Word Tricks and Propaganda
By Edward S. Herman
ZMagazine c. 2002 4-29-2
The mainstream media carry out their propaganda service on Behalf of the
corporate and political establishment in many ways: by choice of topics
addressed (government rather than corporate abuses, welfare rather than
Pentagon waste, Kadaffi rather than Guatemalan state terrorism), by their
framing of issues (GDP growth rather than distribution, Fed policy effects
on inflation and security prices rather than on unemployment), by their
choice of sources of information (heavily depending on officials and think
tank flacks), and by their use of language, among other practices.
I want to focus here on the tricks of language that serve propaganda ends,
although it should be recognized that biased word usage is closely tied to
the other modes of bias. Heavy reliance on officials allows the officials to
frame the issues and to use words in ways that serve their agenda. The word
"terrorist" is applied to the target enemy (Iran), or the enemy of our
friend (Hamas, the PLO, the Kurdish PKK), not the "constructively engaged"
governments of Colombia, Israel, Turkey or, back in the 1980s, Savimbi and
the apartheid government of South Africa. The examples below will show how
story framing and word usage are essentially two aspects of a single process.
The integration of word usage, framing, and source selection points up the
fact that language is an arena of conflict and struggle. Word meanings,
connotations, and applications are fluid and change in the course of
struggle. For example, labor has long fought to have the word "strike" mean
a legitimate labor tactic and part of the institution of collective
bargaining, whereas management has always tried to get the word to symbolize
labor violence, inconvenience to the community, and damage to the GDP and
balance of payments. Management has been pretty successful in getting the
word interpreted with negative connotations.
Similarly, "welfare" has taken on negative connotations as part of the 25
year long corporate and rightwing attack on the welfare state. This same
campaign has seen the word "government" become a word of derogation.
Politicians run against "Washington" and "government." At the same time,
interestingly, as the right wingers like killing (except fetuses) and are
fond of the military establishment, they have succeeded in making the word
government applicable only to the government in its civil functions; in
denouncing the "government," we are not denouncing the Pentagon.
Words are regularly transformed in the service of the powerful. "Terrorism,"
originally used to describe state violence, as in the French Revolutionary
"reign of terror," has evolved in modern times to focus mainly on
anti-government, anti-establishment forms of political violence. "Political
correctness," originally an ironical left term for the standards of comrades
prone to sectarianism, was seized by establishment spokespersons for a
broad-brush castigation of the academic left.
"Freedom" has been subtly transformed in the New World Order from political
to economic liberty (including liberty for GE, GM, Exxon, and Royal Dutch
Shell), just as "democracy" has lost its substantive qualities in favor of
adherence to electoral forms. "Entitlement" has taken on negative
connotations as the dominant class has succeeded in identifying it with
claims of the weak, as in "Social Security entitlements" (there are no
military-industrial complex "entitlements," only "procurement," service
contracts, and occasionally acknowledged "subsidies").
"Reform" is the classic of word revisionism in the service of power,
transformed from meaning institutional and policy changes helpful to the
afflicted and weak to moves away from the welfare state and toward free
markets, thus helping the afflictors and strong. In an Orwellian twist,
"reform" that frees the poor and weak of their "entitlements"-pushing them
into a labor market kept loose by Alan Greenspan-is referred to as
"empowerment."
Let us review some of the common word tricks of the servants of power in the
media and think tank-academic community, taking examples from recent press
usage.
PURRING
Purr words are those with positive and warming overtones that create an aura
of decency and virtue. Reform, responsible, accountability, choice, jobs,
growth, modernization, flexibility, cost-benefit analysis, national
security, stability and efficiency are all prime purr words. The "reformers"
are always having their "patience tested," while never testing the patience
of others ("Labour costs test patience at US Airways," Financial Times [FT],
April 14, 1997). And they are invariably moderate, centrist, courageous,
daring, and proud. The New York Times' (NYT) Leslie Gelb spoke of Aspin,
Solarz, and Al Gore as "courageous" for having broken ranks and supported
George Bush's decision to bomb Iraq rather than pursue any less violent
course of action (March 10, 1991).
