A complex adaptive system is a system that is complex in that it is a dynamic network of interactions, but the behavior of the ensemble may not be predictable according to the behavior of the components. It is adaptive in that the individual and collective behavior mutate and self-organize corresponding to the change-initiating micro-event or collection of events. It is a "complex macroscopic collection" of relatively "similar and partially connected micro-structures" formed in order to adapt to the changing environment and increase their survivability as a macro-structure. The Complex Adaptive Systems approach builds on replicator dynamics.
The term complex adaptive systems, or complexity science,
is often used to describe the loosely organized academic field that has
grown up around the study of such systems. Complexity science is not a
single theory—it encompasses more than one theoretical framework and is
interdisciplinary, seeking the answers to some fundamental questions
about living, adaptable, changeable systems. Complex adaptive systems may adopt hard or softer approaches.
Hard theories use formal language that is precise, tend to see agents
as having tangible properties, and usually see objects in a behavioral
system that can be manipulated in some way. Softer theories use natural
language and narratives that may be imprecise, and agents are subjects
having both tangible and intangible properties. Examples of hard
complexity theories include Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) and Viability Theory, and a class of softer theory is Viable System Theory.
Many of the propositional consideration made in hard theory are also of
relevance to softer theory. From here on, interest will now center on
CAS.
The study of CAS focuses on complex, emergent and macroscopic properties of the system. John H. Holland said that CAS "are systems that have a large numbers of components, often called agents, that interact and adapt or learn".
Typical examples of complex adaptive systems include: climate;
cities; firms; markets; governments; industries; ecosystems; social
networks; power grids; animal swarms; traffic flows; social insect (e.g. ant) colonies; the brain and the immune system; and the cell and the developing embryo. Human social group-based endeavors, such as political parties, communities, geopoliticalorganizations, war, and terrorist networks are also considered CAS. The internet and cyberspace—composed, collaborated, and managed by a complex mix of human–computer interactions, is also regarded as a complex adaptive system. CAS can be hierarchical, but more often exhibit aspects of "self-organization".
The term complex adaptive system was coined in 1968 by sociologist Walter F. Buckley who proposed a model of cultural evolution which regards psychological and socio-cultural systems as analogous with biological species. In the modern context, complex adaptive system is sometimes linked to memetics, or proposed as a reformulation of memetics. Michael D. Cohen and Robert Axelrod however argue the approach is not social Darwinism or sociobiology because, even though the concepts of variation, interaction and selection can be applied to modelling 'populations of business strategies', for example, the detailed evolutionary mechanisms are often distinctly unbiological. As such, complex adaptive system is more similar to Richard Dawkins's idea of replicators.
General properties
What distinguishes a CAS from a pure multi-agent system (MAS) is the focus on top-level properties and features like self-similarity, complexity, emergence and self-organization.
A MAS is defined as a system composed of multiple interacting agents;
whereas in CAS, the agents as well as the system are adaptive and the
system is self-similar.
A CAS is a complex, self-similar collectivity of interacting, adaptive
agents. Complex Adaptive Systems are characterized by a high degree of adaptive capacity, giving them resilience in the face of perturbation.
Other important properties are adaptation (or homeostasis),
communication, cooperation, specialization, spatial and temporal
organization, and reproduction. They can be found on all levels: cells
specialize, adapt and reproduce themselves just like larger organisms
do. Communication and cooperation take place on all levels, from the
agent to the system level. The forces driving co-operation between agents in such a system, in some cases, can be analyzed with game theory.
