A propaganda model leads to different expectations

Media coverage of the U.S. wars in Indochina has engendered a good deal of bitter controversy, some close analysis of several specific incidents, and a few general studies. It is widely held that the media “lost the war” by exposing the general population to its horrors and by unfair, incompetent, and biased coverage reflecting the “adversary culture” of the sixties. The media’s reporting of the Tet offensive has served as the prime example of this hostility to established power, which, it has been argued, undermines democratic institutions and should be cured, either by the media themselves or by the state.
A propaganda model leads to different expectations. On its assumptions, we would expect media coverage and interpretation of the war to take for granted that the United States intervened in the service of generous ideals, with the goal of defending Sout Vietnam from aggression and terrorism and in the interest of democracy and self-determination. With regard to the second-level debate on the performance of the media, a propaganda model leads us to expect that there would be no condemnation of the media for uncritical acceptance of the doctrine of U.S. benevolence and for adherence to the official line on all central issues, or even awareness of these characteristics of media performance. Rather, given that the U.S. government did not attain all of its objectives in Indochina, the issue would be whether the media are to be faulted for undermining the noble cause by adopting too “adversarial” a stance and departing thereby from fairness and objectivity.
We shall see that all of these expectations are amply fulfilled.

The Indochina wars (1) : Vietnam [fragment]
uit: Manufacturing consent : the political economy of the mass media - Edward S. Herman en Noam Chomsky


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