Building Narratives: How Propaganda in Democracies Can Change Our Perception of the World

Author: Clelia Vettori (2022)

Clelia Vettori holds a double master’s degree in Human Rights and Multi-level Governance from the University of Padova and International Relations and Global Studies from the University of Wrocław. This In Focus article is an excerpt from her master thesis discussed in April 2022 under the supervision of prof. Pietro de Perini.

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In what Noam Chomsky calls the “era of alternative facts”, where everything can be disputed, fabricated, and manufactured as dictated by the interests of the dominant elite, the narratives that are able to prevail over others acquire new importance and are therefore worth studying. The enormous changes that the business of information has undergone since the end of World War II, the latest development being the advent of social media, have exacerbated the pace at which news travels. Furthermore, the amount of information shared on various platforms every hour is astounding; as a consequence, one of the scarcest resources today is attention, and every media outlet is forced to engage in a race that favours whoever is powerful enough to “make impressions” and “go viral”, with little regards to the consequences that this can have. On the one hand, it is true that this plurality of sources provides the public with alternative readings of certain news than that of the governmentally promoted narratives. On the other hand, however, these news outlets have amplified the space where government propaganda can be liked and shared—this is true for both more “classic” forms of propaganda, i.e., those associated with authoritarian regimes, and the less explicit propaganda systems that characterise democratic states such as the US.

The purpose of the present article is precisely that of exploring the extent to which US mainstream media endorse the government’s narrative when it comes to a particular issue area: abuses against Muslim minorities in China. The main argument is that media outlets such as The New York Times are endorsing the official government’s stance on China, in the context of an increasing and ever more explicit strategic competition between the two countries. To verify this assertion, first, a few words will be said about the China-US relationship in general, and then the Propaganda Model described by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky in Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media will be applied to the case study under consideration.

What Strategic Competition?

The history of relations between the US and China is extremely multifaceted: these two countries, over the past decades, have been allies but also adversaries, following the changing dynamics of the international system. Now the balance is shifting once again: the unipolar era that began with the end of the Cold War seems to be approaching its expiration date, and many predict that a new, multipolar order is slowly emerging. Challenges to the declining order are arising in many regions of the world and are of various nature: one of the most prominent and emblematic examples is the ongoing war in Ukraine, which, in turn, has raised concerns about Taiwan, a territory that the PRC aims to reunite to the mainland. In particular, the origins of the ongoing strategic competition between the US and China can be traced back to the end of the Cold War and the (symbolic) victory of Capitalism over Communism, which has confirmed the United States’ position of primacy in world affairs. Moreover, it is important to keep in mind that China’s contemporary history is characterised by the century of humiliation and the subsequent effort to rebuild a strong and unified country: part of the strategy for achieving this goal was to lift the entire Chinese population from extreme poverty, an effort that the central government has successfully undertaken with the utmost seriousness.

It is precisely the PRC’s rapid economic growth and the increasing clout that it exercises in the Indo-Pacific region that has prompted Washington’s reaction: according to Graham Allison’s “Thucydides Trap” notion, the US and China today run the risk of following the same path that Sparta and Athens undertook 2,500 years ago. Indeed, Thucydides argued that “it was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable”. Realist theories on hegemonic war debated by a large number of scholars (among which Wallerstein; Gilpin; Kupchan) make similar predictions: once the hegemon starts declining (economically, but also in terms of the values that it embodies), and feels threatened by a rising power, then it is more likely to engage in preventive measures to avoid such decline. This, in a nutshell, explains the reasons behind Washington’s attitude towards China, which started shifting under the Obama administration, has reached its peak with the presidency of Donald Trump – who made the competition between Beijing and the US explicit – and is now continuing under the Biden administration. Therefore, the questions that will be explored in the following paragraphs are whether the US government’s stance on China is endorsed by the media, and in particular by the NYT, and, if so, to what extent.