Characteristics
Some of the most important characteristics of complex systems are:
The number of elements is sufficiently large that conventional descriptions (e.g. a system of differential equations)
are not only impractical, but cease to assist in understanding the
system. Moreover, the elements interact dynamically, and the
interactions can be physical or involve the exchange of information
Such interactions are rich, i.e. any element or sub-system in the
system is affected by and affects several other elements or sub-systems
The interactions are non-linear: small changes in inputs, physical interactions or stimuli can cause large effects or very significant changes in outputs
Interactions are primarily but not exclusively with immediate neighbours and the nature of the influence is modulated
Any interaction can feed back onto itself directly or after a number
of intervening stages. Such feedback can vary in quality. This is
known as recurrency
The overall behavior of the system of elements is not predicted by the behavior of the individual elements
Such systems may be open and it may be difficult or impossible to define system boundaries
Complex systems operate under far from equilibrium conditions. There has to be a constant flow of energy to maintain the organization of the system
Complex systems have a history. They evolve and their past is co-responsible for their present behaviour
Elements in the system may be ignorant of the behaviour of the
system as a whole, responding only to the information or physical
stimuli available to them locally
Strategy, a conditional action pattern that indicates what to do in which circumstances
Artifact, a material resource that has definite location and can respond to the action of agents
Agent, a collection of properties, strategies & capabilities for interacting with artifacts & other agents
Population, a collection of agents, or, in some situations, collections of strategies
System, a larger collection, including one or more populations of agents and possibly also artifacts
Type, all the agents (or strategies) in a population that have some characteristic in common
Variety, the diversity of types within a population or system
Interaction pattern, the recurring regularities of contact among types within a system
Space (physical), location in geographical space & time of agents and artifacts
Space (conceptual), "location" in a set of categories structured so that "nearby" agents will tend to interact
Selection, processes that lead to an increase or decrease in the frequency of various types of agent or strategies
Success criteria or performance measures, a "score"
used by an agent or designer in attributing credit in the selection of
relatively successful (or unsuccessful) strategies or agents
Turner and Baker synthesized the characteristics of complex adaptive
systems from the literature and tested these characteristics in the
context of creativity and innovation. Each of these eight characteristics had been shown to be present in the creativity and innovative processes:
Path dependent: Systems tend to be sensitive to their initial conditions. The same force might affect systems differently.
Systems have a history: The future behavior of a system depends on its initial starting point and subsequent history.
Non-linearity: React disproportionately to environmental perturbations. Outcomes differ from those of simple systems.
Emergence: Each system's internal dynamics affect its ability to change in a manner that might be quite different from other systems.
Irreducible: Irreversible process transformations cannot be reduced back to its original state.
Adaptive/Adaptability: Systems that are simultaneously ordered and disordered are more adaptable and resilient.
Operates between order and chaos: Adaptive tension emerges from the energy differential between the system and its environment.
Self-organizing: Systems are composed of interdependency, interactions of its parts, and diversity in the system.
Modeling and simulation
CAS are occasionally modeled by means of agent-based models and complex network-based models.
Agent-based models are developed by means of various methods and tools
primarily by means of first identifying the different agents inside the
model.
Another method of developing models for CAS involves developing complex
network models by means of using interaction data of various CAS
components.
In 2013 SpringerOpen/BioMed Central has launched an online open-access journal on the topic of complex adaptive systems modeling (CASM).
Evolution of complexity
Passive
versus active trends in the evolution of complexity. CAS at the
beginning of the processes are colored red. Changes in the number of
systems are shown by the height of the bars, with each set of graphs
moving up in a time series.
Living organisms are complex adaptive systems. Although complexity is hard to quantify in biology, evolution has produced some remarkably complex organisms.
This observation has led to the common misconception of evolution being
progressive and leading towards what are viewed as "higher organisms".
If this were generally true, evolution would possess an active
trend towards complexity. As shown below, in this type of process the
value of the most common amount of complexity would increase over time. Indeed, some artificial life simulations have suggested that the generation of CAS is an inescapable feature of evolution.
However, the idea of a general trend towards complexity in evolution can also be explained through a passive process. This involves an increase in variance but the most common value, the mode,
does not change. Thus, the maximum level of complexity increases over
time, but only as an indirect product of there being more organisms in
total. This type of random process is also called a bounded random walk.
In this hypothesis, the apparent trend towards more complex
organisms is an illusion resulting from concentrating on the small
number of large, very complex organisms that inhabit the right-hand tail
of the complexity distribution and ignoring simpler and much more
common organisms. This passive model emphasizes that the overwhelming
majority of species are microscopicprokaryotes, which comprise about half the world's biomass and constitute the vast majority of Earth's biodiversity. Therefore, simple life remains dominant on Earth, and complex life appears more diverse only because of sampling bias.
If there is a lack of an overall trend towards complexity in
biology, this would not preclude the existence of forces driving systems
towards complexity in a subset of cases. These minor trends would be
balanced by other evolutionary pressures that drive systems towards less
complex states.