A NYT headline of April 11, 1997 reads "Proud but Cornered, Mobutu Can Only
Hope." Mobutu is one of the great thieves and scoundrels of modern times,
but having been installed by the CIA and protected by the West until 1997,
even now he is accorded the purr word "proud," which the paper would never
apply to Kim Il Sung or Saddam Hussein.
We can put up a large list of purr words from names of congressional bills,
always designed to express positive values, even if in substance they
threaten enormous pain: New Jersey's "Family Development Initiative Act"
(stripping benefits from the poor); the "National Security Revitalization
Act" (more boondoggle money); the August 1996 "Personal Responsibility and
Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act" (which includes five purr words in a
single Orwellian classic of doublespeak).
Republican pollster and deception manager Frank Luntz carefully tested the
"resonance" of words in advising Gingrich and company on the language to be
used in the Contract With [sic] America. He was quite open that you include
purr words even if it misrepresents intent, yielding the deception
masterpiece "Job Creation and Wage Enhancement Act," for a proposal whose
core content was sizable cuts in capital gains taxes.
The use of "flexibility" in "Democrats Show Flexibility On Capital Gains Tax
Cut" (NYT, Feb. 23, 1997), illustrates how word usage and framing are
integrated-"flexibility" gives a positive resonance and tacit approval
within a frame stressing political compromise. The paper could have used
words like "cave in" or "weakening" and framed the issue as one of
Democratic acceptance of a further regression in the tax structure.
For the New York Times, spokespersons for the military-industrial complex
like Sam Nunn, the late Henry Jackson (Senator from Boeing), and the
recently retired Republican Senator Alan Simpson are "moderates" and
automatically get words expressing approval- an article by Claudia Dreifus
on Simpson is titled "Exit Reasonable Right" (June 2, 1996), and in an
interview she allows Simpson uncontested justifications for his "rough"
usage of Anita Hill and assailing Peter Arnett's Gulf War reporting as
traitorous.
A column on Jeane Kirkpatrick, by Barbara Crossette was titled "A Warrior, A
Mother, A Scholar, A Mystery" (NYT, Aug. 17, 1994). Kirkpatrick was most
memorable as a "scholar" for her view that "totalitarian" regimes like those
in the Soviet bloc can never open up; and as a humanist she was perhaps best
known for alleging that the four American nuns raped and murdered in El
Salvador in 1980 had asked for it.
For the Times, the Arab world is "split into a clearly moderate, pro-Western
camp led by Egypt..and a fiercely nationalistic anti- Western coalition
gathered around Iran..."(Aug. 12, 1990). Moderate and pro-Western are
synonymous and sources of "stability," as in "In Uneasy Time, Saudi Prince
Provides a Hope of Stability" (Jan. 19, 1996). Pro-Western moderates like
Saudi Princes, or Suharto, are never "dictators" or "tyrants" like Fidel
Castro, and if they are not explicitly tagged moderates, approval is
expressed by references to their economic accomplishments in "growth"-as
regards Suharto, for example, "even his critics [specifics unmentioned]
acknowledge that he has brought growth and prosperity to this country of 190
million people" (NYT, July 28, 1996).
A moderate program is one approved by the western establishment, whatever
its impact on the underlying population, as in "Jose Maria Aznar was
appointed prime minister [of Spain] on a moderate platform, promising strict
austerity to put the economic house in order" (Philadelphia Inquirer, April
5, 1996). As noted earlier, those implementing approved programs are
accorded other purr words-they are bold, courageous, slay ogres, and they do
things "quietly" (Thomas Friedman, NYT, "Mexico's quiet revolution," Dec.
17, 1995), never noisily and recklessly. These purr words often not only
express approval but mislead as to substance.
Thus, James Sterngold says that "Nafta is all about corporate efficiency"
(NYT, Oct. 9, 1995), which is completely untrue-it is about corporate
bargaining power, corporate rights to invest abroad, etc. If "moderates"
carrying out neoliberal programs do this in violation of election promises,
this is itself courageous and meritorious for the dominant Western media.
