Page 81 - An Introduction to Political Communication Second Edition

AN INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

conflicts which corresponds closely to the interests of the US military-
industrial complex (1988). Third World liberation struggles were
reported as ‘communist aggression’; attempts to restrain economic
exploitation of the Third World by US companies as ‘threats to US
interests’; and vicious repression in East Timor, Chile and elsewhere
as legitimate anti-subversive activity, if not ignored entirely. The
wealth of data and illustrative material presented in Chomsky and
Herman’s work comprises no less than a post-Second World War
history of the US media’s hegemonic role.
No comparable volume of analysis is available for the British
case, but a number of studies claim to have found similar patterns
of coverage (Glasgow University Media Group, 1985; McNair,
1988). The British media, like those of other capitalist democracies,
have frequently functioned to police the parameters of legitimate
dissent, presenting citizens with a view of the world consistent with
the maintenance of the status quo. They do so for a variety of
reasons. In some cases, the political demands of proprietors are
important (as is apparent with the Murdoch newspapers). In
broadcasting and the press, structural dependence on official sources
frequently allows an official view of events to prevail. British
broadcasting is part of an established culture of shared values and
ideological assumptions, which inform the construction of news.
All these factors have been advanced as reasons for the deep
pro-systemic bias of the media.
The hegemonic model has itself been criticised, however, for its
overly simplistic reading of how the media reports politics. Daniel
Hallin’s study of the Vietnam War showed, on the one hand, that
coverage in the initial phase of the conflict was consistent with a
‘hegemonic’ role for the media, but that as consensus around US
policy in the conflict fragmented in the late 1960s and early 1970s,
coverage changed to reflect this (1986). Kevin Williams agrees that
‘for most of the war the media shared the same framework for
understanding events in South East Asia as the [US] government’,
but that ‘after public opinion had moved decisively against the war
the media [began] to regularly challenge the official explanation’
(1993, p.306). This, for Williams, reflects the fact that ‘elite sources
are not always successful in their attempts to dictate the agenda.
The political elite is not homogeneous and the divisions are reflected
in the media’s reporting’ (Ibid., p.326).
David Murphy’s analysis of how the media reported the John
6
Stalker affair is similarly sceptical of the hegemonic model, arguing
that the media in this case actively promoted an anti-establishment

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