Complexity theory and organizations, also called complexity strategy or complex adaptive organizations, is the use of the study of complexity systems in the field of strategic management and organizational studies. It draws from research in the natural sciences that examines uncertainty and non-linearity. Complexity theory emphasizes interactions and the accompanying feedback
loops that constantly change systems. While it proposes that systems
are unpredictable, they are also constrained by order-generating rules.
Complexity theory has been used in the fields of strategic management and organizational studies. Application areas include understanding how organizations
or firms adapt to their environments and how they cope with conditions
of uncertainty. Organizations have complex structures in that they are dynamic networks
of interactions, and their relationships are not aggregations of the
individual static entities. They are adaptive; in that, the individual
and collective behavior mutate and self-organize corresponding to a change-initiating micro-event or collection of events.
CAS are contrasted with ordered and chaotic systems by the relationship that exists between the system and the agents which act within it.
In an ordered system the level of constraint means that all agent
behavior is limited to the rules of the system. In a chaotic system, the
agents are unconstrained and susceptible to statistical and other
analyses. In a CAS, the system and the agents co-evolve; the system
lightly constrains agent behavior, but the agents modify the system by
their interaction with it. This self-organizing
nature is an important characteristic of CAS; and its ability to learn
to adapt, differentiate it from other self-organizing systems.
Organizational environments can be viewed as complex adaptive systems where coevolution generally occurs near the edge of chaos, and it should maintain a balance between flexibility and stability to avoid organizational failure. As a response to coping with turbulent environments; businesses bring out flexibility, creativity, agility, and innovation near the edge of chaos; provided the organizational structure has sufficient decentralized, non-hierarchical network structures.
Implications for organizational management
CAS
approaches to strategy seek to understand the nature of system
constraints and agent interaction and generally takes an evolutionary or
naturalistic approach to strategy. Some research integrates computer simulation and organizational studies.
Complexity theory and knowledge management
Complexity theory also relates to knowledge management (KM) and organizational learning (OL). "Complex systems are, by any other definition, learning organizations." Complexity Theory, KM, and OL are all complementary and co-dependent. “KM and OL each lack a theory of how cognition happens in human social systems – complexity theory offers this missing piece”.
Complexity theory and project management
Complexity theory is also being used to better understand new ways of doing project management, as traditional models have been found lacking to current challenges. This approaches advocates forming a "culture of trust" that "welcomes outsiders, embraces new ideas, and promotes cooperation."
Recommendations for managers
Complexity
Theory implies approaches that focus on flatter, more flexible
organizations, rather than top-down, command-and-control styles of
management.
Additional examples
A typical example for an organization behaving as CAS is Wikipedia – collaborated and managed by a loosely organized management structure, composed of a complex mix of human–computer interactions.
By managing behavior, and not only mere content, Wikipedia uses simple
rules to produce a complex, evolving knowledge base which has largely
replaced older sources in popular use.
Meet the Press is a weekly American television news/interview program broadcast on NBC. It is the longest-running program on American television, though the current format bears little resemblance to the debut episode on November 6, 1947. Meet the Press specializes in interviews with leaders in Washington, D.C., across the country and even the world on issues of politics, economics, foreign policy, and other public affairs, along with panel discussions that provide opinions and analysis. In January 2021, production moved to NBC's bureau on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.
The longevity of Meet the Press is attributable in part to
the fact that the program debuted during what was only the second
official "network television season" for American television. It was the
first live televisionnetwork news program on which a sitting president of the United States appeared; this occurred on its broadcast on November 9, 1975, which featured Gerald Ford. The program has been hosted by 12 different moderators, beginning with creator Martha Rountree. The show's moderator since 2014 is Chuck Todd, who also serves as political director for NBC News.
Currently, the hour-long program airs in most markets on Sundays at 9:00 a.m. live in the Eastern Time Zone and on tape delay elsewhere. Meet the Press
is also occasionally pre-empted due to network coverage of sports
events held outside the U.S. The program is also rebroadcast on Mondays
at 4:00 a.m. Eastern Time on MSNBC, whose audio feed is also simulcast on Sirius/XM Satellite Radio. The program is also syndicated by Westwood One to various radio stations around the United States, as well as on C-SPAN Radio as part of its replays of the Sunday morning talk shows.