The Propaganda Model

It is true that in a democracy, the press should be free from any form of censorship: in particular, in the United States, the idea of a press independent of government is encapsulated in the First Amendment. However, even though American journalists have – in theory – the freedom to report criticism of public officials and their policies, in practice, the independence of the media is somewhat constrained, especially in the coverage of international affairs involving the US. As anticipated, these limitations have been well studied and recorded by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky in their book, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, published for the first time in 1988. Here they outlined a five-filter model that explains, when it comes to core state interests in international conflicts, how US media seem to endorse and promote the narrative around the government’s line of action. These five filters are connected to who owns or finances the media, advertising as a primary income source, the fear of flak that “disciplines” the media, the reliance of the media on information provided by the government, businesses and “experts”, the ideological environment in which the journalists operate, and the state of elite debate. This last point clarifies exactly how the propaganda system of democracies differs from that of authoritarian states: the argument is that US media encourage debate, criticism, and dissent, as long as these remain faithfully within the system of presuppositions and principles that constitute an elite consensus. Therefore, even though media in the US are private and formal censorship is absent, they still serve the interests of the dominant elite and marginalise dissent to the extent of becoming a factual propaganda body.

In practical terms, the five filters of the propaganda model translate into an analysis of the intensity of the coverage, how often official sources v. non-official sources are cited, how victims of enemy states v. client states are depicted, and how the wording changes and becomes harsher and more invidious in articles about enemy states. For instance, by looking at the intensity of The New York Times’ coverage of Muslim minorities in China and India in the past 20 years, it is possible to observe that up until 2013, both topics received similar patterns of attention (Figure 1 below). However, from 2014 onwards, the topic of Muslim minorities in China has received much more consideration, with a peak in the years of 2019 and 2020. This is the first indicator that, in reporting about issues concerning China, there might be a certain bias whereby the victims of the enemy state (China) are subjected to a more intense coverage than those victimised by the client state (India)—as the model constructed by Herman and Chomsky predicts.

Moreover, in reporting on abuses against the Uighur minority, The New York Times relies heavily on “official” sources, i.e., government officials, business corporations, trade groups, and independent experts and academics. These are all considered credible and objective sources that add authority and prestige to the facts that are being described; however, according to Herman and Chomsky, this overreliance on official sources restricts the debate within bounds that conform to the interests of elites. It is also important to highlight that some of these frequently quoted sources receive funding directly from branches of the US government itself: this is the case of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), an Australian think tank regularly cited in NYT articles on abuses against Uighurs that in the years 2020-2021 has received $985,140.40 from the US Department of State to conduct research on human rights in Xinjiang. Other governments are also funding various projects of the ASPI; however, the US government is reportedly the only body that finances research on such targeted issues.

Herman and Chomsky further argue that another filter that the raw material of news must pass through is the “dominant ideology”, which serves to justify government actions while marginalising alternative readings. There are different opinions as to what this filter is: some argue it can be identified with the neoliberal belief in the miracle of the market, while others believe it is associated with the war on terror, humanitarian warfare ideology or nationalism. When it comes to China, as with many other “tyrants” of the world, this filter – whose “ideology” categorisation should be revised – is the human rights narrative, the pièce de resistance of the US. In fact, the US government often instrumentalises this narrative to depict China as a wicked state that deserves hostility. This interpretation is, once again, reflected in the media: foreign policy matters relating to China almost exclusively revolve around human rights—a notion that is considered universally valid and that, as such, not only justifies the heightened attention and concern dedicated to the issue, but it also substantiates the adoption of various forms of sanctions as permissible countermeasures to “right this wrong”. The insistence on human rights and sanctions goes hand in hand with the selection of specific words and frames, which is equally relevant because it further reinforces the notion of China as a wicked state. For instance, the expressions “genocide”, “crimes against humanity”, and “repression” are frequently used in NYT articles covering abuses against Uighurs. Moreover, the frequent associations between the situation in China and Nazi Germany, the Holocaust and concentration camps used in the same articles provide an additional, extraordinarily potent, and culturally resonant frame that further discourages even slightly dissenting interpretations; therefore, cementing the hold of the narrative.

Conclusions

As emerged in the above discussion, when it comes to foreign policy and mobilising the public’s support for policies that are detrimental to the “enemy on duty”, US mainstream media do not seem to question the official narrative. On the contrary, the intensity of coverage, sourcing, emphasis on human rights and sanctions, and framing of abuses against Uighurs suggest an endorsement of the government’s stance and a certain bias, especially if compared to the reporting of comparable situations. Being able to impact the public’s perception of noteworthy events undoubtedly entails great responsibility and, therefore, it is essential to be aware of how information is being delivered and what kind of mechanisms and interests underlie news choice and framing. In a world that is ever more confusing, discerning the truth from various fabrications is indeed a challenging task. What we can do is search for sources of information that do not subscribe to (geo)political agendas and demand that they never cease serving the truly societal purposes to present alternative points of view, consider different value systems and allow for constructive debates.