Fundamentals of manipulating information in the media. The study of Herman and Chomsky
In 1988 the first issue of Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky was printed. Based on a series of case studies of the US-based media, Herman and Chomsky made monumental research of information manipulation techniques in the modern media and refined their Propaganda Model. Contrary to the usual image of the news media as obstinate in their search for truth and defence of justice, in their actual practice, they defend the economic, social, and political agendas of the privileged groups that dominate the society, the state, and the global order.
More than 30 years later, this work of Chomsky and Herman is still extremely relevant. Their work is even more important now because it analyses why and how information is distorted by the media from an economical standpoint. They characterize mass media as economical subjects primarily, which is driven by the ultimate goal of maximizing their profitability. I base my conclusions on my personal experience in the media. I started working as a journalist in 2007 and ended my career in 2020 as public procurement investigator in the IT department in Russia’s most respected business media outlet, “Vedomosti”. This media was founded in the 18th century and was revived in 1999 by The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times.
The distortion and manipulation of information in the media have a systemic nature, according to the conclusions made in Manufacturing Consent, at the root of this problem is the fact that information consumers aren’t beneficiaries of the media. Quite the opposite — they are the product in current economic conditions. This product, to be more precise, is their attention that mass media attract, accumulate, and resell to their partners — advertisers.
Large modern media outlets are guided by economic terms and notions such as the volume of “product” (traffic, engagement ratio of readers), quality (bounce rate, retention, the average age of audience, audience income e.t.c.), and associated costs (customer acquisition cost). Becoming profit centers, media stray further away from their primary mission which is keeping the public informed and initiating a dialogue between the public and government. If such mission is fulfilled by a journalist here and there, it’s also driven by his personal financial interest (not pure altruism, although that can also be a factor and nobody denies that honest journalists exist) — which lies in increasing the value of their personal brand.
As things stand, the absolute majority of media have no systemic incentive to put the interest readers ahead of their own. This means the whole industry hardly works in the best interests of the public, in spite of this being their initial mission, something they are supposed to be doing. There are brave and altruistic journalists and other professionals in the media industry, who are ready to defend the values they stand for at their own expense, but the industry works in a way that disincentivizes such behaviour at the very root. It’s oriented towards attention-grabbing techniques, rather than keeping the public informed and facilitating a healthy dialogue in the society, between different social groups.
One of the consequences stemming from the current sad state of affairs in the media is the extreme polarization of society. This is something that large media even stand to benefit from. The main reason for that is the fact that outraged, scared, and biased people are easier to manipulate, they are not inclined to assess information and news critically, they are predisposed to dividing everyone into “friend” and “foe” groups.
The kind of manipulation in the media that stimulates this situation makes for an unsustainable and unhealthy media industry, that begs for external regulation, and this role is filled by the government, which unsurprisingly does it extremely inefficiently, and media don’t shy away from manipulation or distortion of information, drawing the line only at straight-up lying.
Is it possible to create a viable alternative to government regulation, that would allow making at the very least online media more transparent? Is it possible to track and identify cases of information manipulation? To support independent mass media and help the public hold large media accountable for misrepresenting or ignoring social issues? We believe it is possible and this is the main mission of the Verdict platform to become such a tool. It’s not a trivial task, but if we are to keep both society in general and the media industry healthy, this is the way to go forward.