Politicians must "stay the course" and avoid "pandering to fears"
(translation: do what the electorate wants; NYT, ed., entitled "Why Poland
Can't Flinch," Oct. 26, 1991), which displays the triumph of media class
bias over the nominal commitment to democratic processes.
SNARLING
Snarl words are those that induce negative reactions and feelings of anger
and rejection, like extremist, terrorist, dictator, dependency, welfare,
reckless, outlaw, and snarling itself.
Moderates never snarl, nor can they be outlaws, terrorists, dictators or
reckless. Established institutions like the Pentagon and large corporations
don't suffer from "dependency" or receive "welfare payments." There is
"waste" in social budgets, so assassins of the welfare state pretend that
that is what they seek to contain in budget cuts (along with "dependency"
and immorality). They can count on the mainstream media not making
comparisons of waste in social and military budgets.
Fidel Castro runs an "outdated police state" (NYT, March 8, 1990). Leslie
Gelb speaks of the "vicious dictator" of North Korea in an article entitled
"The Next Renegade State" (NYT, April 10, 1991). There is no "outdated
police state" or "vicious dictator," let alone renegade, among the
"commercially engaged" countries of the world. The NYT has never used
"vicious dictator" to describe Pinochet or the Argentinian generals of
1976-83 who, in the words of an Argentinian truth commission, brought to
Argentina a terrorism "infinitely worse" than what they were allegedly
combatting.
Environmental "extremists" using "junk science" are now frequently
encountered in the mainstream media, especially with the numerous industry
mouthpieces like ABC reporter John Stoessel and the editors of the Wall
Street Journal. This reflects the intensified corporate assault on
environmental regulation, which feeds into the media through corporate
funded think tanks (see "A Million For Your Thoughts: The Industry-funded
Campaign Against the FDA by Conservative Think Tanks," Public Citizen,
1996). For the industry-think-tank-media complex, extremism and junk science
are, simply and crudely, oppositional positions and data.
Vigorous counter-positions, however, have been advanced by the Union of
Concerned Scientists ("Is junk Science Trashing Our Planet?," Nucleus,
Winter 96-97) and in Peter Montague's Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly
as well as other publications, so that there is a struggle over who
perpetrates junk science, but the monied interests have an edge in the
mainstream media.
PUTDOWNS
These are less aggressive words of denigration that chide rather than snarl.
Leftists are "noisy" ("Latin Leftists Make a Noisy Comeback," WSJ, Jan. 2,
1997), whereas those pursuing neoliberal ends like Zedillo, as noted, are
"quiet." Leftists are victims of dogmas ("German unions dump left-wing
dogmas," FT, Nov. 16-17, 1996), whereas those pursuing neoliberalism are
showing courage and realism in advancing what by implication are true
principles.
And when leftists are not noisy but recognize their setbacks and need to
adapt, they are "chastened" ("A Chastened Latin Left Puts Its Hope in
Ballot," NYT, July 29, 1996). That they may be chastened by systematic state
terror that decimates their ranks need not be mentioned.
PLAYING DOWN VIOLENCE
Economic "reforms" are "tough" and toughening ("Tough reforms bring
rewards," FT, Dec. 16, 1996; Latins are "Toughened by experience," FT, Feb.
10, 1997). Our own managers of terror abroad are "tough" ("Tough Guy For
Latin Job" [Elliot Abrams], NYT, May 1, 1985), and our client state leaders
who kill and torture are not ruthless killers and torturers but "tough"
(Argentinian General Robert Viola, NYT, Oct. 6, 1980) or merely "forceful"
(Israeli General Ariel Sharon, NYT, Feb. 11, 1983).
Their massacres are muted into the use of "disproportionate" force ("EU
criticizes Israel's use of disproportionate force," FT, Oct. 2, 1996) or
"repression" ("Mr. Clinton made the requisite complaints about Indonesia's
repressive tactics in East Timor," NYT, 10/3/95); their torture is "physical
force" ("Israel Allows Use of Physical Force in Arab's Interrogation," NYT,
Nov. 16, 1996) or "harsh interrogation" (NYT, Nov. 17, 1994). After each
Israeli invasion of Lebanon-referred to as an "incursion"-the NYT refocuses
attention away from the killed, wounded, and dispossessed victims to the
"new opportunities" for diplomacy ("Shock of War Could Improve Opportunities
For Diplomacy," July 11, 1982; "U.S. Sees Opportunities and Risks In Mideast
After War in Lebanon," Oct. 31, 1982).