Format
The
program's format consists of an extended one-on-one interview with the
host, and is sometimes followed by a roundtable discussion or one-on-two
interview with figures in adversarial positions, either Congressional
members from opposite sides of the aisle or political commentators.
Originally a half-hour program for most of its history, the show
expanded to 60 minutes starting with the broadcast on September 20,
1992.
The program also features in-depth examinations of facts behind
political and general news stories (particularly as part of a segment
called the "Data Download", introduced after Chuck Todd assumed duties
as moderator, which is conducted on a touchscreen within the main set).
History
Meet the Press set, November 1975. On this broadcast, a sitting American president (Gerald Ford) was, for the first time, a guest on a live television network news program.
Meet the Press began on radio on the Mutual Broadcasting System in 1945 as American Mercury Presents: Meet the Press, a program to promote The American Mercury, a magazine that Lawrence E. Spivak purchased in 1935. Before the program aired, Spivak asked journalist Martha Rountree,
who had worked in radio and had been employed by Spivak as a roving
editor for the magazine, to critique the plans for the new radio show.
Based on her advice, Rountree created a new radio program that she
called The American Mercury, on October 5, 1945.
On November 6, 1947, while still on the Mutual Broadcasting System, the television rights to the program were purchased by General Foods, which began to air the show on the NBC television network with the title shortened to simply Meet the Press; the radio version also adopted the new name. Although some sources credit Spivak with the program's creation,
Rountree developed the idea on her own, and Spivak joined as
co-producer and business partner in the enterprise after the show had
already debuted.
Meet the Press was originally presented as a 30-minute press conference with a single guest and a panel of questioners. Its first guest was James Farley, who served as Postmaster General, Democratic National Committee chairman and campaign manager to Franklin Delano Roosevelt under the first two terms of the New Deal Administration. Creator Rountree served as its first host, the program's only female moderator to date. She stepped down on November 1, 1953, and was succeeded by Ned Brooks, who remained as moderator until his retirement on December 26, 1965.
Spivak became the moderator on January 1, 1966, moving up from his role
as a permanent panelist. He retired on November 9, 1975, on a special
one-hour edition that featured a sitting president as guest for the
first time, in this case Gerald Ford. The next week, Bill Monroe, previously a weekly panelist like Spivak had been years before, took over as moderator and stayed until June 2, 1984.
For the next seven and a half years, the program then went through a series of hosts as it struggled in the ratings against ABC's This Week with David Brinkley. Roger Mudd and Marvin Kalb, as co-moderators, followed Monroe for a year, followed by Chris Wallace (who would later to go on to a much longer run as host of the rival program Fox News Sunday) from 1987 to 1988. Garrick Utley, then hosting Weekend Today, concurrently hosted Meet the Press
from 1989 through December 1, 1991. All this occurred despite the
increasing ratings of NBC News' other programs (and those of the network
generally) during that period. The program originally aired at noon
Eastern Time every Sunday, before moving to a 9:00 a.m. slot by the
early 1990s.
Under Russert
Meet the Press logo used from September 10, 1995 to June 8, 2008.
Network officials, concerned for the show's future, turned to Tim Russert, the network's bureau chief in Washington, D.C. He took over as moderator of Meet the Press
on December 8, 1991, and remained with the program until his death on
June 13, 2008, becoming the longest-serving moderator in the program's
history.
Under Russert, the program was expanded to one hour and became
less of a televised press conference, focusing more on Russert's
questions and comments; Russert also engaged in longer in-depth
interviews and hosted panels of experts to discuss the topics featured
in that week's broadcast. Russert signed off each edition by saying,
"That's all for today. We'll be back next week. If it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press."
During the professional football season, Russert, a native of Buffalo, New York, and an avid fan of the Buffalo Bills, sometimes added, "Go Bills!," and occasionally would ask panelists, "How 'bout those Sabres?" if Buffalo's NHL hockey team was doing well. Spoofs of the show featured in a recurring sketch on Saturday Night Live often reflected his impromptu additions in support of the two professional sports franchises. By 2006, Meet the Press was the highest-rated program among the Sunday morning talk shows.
On June 13, 2008, Russert died of a sudden coronary thrombosis (caused by a cholesterol plaque rupture). Former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw hosted a special edition of Meet the Press dedicated to the life of Russert on June 15, 2008, in which Russert's chair was left empty as a tribute.
