 1-the front page) may seem like a sufficient way to damage the reputation of a Presidential candidate. However, just a few months later in the July 1st, 2000 issue, the Times were back at it. In this article they reemphasized the Democratic party’s lack of concern in regards to Nader’s potential siphoning away of votes from Al Gore. In the article, Bob Mulholland, campaign adviser to the California Democratic Party, is quoted as saying, “This is the most serious vote of people’s lives and they’re not going to throw it away. Nader became famous because of the Corvair (a car whose engineering design problems Nader brought to the public eye) and he’s been doing college campuses ever since. And now he wants to be president? It’s a joke; it’s ridiculous. Only in America can someone completely irrelevant run for president” (Verhovek 2). By including this quote, the Times is basically giving their opinion of Nader. He represents a non-mainstream viewpoint and they are doing what they can to make sure that his views stay in the margin.
The Washington Post also provides their opinions on Nader in their “news articles.” In a May 25, 2000 edition of the Post, an article titled, “Nader’s Bid Complicates Gore’s Task” depicts Nader in a negative light. The article concludes with a quote from Gore campaign spokesman, Doug Hattaway, in which he says, “We are not taking their [environmentalists and labor] support for granted, but at the same time, we are not quaking in our boots about Ralph Nader. The real choice in the election is between Al Gore and George Bush; and Al Gore is clearly the better choice” (Edsall 2). The Post followed this vow to support only Bush and Gore by responding to questions on why Nader was getting so little coverage by stating in a 9/3/00 op-ed piece by stating that, “We’re a newspaper, and we cover things based on what is newsworthy. People who have half a percent or less following among the public are much less newsworthy than people with 40 percent or 50 percent” (Naureckas 1). The attacks on Nader failed to stop here and were seen in mainstream media sources across the country up until and after the election. Although the media is supposed to present the public with unbiased information, it is articles like those of the New York Times and Washington Post that really show the hidden agenda that media outlets have to protect corporate elitist interests.
If candidates like Ralph Nader only had a biased media to contend with, their goal of obtaining a larger percentage of the vote would be more feasible. Unfortunately for them however, the structure of the election process as well as the existence of the Federal Election Commission and the Commission on Presidential Debates both support the two party system that we live under today and marginalize third parties even further. To be considered a candidate for President, one requires many assets. Above all else, though, one needs a considerable amount of money to gain the exposure needed get your messages to the people. The real problem with the current system is that the two major political parties have the incentive to support the status quo. Since their success relies on private fundraising, Democrats and Republicans are forced to support the interests of the corporate elites so that they donate the money needed to run a successful campaign. Minor parties tend not generate the same funds as the larger parties because they typically stand for issues outside the mainstream discourse and alienate themselves from large corporate sponsors.
In addition to the lack of corporate sponsors, according to the FEC, “minor party candidates and new party candidates may become eligible for partial public funding” only if they have “received 5 of the total popular vote in the preceding Presidential election” (“Public Fundraising of Presidential Elections” 3). This obviously puts minor parties at a severe disadvantage because, not only do they have to worry about drawing funds into a lesser known party, they are forced to compete with major parties that have their private funds matched by public funds. Just to get 5% of the popular vote requires a lot of skillful fundraising, but more importantly a lot of luck. In the 2000 election, Ralph Nader and the Green Party failed to even come close to this requirement. The CPD also marginalizes third parties because in order to participate in nationally televised debates, one must have “a level of support of at least 15% of the national electorate as determined by five selected national public opinion polling organizations” (“Candidate Selection Process” 2). Since it is near impossible for minor parties to participate in debates, it is hard for them to get their messages out to the people and as a consequence, hard to raise funds. Because their funds are limited to begin with, it is hard to get messages out to potential fundraisers. When one combines all of these factors with the fact that America operates under a “winner-take-all” system, it is clear that the infrastructure of the system, itself, is ridden with internal gridlock influenced by the interests of the corporate elites that prevents minor parties from gaining any traction.
To substantiate the validity of the propaganda model and sphere of legitimate discourse that Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky describe in Manufacturing Consent, one need only to look at how third party politics are marginalized in the United States. Regardless of whether a change can be made to a system where corporate elitist interests drive both politics and the media or not, the fact that the basic freedoms inherent to a democratic system are being violated is quite clear. Although many people did not see “ a vote for Nader as a vote for democracy” in the 2000 election, Nader still walked away a winner. By becoming marginalized by mainstream, elitist values, Nader was able to put his own face on the very issue he found most problematic.
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