The Propaganda Triad |
CounterPunch Exclusives
CounterPunch Exclusives
In the words of Morgan State University Journalism and Communications Professor, Dr. Jared Ball: “How do you know what you know? And, why do you like what you like?” This necessitates a discussion of how the empire’s propaganda functions from a materialist standpoint. Two models have been established in media studies, the Hypodermic Needle–developed by Harold Lasswell in the 1920s, and the Two-step Flow of Communication–instituted by Paul Lazarsfeld et al., and further elucidated in 1955 in collaboration with Elihu Katz. Lasswell’s theory postulates that media messaging is “injected” into the populace in the manner of a simultaneous mass inoculation. Lazarsfeld’s update of that model suggests that the masses are not passively influenced by Media directly, but that Opinion Leaders are–who then impel the rest of us to accept our beliefs. This supposedly explains how ideas are transferred within a given population: Media > Opinion Leaders > Broader Population. In essence, there are two steps–involving people–that happen to create mass influence.
The problem with both of these models is how media gets defined–or not defined at all–for the public. Every experience is rooted in material reality, either naturally occurring objects like trees or minerals, or human-made items derived from them, like wooden chairs or smartphones. “Media” is not organic matter. Nothing is natural about its presence in our lives. There are people who create all the media that influences us. Once we situate them at the start of the value chain as people, and not an innocuous........