Name: BARAIRO, Jullianne Erin G.

Crse&Sec: PSC32
Subject: Political Economy
Professor: Jumel Estrañero
University: De La Salle University - Dasmariñas

TITLE: AMERICA VS THE WORLD: The Political Economy of the United States’
Neoliberal Capitalist Media Propaganda Funding

I. INTRODUCTION

Propaganda, according to (Guriev & Tresiman, 2015), is the use of government

advertising, the production and broadcast of news, pro-regime or administration online
media, bribery of independent press, and the hiring of internet trolls in order to convince and
manipulate the perspective of the public by making them believe that the one who is leading
is “competent.” Propaganda is crucial to an ideological struggle since its goal is to persuade
and reinforce beliefs to the masses into thinking that one ideology is better than the other.
Propagandists are storytellers who must create convincing and persuasive narratives for their
audiences. At the same time, an increase in media sources, combined with long-standing
traditions of free speech and open debate, has created a level of public immunity to
manipulation (Payne, 2009).

Studies investigating mass communication, including social media, frequently focus

on the media's behavioral and psychological effects on audiences. The reason for this focus
can be found in the origins of mass communication research in the United States during the
twentieth century's global conflicts and social upheaval. Throughout this time, research
agendas took on an "administrative" bent in order to assist those in governments and
corporations in better influencing their audiences through communication channels according
to (Lazarsfeld, 1941), as cited by (Abhishek, 2021). Despite the vastness of research
conducted outside of the administrative paradigm, the dominant paradigm ignores the
political economy of communication or an institution-level analysis–how state and private
interests influence media establishments and shape "communication." Although mass media
portrayal amplified and re-establish the structures of representative democracies, in which an
economic and political elite with access to media production and distribution can
disproportionately influence the majority of the populace through the use of their wealth
(SYTAFFEL, n.d.).

It is undeniable that the global process of deregulation and privatization has

accelerated in the last few decades. Information sharing and communication have not only
become critical components of the marketization process, but have also grown into
significant industries. Public media institutions, have already been privatized in many
countries, opening up new markets for expanding transnational media and entertainment
conglomerates. Furthermore, despite promises of public access and control, new information
and communication frameworks, such as the Internet, are emerging as marketed spaces
(Wasko, 2014).

According to (Shahin, 2022), the elite wields considerable power over the media and,
ultimately, public perception of international affairs. According to Herman and Chomsky's
(1988) propaganda model, this process is more instrumental, with the elite "manufacturing
consent" for decisions about foreign policy with the assistance of the news media. The media
serves to organize support for the special interests which dominate state and private activity
(p. xi)—a nexus of both political and corporate power that exerts control over the media via
formal and informal channels of coercion. ​According to (Lawrence, 2010), as cited by
(Shahin, 2022), mainstream media typically shows less freedom in trying to frame issues and
events, instead preferring to rely primarily on high-ranking government officials to form the
news in foreign policy contexts. When it comes to domestic policy, the playing field seems to
be more flexible to a broader range of would-be news framers, and journalists themselves
may demonstrate greater independence in introducing and maintaining particular news frames
(p. 267).

Herman and Chomsky (1988) in Manufacturing Consent states that propaganda

models focuses on the inequality of wealth and power, and its effects on the interest and
choices of the mass media. It traces the channels through which money and power can filter
out news fit for print, marginalize dissent, and enable the government and the superior private
corporations to communicate with the public." According to the propaganda theory, media is
a company that sells its products (readers and subscribers) to other businesses that do their
advertising in media instead of fulfilling the role of disseminating news to the public. The
news is being reshaped and reshaped from its original form. Filters are what Herman and
Chomsky refer to as the factors that shape the news.
 The 5 filters that Chomsky and Herman stated are: (1) Size and ownership of mass
media, (2) Funding, (3) Source, (4) Flaks, and (5) Anti-Communism. The mainstream news
channels, newspapers, and other forms of mass media are owned by large corporations and
conglomerates. The information shown to the public will differ depending on the
organization’s interests. Advertisements are the primary source of funding in the mass media.
If advertisements did not fund mass media, the price of newspapers may include the
production costs, and this is also true for other forms of mass media such as television, radio,
and electronic media. Sources for news and the media are supposed to safeguard these
sources, but there will be certain powerful sources that tend to change media policies
(Chomsky & Herman, 1988) and (Communication Theory, n.d.).