Back in 1982, U.S. officials brought to the United States a Nicaraguan
officer allegedly captured in El Salvador who "confessed" that Nicaragua and
Cuba were aiding the Salvadoran rebels. In a press conference in Washington,
he declared that his confession had been extracted under torture. The New
York Times article describing this was entitled "Recanter's Tale: Lesson in
Humility for the U.S." (April 2, 1982). The use of "humility" allowed the
story to be framed around U.S. official embarrassment at the failure to
properly assess the Nicaraguan's shrewdness and ability to "hoodwink" us,
and away from the fact that our clients torture. This kind of trick helps
explain why torture was so readily institutionalized in the U.S. provinces
under U.S. training. We should be "humble" in expecting torture payoffs.
OBSCURING APPEASEMENT OF CLIENT STATE TERROR
Key phrases serving this function include "quiet diplomacy," "commercial
diplomacy," and "constructive engagement," which are intended to suggest
that the appeasing administration is really bargaining hard for human rights
rather than putting a public relations face on its appeasement.
We also "de-link" commerce and human rights, which implies that we merely
separate the two rather than that we attend to the former and ignore the
latter. With commercially important client states it is notable how often
relations are "complex" and negotiations with them "delicate" ("The American
relationship with Saudi Arabia is complex and delicate...," NYT, ed., Jan.
29, 1997), in contrast with our dealings with say Cuba where words and
action can be rough. This language covers over the fact that material
interest causes us to appease and even aggressively protect regimes that
grossly exploit and deny basic rights to their populations.
FACILITATING INNUENDO
Words and phrases like "linked" and "it is reported" and "officials claim"
permit connections and actions to be presented without verifiable evidence.
The headline "Link to Iran suspected in Saudi blast" (Philadelphia Inquirer,
Aug. 3, 1996) illustrates an important mode of disseminating propaganda; and
the more the allegation fits existing biases the easier it is to pass it
along without supporting evidence. Only the powerful can play this game on a
regular basis.
The way this system manifests bias can be seen by comparing Eric Schmitt's
"Few Links in Church Fires, Panel Is Told: Official Sees Racism but No Sign
of Conspiracy in Firebombings" (NYT, May 22, 1996), and William Broad's
"Unabomb Case Is Linked to Antiwar Tumult on U.S. Campuses in 1960s" (NYT,
June 1, l996).
The Times has always treated the 1960s resistance with hostility, so here
Broad "links" the accused Unabomber Theodore Kaczyinski to the antiwar
movement simply because some of his teachers and fellow students opposed the
Vietnam War and urged peaceful resistance, even though Broad admits that "by
all accounts he was cool to the antiwar unrest."
Broad could have "linked" Kaczynski's alleged violent acts to the actual
violence of the war itself, which was the source of the peaceful protests
that he "links" to Kaczynski. Broad also could have said there is no
evidence tying Kaczynski to any groups advocating violence, but that would
have precluded making use of the thin and even ludicrous link that allows
trashing the 1960s antiwar movement once again. In the case of the Church
bombings, the Times chose to play down the linking possibilities.
It is evident from the subhead given above that the paper could have
"linked" the church bombings to racism, but instead it chose to deny a link
to a "conspiracy." This makes the bombings sound less ominous and pernicious
than if they were "linked" to something. The bombings of the black churches
didn't offer the paper any links they were eager to make, as in the case of
the Unabomber.
PERSONIFICATION AND USE OF COLLECTIVE WORDS
Personification of groups and nations and the use of collective words are
other devices commonly employed to get over preferred positions not
supported by evidence. The use of "Brazil" in "Faith in reform buoys Brazil"
(FT, Feb. 24, 1997) is based entirely on attitudes expressed by Brazilian
bankers and securities market professionals, who constitute less than a
quarter of 1 percent of the Brazilian people.
