Final Assignment (Topic no.4)

Media institution: Manufacturing consent.

Manufacturing consent in the view of Chomsky is that the media, especially the large multimedia companies, have one prevailing motive apart from profit. He argued that the media today are involved in a two pronged-process. The first process is to ensure that the top 20 per cent of the population are satisfied, and this is achieved by maintaining their position as policy-makers, in control of some of the rudiments of power. The issue is one whereby the media help the government to remain on a path that keeps this elite content and feeling that their position in society is of some worth, whilst continuing to ensure the lifestyle and political attachments of this elite. Most of the media are therefore inevitably interested in maintaining the status quo the power elite: often the power elite and the media elite are the same group of people (Rayner and Wall 2008). This means that much of the time the government and the elite are involved in an alliance but only when it suits them. Obviously issues can and do arise on which the government and the elite disagree. Then we can say that government and elite group are the most benefit in the manufacture consent.

Noam Chomsky is interested in the social and political implications of the mass media and their ownership. The basis premise of his writing on the media that he thinks society made up of two different classes of people. The top 20 per cent represents the professional class those who feel they have a stake in the decision-making processes in society, professionals such as judges, lawyers, teachers and intellectuals. Many of these people have a genuine interest in politics and rudiments of power that are associated with their position. So these groups of people think that they have some influence on the way things are run and governed such as the financial support to mass media. This group has money and power that can own and control the media. For remain 80 per cent whose main function is to work and follow orders from people of 20 per cent professional class. Their interested are concerned about their house, fed and have enough to finance for their leisure time so they have no power or money to mass media.


The example case study that shows how media work together with other institution in bringing about a change in society is the case of The pentagon and U.S Chamber (Herman and Chomsky 1988)., the magnitude of the public-information operations of large government and corporate bureaucracies that constitute the primary news sources is vast and ensures special access to the media. The Pentagon, for example, has a public-information service that involves many thousands of employees, spending hundreds of millions of dollars every year and dwarfing not only the public-information resources of any dissenting individual or group but the aggregate of such groups. In I979 and 1980, during a brief interlude of relative openness (since closed down), the U.S. Air Force revealed that its public-information outreach included the following:
I40 newspapers, 690,000 copies per week Airman magazine, monthly circulation I25,000 34 radio and I7 TV stations, primarily overseas 45,000 headquarters and unit news releases 6I5,000 hometown news releases 6,600 interviews with news media 3,200 news conferences 500 news media orientation flights 50 meetings with editorial boards 11,000 speeches
This excludes vast areas of the air force's public-information effort. Writing back in I970, Senator J. W. Fulbright had found that the air force public-relations effort in I968 involved I,305 full-time employees, exclusive of additional thousands that "have public functions collateral to other duties." The air force at that time offered a weekly film-clip service for TV and a taped features program for use three times a week, sent to I,I39 radio stations; it also produced I48 motion pictures, of which 24 were released for public consumption. There is no reason to believe that the air force public-relations effort has diminished since the I960s.

Note that this is just the air force. There are three other branches with massive programs, and there is a separate, overall public-information program under an assistant secretary of defense for public affairs in the Pentagon. In I97I, an Armed Forces Journal survey revealed that the Pentagon was publishing a total of 37I magazines at an annual cost of some $57 million, an operation sixteen times larger than the nation's biggest publisher. In an update in I982, the Air Force Journal International indicated that the Pentagon was publishing I,203 periodicals. To put this into perspective, we may note the scope of public-information operations of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) and the National Council of the Churches of Christ (NCC), two of the largest of the nonprofit organizations that offer a consistently challenging voice to the views of the Pentagon. The AFSC's main office information-services budget in I984-85 was under $500,000, with eleven staff people. Its institution-wide press releases run at about two hundred per year, its press conferences thirty a year, and it produces about one film and two or three slide shows a year. It does not offer film clips, photos, or taped radio programs to the media. The NCC Office of Information has an annual budget of some $350,000, issues about a hundred news releases per year, and holds four press conferences annually. The ratio of air force news releases and press conferences to those of the AFSC and NCC taken together are I50 to I (or 2,200 to 1, if we count hometown news releases of the air force), and 94 to I respectively. Aggregating the other services would increase the differential by a large factor.

Only the corporate sector has the resources to produce public information and propaganda on the scale of the Pentagon and other government bodies. The AFSC and NCC cannot duplicate the Mobil Oil company's multimillion-dollar purchase of newspaper space and other corporate investments to get its viewpoint across. The number of individual corporations with budgets for public information and lobbying in excess of those of the AFSC and NCC runs into the hundreds, perhaps even the thousands. A corporate collective like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had a I983 budget for research, communications, and political activities of $65 million. By I980, the chamber was publishing a business magazine (Nation's Business) with a circulation of I.3 million and a weekly newspaper with 740,000 subscribers, and it was producing a weekly panel show distributed to 400 radio stations, as well as its own weekly panel-discussion programs carried by I28 commercial television stations.

