National Security and Society

This week’s analysis will draw primarily from:

Herman, E.S., N. Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (New York: Pantheon Books, 2002).

Last week, I posted a video of a Fox News clip that discussed the drilling for oil in Alaska. While the discussion in the clip revolved mainly around criticizing environmental groups for hindering the drilling of oil in the area, the anchor concludes at the end that not only are these environmental groups a threat to the economy, but a threat to national security as well.

As alluded to last week, the Fox News clip clearly illustrates two things. The first is that the term national security has expanded. The result is that the broader the definition, the greater leeway that the government has to operate while under the umbrella of that definition. As Senator Hart discussed in the first video, national security no longer entails militaristic and physical security, but it encompasses other forms of security under it as well. In the case of the news clip, we can say that the security of the economy can be brought under the notion of national security as well. Specifically to the Fox News video, the well being of the economy is dependent on using American resources to stabilize gas prices.

By incorporating the idea of economic stability under the umbrella of national security, the nature of national security is expanded, and accordingly, the nature of the threat to national security is expanded as well. I want to briefly note here as well that the idea of the state does not only include the government, but media corporations too. I will elaborate on this in the second half of this entry when I discuss the propaganda model and apply it to media conglomerates, using the Fox News clip as an example.

With that in mind however, it becomes important to ask what kind of legitimate threat environmentalist groups pose to national security, or even economic security for that matter. I contend that these groups do not actually pose any sort of legitimate threat to national or economic security. Their only legitimate threat is to the uninterrupted functioning of the state. That is, the only problem they present is a roadblock to the desires and actions of the state. In light of this, how does the state deal with such roadblocks? As this blog has been set out to demonstrate, the state will set out to define such threats to the status quo as threats to national security.

If threats are defined in terms of risks to national security instead of in terms of threats to the status quo, a greater majority of the citizens will come to accept the actions of the state. In this case, the environmentalist group is seen as a threat to economic security, and by extension national security as well. In reality, they pose no legitimate threat to either. However, due to the subjective and ideological nature of national security, the state is able to wield and manipulate the definition of national security in any way they wish.
As the Fox News report demonstrates, the anchor rationalizes the idea of environmental groups being national security threat. It begins with an economic need to use American resources to lower and stabilize gas prices. This idea is then contrasted with the assertion that because these environmentalist groups want to protect the natural environment in Alaska, that they are implicitly frustrating the economy. Next, the idea of a prosperous and secure economy is linked to the idea of the security of a nation. Finally, because environmentalist groups are opposed to the drilling of oil in Alaska, it must mean that they are opposed to a prosperous and secure economy, and as a result, the actions of these environmentalist groups must be seen as conflicting with the security of the nation.
The second item that I want to demonstrate in this entry is how the propaganda model can be applied to the Fox News clip. The media, especially large corporations and conglomerates, can be said to have both systemic biases and chiefly economic objectives. This is what Herman and Chomsky’s propaganda model sets out to explain, the biases in the mass media and their economic causes. The propaganda model essentially has five components:

1. Ownership of the medium: Because mainstream media are usually large corporations, the information that they disseminate is biased in terms of these corporate interests. A company’s financial interests have to be protected, so any news item that may endanger these interests are skewed or censored. Thus, the goal of maximizing profits becomes the main goal in place of objective news reporting.

2. Funding: Mainstream media is largely dependent on advertising for funding. Thus, the interests of the advertisers come before the interests of proper news reporting. Any news item that may be seen as conflicting with the advertisers aims are either excluded or marginalized.

3. Sourcing: Mass media needs a continuous flow of information because of the demand for daily news. To this end, this task can only be accomplished by major businesses and sectors of the government that have the appropriate resources and access to them. There exists a symbiotic relationship between the media and government bodies. The government provides media with the necessary resources for their news. In return, the media will likely not run any news item that may hurt their business interests with the government since they providing them with resources that their corporation depends on.

4. Flak: This is the negative response to a news media item. Those who oppose or cast doubt on the status quo and the established power are targeted and discredited.

5. Anti-Ideology: This refers to the exploitation of public fears or hatred of certain groups that are seen as threats. This fear of certain groups can be real, exaggerated or imagined. Thus, communism would be the primary threat in the Cold War era and terrorism would be the new threat in modern day. They can be referred to as anti-communism and anti-terrorism respectively.

All five of these components of the propaganda model can be applied to the Fox News clip presented last week, but I will emphasize some of them that are especially pertinent with Fox News. First, Fox News is a subsidiary of News Corporation. News Corporation, in turn, is the world’s biggest media conglomerate. It has holdings in all mediums including books, newspapers, magazines, music, studios, television, Internet, and assets outside of media like sports teams. With so many interests interlocking, Fox News may be less likely to disseminate any news that will negatively affect any other News Corporation subsidiary. Second, while perhaps not immediately obvious, it can be said that Fox News is unlikely to be bias against the current government, because it is providing it with the information that is needed for daily news. Next, is the concept of flak. In this case, the environmental group that is preventing the oil drilling in Alaska are the ones who are being discredited because they do not hold a stance that is favourable to the established power. By discrediting certain groups, the media can manage the information that is available to the public. Finally, an anti-ideology is also implicitly present. Through the filter of anti-ideology, the news clip is designed to exploit public fears of groups that present a threat to society. While it doesn’t go so far as to cast the environmental group as a terrorist group, they do portray the environmental group as a danger to national security. By portraying the environmentalist group as a threat to national security, the media is able to stifle critical views of the state.