A classic of this genre was David Sanger's "Jittery Asia Has Visions of a
Nuclear North Korea" (NYT, April 7, 1991); the generalization to Asia was
apparently based on statements of three individuals, two of them officials,
one Japanese, the other South Korean. David Rosenbaum's "The Tax Break
America Couldn't Give Up" (NYT, Oct. 8, 1989), illustrates the use of a
collective term to confuse an issue. He claims a generalized feeling among
Americans of being overtaxed, but this overlooks class differences in
attitude toward specific taxes. It is possible that ordinary Americans feel
overtaxed but would be pleased to see higher taxes on the affluent and
corporations. "America" could not give up these tax breaks because ordinary
citizens have little weight in national policy making. Rosenbaum effectively
obscures such consideration by his use of "Americans."
FALSELY IMPUTING BENEVOLENT MOTIVES
My current favorites are "risk" and "gamble," as these are now being applied
to the savage welfare "reform" bill of August 1996. The Philadelphia
Inquirer asserts that "Congress and Clinton are gambling that many poor
Americans won't need a safety net to land on their feet" (Aug. 4, 1996). The
New York Times editorialized on the "gamble," and their house economist,
Peter Passell, quoted a think-tank analyst that the bill was taking a "risk"
that the people thrown off welfare might not find jobs (Aug. 8, 1996).
The use of these words implies that Clay Shaw, Gingrich, McIntosh, and
Clinton are really concerned about those poor folks being pushed out on the
streets and no doubt weighed the costs and benefits in some kind of
humanistic calculus. This is apologetic nonsense. These politicians weren't
taking any risks or gambles; they were completely unconcerned, if not
actually pleased, about any pain the victims would suffer.
It is of course absolutely standard media practice to assume that their own
country has good intentions as it ravages in its backyard or other parts of
the world (e.g., in the Persian Gulf or Indochina). We always strive for
"democracy" and resist somebody else's aggression, but never commit
aggression ourselves. Even when we have destroyed a democracy, as in
Guatemala in 1954, the U.S. mainstream media uniformly found this
justifiable in view of "the threat of communism," which was entirely
concocted (although conveniently internalized) and a cover for the pursuit
of the interest of United Fruit and a determination to get rid of a
seriously reformist leadership that wouldn't take orders.
The power of media rationalization of U.S. aggression reached its limit in
the Vietnam War where, despite the U.S.'s exclusive reliance on force, and
official recognition that our agents could not compete with the "enemy"
politically, in James Reston's classic of apologetics we were in Vietnam to
establish the principle "that no state shall use military force or the
threat of military force to achieve its objectives" (Feb. 26, 1965).
REMOVING AGENCY
Where we or our allies have done terrible things, watch for the resort to
the passive voice and other modes of removing agency. Thus the New York
Times subhead for the article on the ending of the Guatemalan civil war
(Dec. 30, 1996) is "After 100,000 dead, the peace ceremony is more solemn
than celebratory." Actually, the numbers are well above 100,000 dead, but
note the failure to say who did virtually all the killing or what government
in 1954 displaced a non-killing elected regime with the regime of terror
whose violence is supposedly now ending?
In its Indonesia reporting, also, the Times has trouble identifying an
agent: "More than 500,000 Indonesians are estimated to have died in a purge
of leftists in 1965, the year Mr. Suharto came to power" (April 8, 1997).
Actually, the "purge" went well beyond "leftists," including several hundred
thousand peasant farmers, and there is no doubt who did the purging and what
great power supporting the purge viewed it as a "gleam of light in Asia"
(James Reston, NYT, June 19, 1966).
These are just some of the modes by which words are manipulated to serve
bias and propaganda. In many cases the process entails passing along the
word usage and frame of the originating source.
But the media claim to be seeking truth and serving the public (not
corporate and elite) interest. That should be the standard by which we
evaluate and criticize them as we seek to shrink the immense gap between
their own proclaimed ideal and actual performance.
|