Reply #6: You understand [View All]

[Jcrowley]

the role of the media very well it seems. They are indeed doing their job rather well unfortunately. When examined from the perspective that you describe you perceive the problem of the media system in an entirely different way, seeing it more clearly as an apparatus of the corporate state rather than as this watchdog. That can be a bit more uncomfortable but sometimes the truth can make us wriggle.

As Alex Carey sees it, "The twentieth century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy''.

In the US, corporate propaganda has played upon the high level of religious beliefs in the community, beliefs which leave its citizens predisposed to see the world in "Manichean terms''. This outlook leads towards a preference for action over reflection, a "pragmatic orientation'' that is perfectly suited to the corporate aim of identifying positive symbols with business, while assigning negative values to those that oppose them, such as labour unions and welfare provisions.

The organised dissemination of these symbols had its initial impetus in groups such as the National Americanization Committee, which succeeded in manipulating nationalist and patriotic symbols during World War I to associate corporate values with the "American way of life''. The psychological power of this association cannot be discounted: it has proved to be an enduring feature of the political climate in the US today.

Since then the corporate agenda has embraced all areas of society - media, schools, academia and the workplace - with focuses on different levels from "grassroots'' to "tree-tops''. It has succeeded via the mass media in identifying capitalism with democracy and in portraying any challenge to corporate elites as either "subversive'' or "extremist''.