Image source from Edward S. Herman (2017)

https://monthlyreview.org/2018/01/01/the-propaganda-model-revisited/

Each one of these factors filters the headlines before it reaches their intended audience
or the general public. In short, shifts in politics and communication in the past dozen years
have usually tend to strengthen the propaganda model's applicability. The rise of corporate
power and global reach, mergers as well as further media monopolization, and the decline of
public broadcasting have increased the importance of bottom-line factors both in the United
States and abroad (Herman & Chomsky, 2010).
 II. BODY

During the emergence of a state, the media plays a huge role according to Anderson
(1983), as cited by Shahin (2022). The connection between media and national identity
becomes a key since through media, according to Billig (1995), it reinforces nationalism.
Journalists set aside their morals to cover or report an event that favors a nation’s elite.
According to Anker (2005), after 9/11, Fox News, a U.S. major new outlet, already started a
“good vs evil” narrative, which then president George Bush had took in order to justify the
invasion of the U.S. to Afghanistan and Iraq. Anker (2005) further stated that the news media
portrayed the United States as a “victim” (Shahin, 2022).

The United States using media as its propaganda tool isn’t necessarily a new concept.
Washington, along with its elites, would use the media in order to push for neoliberal
policies, and their capitalist-is-the-only-option agenda. This ideology has been incorporated
by the media. When combined with the remaining power of anti-communism in a world
where the global power of market institutions makes non-market options appear unattainable
(Chomsky & Herman, 1988). This has been especially evident during, and after World War
II.
In order to defend the capitalist ideology–that capitalism is far superior to any other
systems, specifically, socialism and communism, and propaganda operations needed to
rewrite the entire narrative of World War II–that liberation from the Nazis was achieved
through the help of the U.S. and Europe, completely discrediting the movement of the Soviet
Union (Wargan et al., 2023). According to Sussman (2021), the United States was able to
mobilize the advertising and public relations organization, the Ad Council, in the 1940s to
conduct a campaign to promote and build public respect for private enterprise. In exchange,
the Advertising Council and a number of other institutions–the CIA, the corporate business
community, the advertising industry, the government, and the mass media, organized a
propaganda campaign against the Soviet Union, with the use of psychological warfare,
Hollywood, books, music, art, prints, and of course, the media.
 Sources:
https://cinemahistoryonline.com/2019/07/05/i-married-a-communist-or-woman-on-pier-13-1949/ , and
https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/red-scare

Due to this, during the 1990s, Russia’s state assets were seized and cultivated itself
with the Western financial capital by the elites–which resulted in Russia’s living standards
plummeting, GDP collapsing by 40 percent, and wages dropping to half of what they were
during the 1980s due to the drop of industrial inputs. Russia’s life expectancy had decreased
due to people dying under the era of privatization and shock therapy in the years 1989 and
2002, while the number of people falling into poverty had increased from 2.2 million in 80s,
to 74.2 million during the 90s–a huge increase from just 2% of the population to 50% in a
span of 5 years (1988-1993) (Wargan et al., 2023).

Aside from these forms of "soft power," the US military and CIA used "hard power"
to destabilize many governments that were perceived to be too friendly to China or the
USSR, or who were refusing to accept US authority over their economies, politics, and
culture. Dov Levin, an international relations scholar, discovered that the US meddled in the
presidential campaign of other countries 81 times between 1946 and 2000 (Sussman, 2021).
​The triumph of capitalism and the growing power of those interested in privatization and
market rule has intensified the grip of capitalist ideology, especially among the elite, to the
point where, despite the evidence, markets are believed to be benevolent and even democratic
and non - market mechanisms are skeptical, with exceptions made when private firms require
subsidies, bailouts, and government assistance in doing business abroad (Chomsky &
Herman, 1988).
 The United States and other Western governments have pushed the interests of
domestic firms keen to expand abroad, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World
Bank have done the same, working successfully to expand transnational corporate access to
media markets around the world. Neoliberal ideology has supplied the intellectual
justification for practices that have allowed private transnational investors to own
broadcasting stations, cable systems, and satellite systems (Chomsky & Herman, 1988).

