Manufacturing consent in democratic South Africa: application of the propaganda model
Date
2009-06-30T08:34:09Z
Authors
Lovaas, Scott
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Abstract
Abstract: While the end of apartheid in South Africa brought the end of state repression and formal apartheid censorship of the press, new mechanisms have come to replace the old. Market-driven English daily newspapers continue, through a series of new filters, to limit, shape, and censor ideas for the benefit of the elite private and public sectors. The manufactured, one-dimensional, pro-market world view that results restricts both freedom and democracy. As South Africa enters its second decade of democracy, with new freedoms and civil liberties, further evaluation of this relationship between the media, the state, and the market becomes increasingly vital.
The ‘Propaganda Model’ as laid out by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, in their book, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988, updated 2002) represents a significant analysis of media performance in a democracy. The authors question basic premises of democracy and the free press. According to Herman and Chomsky, the US media “serve, and propagandise on behalf of, the powerful societal interests that control and finance them.” This qualitative and quantitative study demonstrates that propaganda and media control continues today within South African English daily newspapers.
To prove this argument, this paper examines how three South African newspapers cover forestry, terrorism, and the New African Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) over a two-year period. The quantitative study surveyed 1797 articles and examined the use of sources quoted and revealed censorship of alternative voices. The qualitative analysis examined the vested interests and various players have in a pro-market, censored representation of NEPAD, the forestry industry, and terrorism. The study revealed that capitalism and the resulting interlocking capital of board members, newspaper owners, advertisers, and the government, cause newspapers to engage in self-censorship and exclusion of threatening voices to advance the interests of the elite.
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Keywords
media studies, newsprint propaganda