Besides the U.S. Chamber, there are thousands of state and local chambers of commerce and trade associations also engaged in public relations and lobbying activities. The corporate and trade-association lobbying network community is "a network of well over I50,000 professionals," and its resources are related to corporate income, profits, and the protective value of public-relations and lobbying outlays. Corporate profits before taxes in I985 were $295.5 billion. When the corporate community gets agitated about the political environment, as it did in the I970s, it obviously has the wherewithal to meet the perceived threat. Corporate and trade-association image and issues advertising increased from $305 million in I975 to $650 million in I980. So did direct-mail campaigns through dividend and other mail stuffers, the distribution of educational films, booklets and pamphlets, and outlays on initiatives and referendums, lobbying, and political and think-tank contributions. Aggregate corporate and trade-association political advertising and grass-roots outlays were estimated to have reached the billion-dollar-a-year level by I978, and to have grown to $I.6 billion by I984.

To consolidate their preeminent position as sources, government and business-news promoters go to great pains to make things easy for news organizations. They provide the media organizations with facilities in which to gather; they give journalists advance copies of speeches and forthcoming reports; they schedule press conferences at hours well-geared to news deadlines; they write press releases in usable language; and they carefully organize their press conferences and "photo opportunity" sessions. It is the job of news officers "to meet the journalist's scheduled needs with material that their beat agency has generated at its own pace."

Final Assignment (Topic No.1)

Media Ethics: in theory and in practice

Media ethics is the subdivision of applied ethics dealing with the specific ethical principles and standards of media, including broadcast media, film, theatre, the arts, print media and the internet. The field covers many varied and highly controversial topics, ranging from war journalism to Benetton advertising (Wikipidea 2009). As the one of media, news production is concerned with media ethic. The reporter of news production should be the one who play the role to represent the situation and show that what is going on in the area or in the world. The ethic of news production should be not bias and there is no subjective. The news that the reporters pick up to represent to people should be relied on the truth and does not subjective. However, it is difficult to say that no bias or subjective to represent the news in these days because many factors that influence to the reporters to chose the topic of the news. Then sometimes it might be wonder if they have the ethic when they represent the news.

If we compare the news productions process in Thailand and U.K we will find that some are quite similar. However, it is different in some ways of the process of the news production as well. For example of similarity is the process of getting news. There are a number of ways that the reporters will get the topic or the source of the news such as press releases which is a written statement circulated to the news media, providing information in a readily digested form for journalists to use. A press release may be re-written in their own style of news reporter and make it becomes a new story. This is the common thing that we have seen both in Thailand and in U.K. Next one of sources of the news is press briefings. Press briefings can be both formal and informal. They are provided by governments to pass information to the news media either on or off the record. “Off the record’ means that the information is unofficial and the journalist is not expected to divulge where the information came from ( Rayner and Wall 2008). Sometimes we can say this is the lobby system from the government or in a large organization to represent their information. They want their information or news represent to the public in the way they want. The other sources of the news that both Thai and U.K reporters can get the news from is public relation through public relations consultants for famous person or celebrities, who want to keep themselves in the public eyes.

Beside of the news sources the other things that similar in process of production news in Thailand and U.K. is newsroom roles. The newsroom is the centre of the news operations where the journalists use for working and return to prepare their stories. And they both have news editor who plays the important role to chose the topic on news and decide that which news should be represented and also who is one responsible for all concern if the news has been launched and make other people defame or redress.

One thing that similar in the news production in Thailand and U.K. is the topic or headlines on the news most of the time only in the center of the country such as capital city where the national institutions are situated for example government parliament and government offices. For the remote area sometimes might be overlooked from the reporters. They can use agency for finding the news instead of reporter go out to the remote area as we call them ‘stringer’.
The different thing that we can see in the process of news production in Thailand and U.K is the quality of reporters. It seems most the reporters in Thailand are young. Some are just graduated and no experiences in the field. If we analyze the news reporters from U.K. we can think that they might be have much more experiences and specialize in the field because their news can represent in many countries so it means their quality are acceptable in the nation and in other countries. For Thai reporters, their news can sell only in Thailand it quite difficult to sell in other countries because of its quality as well.

In U.K the competition is quite high then the reporters do not share information or the news to other organizations but we can see this happen in Thailand where the reporters share their information or even copy their information or story of the news to other reporters.

Both of journalists in Thailand and U.K are under a lot of pressures to produce the message of the news. It is influenced by many factors both of people and organizations. So the feasibility of ethical news production in Thailand and U.K. is depends on people and organizations as well. It is difficult to say that there is no bias or subjective in the news productions. Both of the reporters in Thailand and U.K are rely on the sources of the news and concern with commercial in business to make the profit for organizations. So sometimes news media must take care not to upset their sources of news and avoid presenting anything that upset their advertisers then the news that we have seen might be not what the reporters want to present and the ethical sometimes was ignored by some journalists. Ethics is just only a rule but it does not the law as long as the news is still influenced by people it is difficult to think about the truth and non bias in the news production in both countries or even in the this global village.

In my opinion, in U.K. the reporter can accommodates media ethics better than in Thailand because of the cultural norm and economic factor. And also ideology is different. For example, In Thailand we have no freedom to represent the news about the dynasty. The news which concerns the dynasty must come from the organization that working for the dynasty. But it is different in U.K. they can represent the news of their dynasty by their point of view. The economic of reporters is one that can influence the news because of some reporters in Thailand are young and no experiences then their salary are quite low. If any source offer money or any bribe to them it quite easy to make them decide to accept it to make the bias in the news. I think in the U.K. there are more professionals journalists and their incomes are higher than journalists in Thailand. It gives them the freedom to write the news than us so it easier to deny for the bribe that the sources offer to them.