All of these acts, however, must be funded by the government, by either raising the
tax rate or by reducing government expenditures on other items, which may include public
services valued by the demography (Guriev & Tresiman, 2015). Pooley (2008), as cited by
Abhishek (2021), with corporate funding and the government’s assistance, researchers began
to conduct media-effects investigations laying the groundwork for the modern advertising
and public relations industries, in addition to more sophisticated propaganda efforts by the
United States government.

State support has been integral to the emergence of global capitalism, creating a false
narrative of "free enterprise." Sussman (2021) stated that such presumptions have been
crucial if the corporate class were to dominate world trade and the nation were to affirm
global militaristic hegemony. As a backup to big business's lead, the US began a major
increase in military spending in 1950, providing the military industry with cost-plus contracts
—a type of military Keynesianism identified as the military-industrial complex. The United
States military participated in hostile actions internationally to safeguard the world for
capitalism, requiring billions of dollars in taxpayer funds.

The CIA, which is one of the organizations that perpetuate America’s capitalist media
propaganda, continues to invest in programs relating to cybersecurity, and
intelligence-gathering technologies (Sussman, 2021). According to Levine (2020), the CIA,
through the Museum of Modern Art’s agency which is the Congress for Cultural Freedom
(CCF), funded propaganda projects that was about the West’s virtues and democratic culture.
The CCF’s base was located in Paris, which was chosen by the CIA, since the city was the
center of Europe’s cultural life, and the CCF’s main agenda was to persuade any European
intellects who might have been swayed by the Soviet’s propaganda. CCF operated for a total
of 17 years–in the span of those years, it has published 20 magazines, held art exhibitions,
organized high-profile foreign conferences, awarding of artists and musicians, and owned its
own media news and features services (Levine, 2020).
 ​The United States has long been using democracy as both a tool and a weapon to
subvert democracy in the name of democracy, stir up division and conflict, and meddle in the
internal affairs of other countries, leading to disastrous consequences. NATO, a fascist project
that was created by the United States, was formed under an anti-communist propaganda and
under an imperialist order. The alliance's advancement coincided with the growing
propagation of neoliberalism, assisting in maintaining the hegemony of U.S. financial capital
and preserving the aggressive military-industrial complex that supported much of its
economy and society. The connection between NATO membership and neoliberalism was
conveyed by leading Atlanticists all through the alliance's eastward march (Wargan et al.,
2023). Peace and development are the themes in today's world, and the trend toward greater
democracy in global politics is invincible. Any attempt to intervene in the internal affairs of
other nations in the name of democracy is controversial and destined for failure. As one of
the US government's main "foot soldiers," "white gloves," and "democracy crusaders," the
National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has undermined lawful governments and
fostered pro-US puppet forces throughout the world under the guise of promoting democracy.
Its disgraceful record has sparked outrage in the international community. NED is ostensibly
an NGO that promotes democracy around the world, but in reality, it is funded by the White
House and the US Congress and follows orders from the US government. It has manipulated
and directed non-governmental organizations (NGOs) all over the globe to sell American
values, conduct subversion, infiltration, sabotage, and incite so-called "democratic
movements" in targeted countries and regions (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's
Republic of China, 2022).

