Politico-media complex

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The term politico-media complex (PMC) refers to a close and symbiotic type of relationship between a nation state's political classes, particularly any ruling class, its media industry, and any interactions with or dependencies upon an analogous interest group, such as the so-called military-industrial complex (MIC).

As a pejorative term, PMC refers to a form of institutionalized collusion primarily between mainstream media (MSM) news distribution organizations and the current government under which they labor. As such, it is a cartel that works against the public interest and is aligned (consciously or unconsciously), with anti-democratic thought.

Consistent with this, more explicit (pejorative), compoundings have been advanced such as:

  • Military-politico-media-complex[1]
  • Military-industrial-politico-media complex[2]
  • Politico-media-industrial complex[3]
  • Corporate-politico-media[4]
  • Politico-media-entertainment complex[5]
  • Politico-media-legal complex[6]

that recognize apparent interactions and dependencies.

Contents

[edit] History

The term appears in the MSM in North America from at least 2000[7]and in Europe from at least 2001[8].

As in the case of MIC, usually, but erroneously, attributed to Eisenhower (the evidence[9] appearing to point to a first public use of the term MIC by the Union of Democratic Control [UDC] - formed by Sir Charles Trevelyan - in the United Kingdom on 5 August 1914), an original coining is not obvious.

Contemporary usage continues in North America[10] and Europe[11]. Other explicit commentary[12] is (slowly) emerging.

[edit] Political control

In such a system, the political classes are critically dependent on a close-knit web of connections to ensure the 'correct' placement and appropriate amplification of insider-information (often characterized as a political leak), in an attempt to control mass public perception of events - the business of what has become known as political spin.

[edit] Mainstream media set

The MSM set - the collection of individuals and any enclosing organizations that are regularly a part of long established media channels (a definite sub-set, at any given time, of the mass media), in western liberal democracies (WLDs) - in return, depends on the political classes for a steady stream of insider-information or leaks to expand upon.

More generally, the MSM set must work with an eye to the condition of the 'free market' and satisfying the preconditions of staying in business. The satisfaction ranges from 'earning' the patronage that supplies any necessary licensing (including public funding), through to attracting advertizer revenue or accumulating fees from personal appearances ([audio/video media] or commissioned articles [text media]).[13]

The typical MSM set, at any given time, will range from the major newspaper titles together with main radio and television channels (as institutional members), politicians themselves, academics, political journalists and commentators, through to other popular members of the 'celebrity' class who are invited to participate.

Notable, in the MSM set, is the frequent appearance of some of its members - the standard terminology now being 'usual suspects' (a characterization made famous by the movie Casablanca) - as they circulate among broadcast programmes that are principally concerned with current affairs and distributed over public and independent channels. These programmes can range from concern with straight news items through subsequent commentary and assessment, to comedy.

MSM set programme archetypes (produced in the United Kingdom), for public and independent channels are:

[edit] Professionally organised

Implicitly, in the WLDs, these being nominally (at least), non-coercive, the running of the PMC is left to the (largely privatized), public relations (PR) industry and its various organs, some examples, past and present, of these organs being:


The Bilderberg Group may be said to be a representative of the more obscure workings of the PMC.

[edit] Handling failure

As needs change to satisfy the workings of the PMC, especially in the face of any signs of failure of professed policy[16] pushed through by the PMC, simple initiatives[17] can readily be found. If simple initiatives appear not to work, then, it is likely that extended propaganda material will be put before those who are reluctant to be persuaded.[18]

If repeated attempts at the rehabilitation of, what looks to be, a discredited policy are unsuccessful - the gap between politico-media directed 'strategy'[19] and reality, finally, being too large to paper over[20] - then the PMC, in an effort to protect itself from the excesses of any previous enthusiasm, will begin an internal re-alignment of relations[21] between its elements. This shift (cf. paradigm shift) marks the 'legitimizing' of extended criticism of failed policy together with its originators and advocates.[22]

The completion of this 'revolution' is marked by resistance - ranging from passive silence through active obstruction - to accountability for the consequences of past advocacy and with a return to, as quickly as possible, 'business as usual.'

Orwell captured this degenerate behavior (cf. degenerate [research] programmes[23]), in extremis, through his description of the 'memory hole' in his book Nineteen Eighty-Four.

[edit] Critics

Perhaps the best description of the process of concern to a PMC, most of the individuals participating being unconscious of their actual roles, is Manufacturing Consent - with Noam Chomsky's and Edward S. Herman's 'propaganda model' at its heart.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Military-politico-media-complex
  2. ^ Military-industrial-politico-media complex
  3. ^ Military-industrial-politico-media complex
  4. ^ Corporate-politico-media
  5. ^ Politico-media-entertainment complex
  6. ^ Politico-media-legal complex
  7. ^ 2000 North American usage
  8. ^ 2001 European usage
  9. ^ DeGroot, Gerard J. Blighty: British Society in the Era of the Great War, 144, London & New York: Longman, 1996, ISBN 0-582-06138-5. Point four of the UDC pacifist manifesto saying:

    4. National armaments should be limited by mutual agreement, and the pressures of the military-industrial complex regulated by the nationalisation of armaments firms and control over the arms trade.

    (emphasis added)
  10. ^ 2006 North American usage
  11. ^ 2006 European usage
  12. ^ 2006 commentary
  13. ^ Herman, E.S., Chomsky, N. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. Vintage, 1994, ISBN 0-375-71449-9. pp. 14-18
  14. ^ USC Center on Public Diplomacy Library
  15. ^ Downing Street media monitoring service project
  16. ^ Failure Bush 'dissatisfied' with Iraq war
  17. ^ Initiative Pentagon boosts 'media war' unit
  18. ^ Persuasion Iraq Study Group Report (ISG)
  19. ^ Strategy Bush 'integrates' his guidance
  20. ^ Skepticism as a response to George W. Bush's 'New Strategy'
  21. ^ The separation of Judith Miller (journalist) from the New York Times, for example
  22. ^ '... the establishment bastards have bailed out ...,' Lyndon B. Johnson is reported to have said, bitterly:

    ...after the "Wise Men" advised him in March 1968 to abandon hope of military victory and to de-escalate the conflict, in the wake of the Tet offensive.

    Daniel Hallin, based on a survey of MSM television news broadcasts from 1965 through to the January 1973 Paris Peace Accords on Vietnam, concludes that:

    Until the Tet offensive, television coverage was 'lopsidedly favorable to American policy in Vietnam,' well beyond the remarkably docile print media....he [Hallin] notes the 'dramatic' change after Tet, 'part of a larger change, a response to as well as a cause of the unhappiness with the war that was developing at many levels, from the halls of the Pentagon, to Main Street, U.S.A. and the fire bases of Quang Tri province' - and, much more crucially, the unhappiness that had become quite significant by 1968 among business elites, leading to (the) changes in U.S. government policy ...

    Hallin's gathered statistics indicate that:

    'Before Tet, editorial comments by television journalists ran nearly four to one in favor of administration policy; after Tet, two to one against,' reflecting divisions in the 'establishment itself.' He [Hallin] quotes New York Times editor Max Frankel, who said in an interview that 'we're an establishment institution, and whenever your natural constituency changes, then naturally you will too.'

    Herman, E.S., Chomsky, N. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. Vintage, 1994, ISBN 0-375-71449-9. pp. 202-203
  23. ^ Imre Lakatos and degenerate research programmes

[edit] External links

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