Mark Whitaker was named by NBC News as the division's Washington D.C. Bureau Chief and was given "executive oversight" of Meet the Press.
Interim Brokaw era
NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams
acted as moderator of the first show following the tribute to Russert
on June 15, 2008, with the same guests and subject matter that Russert
was planning for when he died.
Following Russert's death, Tom Brokaw was named the interim moderator through the 2008 general elections. Brokaw followed Russert's tradition by signing off with "We'll be back next Sunday because if it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press"
(a sign-off that would continue to be used by his successors as
moderator). In September of that year, the show was presented with
limited commercial interruption.
On August 10, 2008, David Gregory
moderated the panel discussion during the second half-hour of the
broadcast, while Brokaw anchored the first half-hour from the site of
the Summer Olympics in Beijing.
The following week on August 17, 2008, he moderated the entire
broadcast. On December 1, 2008, it was also reported that the December 7
broadcast would be Brokaw's last, with Gregory becoming the new
permanent host the following Sunday.
Under Gregory
David
Gregory began his tenure as moderator on December 14, 2008. Four days
after Gregory's first regular broadcast, on December 18, 2008, NBC News
political director Chuck Todd was named contributing editor of Meet the Press. Throughout Gregory's tenure as moderator, Meet the Press experienced significant ratings
declines. In the final three months of 2013, the program placed third
among the Sunday morning talk shows in total viewership, behind CBS's Face the Nation and ABC's This Week
for the first time since 1992, it also experienced the lowest ratings
in the show's entire history among the key 25-to-54 age viewing demographic during this period. NBC management became uncertain as to the future direction of the program.
A new set was introduced on May 2, 2010, featuring video screens
and library-style bookshelves; Gregory would preview the guests to be
featured during each week's broadcast using a large video screen.
Different, modified intro music was also introduced, with the Meet the Press theme music in a shorter "modernized [style]... the beginning repeated with drum beats" (see "High-definition broadcasting" below for additional information).
Under Todd
Meet the Press logo used from May 2, 2010 (introduced under former moderator David Gregory) to November 5, 2017.
U.S. President Barack Obama participates in an interview with Todd in the Cabinet Room of the White House, September 6, 2014.
In response to declining viewership, rumors surfaced in August 2014
that Gregory would be replaced as the program's moderator. NBC News
President Deborah Turness apparently had held discussions with Jon Stewart (then-host of Comedy Central's news comedy program The Daily Show) to replace Gregory, which Stewart later confirmed in a Rolling Stone
interview, saying, "My guess is they were casting as wide and as weird a
net as they could. I'm sure part of them was thinking, 'Why don't we
just make it a variety show?'"
On August 14, 2014, Turness announced that Chuck Todd, NBC's chief White House correspondent, would take over the role of moderator on September 7, 2014. Because of Todd's Dodger fanhood, a Los Angeles Dodger poster became part of the physical format.
MTP Daily
On September 28, 2015, MSNBC premiered MTP Daily, a new weekday spin-off also hosted by Todd. It formally replaced The Ed Show
as MSNBC's early-evening program after a transitional period following
its cancellation. MSNBC explained that the program is meant to "bring
the insight and power of Meet the Press to our air every day of the week".
Disinformation overtaking media
In a December 2019 interview with Rolling Stone, Todd discussed how disinformation overtook the media during the Trump administration. However, PressThink, a project of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, took Todd to task for failing to address the issue as it unfolded, in a very detailed discussion of Todd's remarks.
High-definition broadcasting
The set utilized from March 17, 1996, to April 25, 2010, had been designed as an experimental set for high-definition broadcasting;
several editions of the program (including the first broadcast of a
regular series on a major television network in HD) had aired in the
format in the 1990s over experimental HD station WHD-TV in Washington, D.C. Despite this, the program continued to be transmitted in NTSC over the NBC network itself. On May 2, 2010, Meet the Press
became the last NBC News program to convert to high definition, and
unveiled a new set consisting of large video screens mostly used to
display Washington scenery, satellite interview subjects and moderator
and subject talking points, along with graphics produced for the format.
In January 2021, production of the program moved from WRC-TV facilities in Tenleytown to a ground floor studio in NBC's new Washington D.C. bureau on Capitol Hill. The move included a new set.