III. ANALYSIS

State propaganda's goal is not to re-engineer human souls, but to raise the leader's
popularity, which is widely publicized as long as it remains high. Totalitarian dictators
frequently used propaganda to persuade citizens to make compromises for the "common
good," while their successors seek to manipulate citizens into backing the dictatorship for
selfish reasons. The dictator has control over all information channels. He can spend his
money to make the propaganda broadcast by the state media more believable. He has the
ability to bribe the informed elite in order to prevent them from sending critical messages.
And he has the ability to censor the messages that they do transmit. The tyrant can also spend
money on hiring and equipping police with repressive tools. Opposition leaders are harassed
and ridiculed, falsely accused of crimes, and encouraged to leave the country. Separatist
rebellions can be crushed brutally by new-style dictators, who use paramilitaries against
unarmed protesters. They use violence rarely, however, in comparison to most previous
autocrats. For them, keeping power is less about terrorizing victims and more about
manipulating people's perceptions of the world (Guriev & Tresiman, 2015).

According to Sussman (2022), Marx differentiated the realm of social production

relations (the base) from that of ideological (legitimating) institutions (the superstructure)
that assist in maintaining the political status quo in his Preface to A Contribution to a
Critique of Political Economy (1859). The "superstructure" is a domain of
consciousness-molding (ideology), a collection of activities generated by institutions (e.g.,
education, church, media, authorities, corporate self-promotion) that act as legitimizing,
sometimes antagonistic, agents of/against the capitalist "base" (sphere of production) to
establish a culture of compliance with (or resistance to) the ruling class's hegemonic models
and values.

The superstructure, which contains norms, values, beliefs, and ideology, justifies the
base. It serves as a catalyst in which production relations appear fair and natural, even if they
are unjust and only profit the ruling class (Cole, 2020). The accumulation, coercion, and
cultural functions of mainstream media in aid of the capitalist mode of production - within
what has become a promotional economy - have intensified and yet are becoming transparent,
making hegemonic (i.e., ruling class) ideology, the grand narrative behind propaganda,
significantly extra vulnerable to challenge and interruption (Sussman, 2022). The media play
a critical role in reproducing the ideological preconditions that support state legitimacy at
home and abroad, as well as, in a fatal contradiction, in deepening the abstraction, isolation,
and dehumanization of labor, inevitably ruining the very basis of its legitimacy.

Source: Cole (2020),

https://www.thoughtco.com/definition-of-base-and-superstructure-3026372
IV. RECOMMENDATION

● The grassroots of anti-communism must be properly addressed

● Having awareness of the hegemonies and how to resist them
● Encouraging and participating in the collective struggle against imperialist forces
● Further research

V. CONCLUSION

It has been made clear through the research that only the hegemonies and the elites
truly benefit from the funded neoliberal media propaganda that has been made rampant by the
global superpower–the United States. States who do not adhere to the West are being treated
as enemies–having their economies be affected by the funded propaganda that the U.S.
created. By giving the masses a false sense of democracy through their neoliberal policies,
the states (which are being heavily influenced by the West) are more susceptible to a
tyrannical reign. As quoted from Guriev and Tresiman (2015), Dictators survive not through
the use of force or ideology, but by convincing the public, either rightly or wrongly, that they
are competent. Citizens deduce the dictator's type from messages ingrained in their standard
of living, state propaganda, and information sent by an informed elite via independent press
rather than observing it. People who believe the dictator is incompetent stage a coup him in a
revolution. The dictator can spend money on creating persuasive state propaganda, censoring
independent media, collaborating with the elite, or arming police to repress attempted
uprisings—but he must do so at the expense of the public's living standards. We demonstrate
that inept dictators can survive so long as changes in the economy are not too severe.
Furthermore, their track records for competence might even grow over time—even become
legendary.

As the world continues to evolve, it has made huge technological advancements. The
struggle of changing public opinions through a coordinated propaganda effort should increase
as information media propagate further in response to technological and economic changes.
Even a skilled propagandist with a powerful means of communication will find it difficult to
shift entrenched views that are supported by widely accessible reliable and valid information.
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Message to sir Jumel:

Hello, sir! I hope this message finds you well. Would like to thank you for the short
amount of time that you spent with our class, and for humouring our requests. I wish you luck
on your future endeavors po, sir! Godspeed.