Moderators
The following is the list of moderators for Meet the Press:
Whittaker Chambers states Alger Hiss was a communist on the radio broadcast on August 27, 1948, which leads to libel suit from Hiss, the Pumpkin Papers, and Justice's indictment of Hiss by December 1948.
First female guest: Elizabeth Bentley, a courier for a Communist spy ring, on September 12, 1948.
An interview with Fidel Castro aired April 19, 1959.
An interview with Martin Luther King Jr., about the civil rights movement in the United States.
Every U.S. president since John F. Kennedy has appeared on Meet the Press, although not necessarily during their presidency. Jimmy Carter used his appearance on January 20, 1980, to announce the United States' boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics. Ronald Reagan appeared seven times before being elected president, but did not appear during his presidency. Bill Clinton was the guest for the 50th anniversary broadcast on November 9, 1997. The interview with George W. Bush was conducted in the Oval Office at the White House on February 8, 2004. The interview was held with then President-elect Barack Obama on December 7, 2008. Donald Trump has appeared on the program a number of times, most recently in June 2019.
The first live communications satellite television interview occurred on Meet the Press on September 19, 1965, with the British Prime Minister Harold Wilson.
Distribution
In addition to its broadcasts on NBC, Meet the Press also airs on various other NBCUniversal-owned channels domestically and internationally, including MSNBC, CNBC in the United States and Canada, CNBC Europe in Europe and CNBC Asia in Asia. It is also broadcast in Australia on the Seven Network and in the Philippines on 9TV.
Meet the Press is also available as an audio or video podcast, and is simulcast on radio stations by Westwood One (which also handles distribution of all other NBC-produced radio programming, including NBC News Radio).
First presented in their 1988 book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media,
the propaganda model views corporate media as businesses interested in
the sale of a product—readers and audiences—to other businesses
(advertisers) rather than the pursuit of quality journalism
in service of the public. Describing the media's "societal purpose",
Chomsky writes, "... the study of institutions and how they function
must be scrupulously ignored, apart from fringe elements or a relatively
obscure scholarly literature".
The theory postulates five general classes of "filters" that determine
the type of news that is presented in news media. These five classes
are: ownership of the medium, the medium's funding sources, sourcing, flak, and anti-communism or "fear ideology".
The first three are generally regarded by the authors as being the most important. In versions published after the 9/11 attacks on the United States in 2001, Chomsky and Herman updated the fifth prong to instead refer to the "War on Terror" and "counter-terrorism", which they state operates in much the same manner.
Although the model was based mainly on the media of the United States,
Chomsky and Herman believe the theory is equally applicable to any
country that shares the basic economic structure and organizing
principles that the model postulates as the cause of media biases.
Their assessment has been confirmed by a number of scholars and the
propaganda role of the media has since been empirically assessed in Western Europe and Latin America.
Filters
Ownership
The size and profit-seeking
imperative of dominant media corporations create a bias. The authors
point to how in the early nineteenth century, a radical British press
had emerged that addressed the concerns of workers, but excessive stamp duties,
designed to restrict newspaper ownership to the 'respectable' wealthy,
began to change the face of the press. Nevertheless, there remained a
degree of diversity. In post World War II Britain, radical or
worker-friendly newspapers such as the Daily Herald, News Chronicle, Sunday Citizen (all since failed or absorbed into other publications), and the Daily Mirror (at least until the late 1970s) regularly published articles questioning the capitalist
system. The authors posit that these earlier radical papers were not
constrained by corporate ownership and therefore, were free to criticize
the capitalist system.
A table of six big media conglomerates in 2014, including some of their subsidiaries.
Herman and Chomsky argue that since mainstream media outlets are currently either large corporations or part of conglomerates (e.g. Westinghouse or General Electric),
the information presented to the public will be biased with respect to
these interests. Such conglomerates frequently extend beyond traditional
media fields and thus have extensive financial interests that may be
endangered when certain information is publicized. According to this
reasoning, news items that most endanger the corporate financial
interests of those who own the media will face the greatest bias and
censorship.
It then follows that if to maximize profit means sacrificing news
objectivity, then the news sources that ultimately survive must be
fundamentally biased, with regard to news in which they have a conflict of interest.
Advertising
The second filter of the propaganda model is funding generated through advertising.
Most newspapers have to attract advertising in order to cover the costs
of production; without it, they would have to increase the price of
their newspaper. There is fierce competition throughout the media to
attract advertisers; a newspaper which gets less advertising than its
competitors is at a serious disadvantage. Lack of success in raising
advertising revenue was another factor in the demise of the 'people's
newspapers' of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The product is composed of the affluent readers who buy the
newspaper—who also comprise the educated decision-making sector of the
population—while the actual clientele served by the newspaper includes
the businesses that pay to advertise their goods. According to this
filter, the news is "filler" to get privileged readers to see the
advertisements which makes up the content and will thus take whatever
form is most conducive to attracting educated decision-makers. Stories
that conflict with their "buying mood", it is argued, will tend to be
marginalized or excluded, along with information that presents a picture
of the world that collides with advertisers' interests. The theory
argues that the people buying the newspaper are the product which is
sold to the businesses that buy advertising space; the news has only a
marginal role as the product.
Sourcing
The
third of Herman and Chomsky's five filters relates to the sourcing of
mass media news: "The mass media are drawn into a symbiotic relationship
with powerful sources of information by economic necessity and
reciprocity of interest." Even large media corporations such as the BBC cannot afford to place reporters everywhere. They concentrate their resources where news stories are likely to happen: the White House, the Pentagon, 10 Downing Street and other central news "terminals". Although British newspapers may occasionally complain about the "spin-doctoring" of New Labour,
for example, they are dependent upon the pronouncements of "the Prime
Minister's personal spokesperson" for government news. Business
corporations and trade organizations are also trusted sources of stories
considered newsworthy. Editors and journalists who offend these
powerful news sources, perhaps by questioning the veracity or bias of
the furnished material, can be threatened with the denial of access to
their media life-blood - fresh news.
Thus, the media has become reluctant to run articles that will harm
corporate interests that provide them with the resources that they
depend upon.
This relationship also gives rise to a "moral division of labor",
in which "officials have and give the facts" and "reporters merely get
them". Journalists are then supposed to adopt an uncritical attitude
that makes it possible for them to accept corporate values without
experiencing cognitive dissonance.
Flak
The fourth
filter is 'flak' (not to be confused with flack which means promoters or
publicity agents), described by Herman and Chomsky as 'negative
responses to a media statement or [TV or radio] program. It may take the
form of letters, telegrams, phone calls, petitions, lawsuits, speeches
and Bills before Congress and other modes of complaint, threat and
punitive action'. Business organizations regularly come together to form
flak machines. An example is the US-based Global Climate Coalition
(GCC), comprising fossil fuel and automobile companies such as Exxon,
Texaco and Ford. The GCC was started up by Burson-Marsteller, one of the
world's largest public relations companies, to attack the credibility
of climate scientists and 'scare stories' about global warming.
For Chomsky and Herman "flak" refers to negative responses to a
media statement or program. The term "flak" has been used to describe
what Chomsky and Herman see as efforts to discredit organizations or
individuals who disagree with or cast doubt on the prevailing
assumptions which Chomsky and Herman view as favorable to established
power (e.g., "The Establishment").
Unlike the first three "filtering" mechanisms—which are derived from
analysis of market mechanisms—flak is characterized by concerted efforts
to manage public information.
Anti-Communism and fear
So
I think when we talked about the "fifth filter" we should have brought
in all this stuff -- the way artificial fears are created with a dual
purpose... partly to get rid of people you don't like but partly to
frighten the rest.
Because if people are frightened, they will accept authority.
The fifth and final news filter that Herman and Chomsky identified was 'anti-communism'. Manufacturing Consent was written during the Cold War. Chomsky updated the model as "fear", often as 'the enemy' or an 'evil dictator' such as Colonel Gaddafi, Paul Biya, Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, or Vladimir Putin. This is exemplified in British tabloid headlines of 'Smash Saddam!' and 'Clobba Slobba!'. The same is said to extend to mainstream reporting of environmentalists as 'eco-terrorists'. The Sunday Times ran a series of articles in 1999 accusing activists from the non-violentdirect action group Reclaim The Streets of stocking up on CS gas and stun guns.
Anti-ideologies exploit public fear and hatred of groups that pose a potential threat, either real, exaggerated or imagined. Communism once posed the primary threat according to the model. Communism and socialism
were portrayed by their detractors as endangering freedoms of speech,
movement, the press and so forth. They argue that such a portrayal was
often used as a means to silence voices critical of elite interests.
Chomsky argues that since the end of the Cold War (1991), anticommunism
was replaced by the "War on Terror", as the major social control
mechanism: "Anti-communism has receded as an ideological factor in the
Western media, but it is not dead... The ‘war on terror’ has provided a
useful substitute for the Soviet Menace." Following the events of September 11, 2001, some scholars agree that Islamophobia is replacing anti-communism as a new source of public fear.
Herman and Chomsky themselves conceded, in an interview given in 2009,
that the popularity of ‘anti-communism’ as a news filter is slowly
decreasing in favor of other more contemporary ideologies such as
‘anti-terrorism’.
Case examples
Following the theoretical exposition of the propaganda model, Manufacturing Consent
contains a large section where the authors seek to test their
hypotheses. If the propaganda model is right and the filters do
influence media content, a particular form of bias would be expected—one
that systematically favors corporate interests.
They also looked at what they perceived as naturally occurring "historical control groups"
where two events, similar in their properties but differing in the
expected media attitude towards them, are contrasted using objective
measures such as coverage of key events (measured in column inches) or
editorials favoring a particular issue (measured in number).
Other biases include a propensity to emphasize violent acts such as genocide more in enemy or unfriendly countries such as Kosovo while ignoring greater genocide in allied countries such as the Indonesian occupation of East Timor.
This bias is also said to exist in foreign elections, giving favorable
media coverage to fraudulent elections in allied countries such as El Salvador and Guatemala, while unfavorable coverage is given to legitimate elections in enemy countries such as Nicaragua.
A study found that in the lead up to the Iraq War, most sources were overwhelmingly in favor of the invasion.
Chomsky also asserts that the media accurately covered events such as the Battle of Fallujah
but because of an ideological bias, it acted as pro-government
propaganda. In describing coverage of raid on Fallujah General Hospital
he stated that The New York Times, "accurately recorded the battle of Fallujah but it was celebrated... it was a celebration of ongoing war crimes". The article in question was "Early Target of Offensive Is a Hospital".
Scandals of leaks
The
authors point to biases that are based on only reporting scandals which
benefit a section of power, while ignoring scandals that hurt the
powerless. The biggest example of this was how the US media greatly
covered the Watergate Scandal but ignored the COINTELPRO exposures. While the Watergate break-in was a political threat to powerful people (Democrats), COINTELPRO harmed average citizens and went as far as political assassination. Other examples include coverage of the Iran–Contra affair by only focusing on people in power such as Oliver North but omitting coverage of the civilians killed in Nicaragua as the result of aid to the contras.
In a 2010 interview, Chomsky compared media coverage of the Afghan War Diaries released by WikiLeaks and lack of media coverage to a study of severe health problems in Fallujah. While there was ample coverage of WikiLeaks there was no American coverage of the Fallujah study, in which the health situation in Fallujah was described by the British media as "worse than Hiroshima".
Since the publication of Manufacturing Consent, Herman and
Chomsky have adopted the theory and have given it a prominent role in
their writings, lectures and theoretical frameworks. Chomsky has made
extensive use of its explanative power to lend support to his
interpretations of mainstream media attitudes towards a wide array of
events, including the following:
Gulf War (1990), the media's failure to report on Saddam's peace offers.
Iraq invasion (2003), the media's failure to report on the legality of the war despite overwhelming public opinion in favor of only invading Iraq with UN authorization. According to the liberal watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, there was a disproportionate focus on pro-war sources while total anti-war sources only made up 10% of the media (with only 3% of US sources being anti-war).
Global warming, the media gives near equal balance to people who deny climate change despite only "about one percent" of climate scientists taking this view.
Chomsky commented that there are "three sides" on climate change
(deniers, those who follow the scientific consensus, and people who
think that the consensus underestimates the threat from global warming),
but in framing the debate the media usually ignore people who say that
the scientific consensus is unduly optimistic.
Reception
On the rare occasions the propaganda model is discussed in the mainstream media there is usually a large reaction. In 1988, when Chomsky was interviewed by Bill Moyers there were 1,000 letters in response, one of the biggest written reactions in the show's history. When he was interviewed by TV Ontario, the show generated 31,321 call-ins, which was a new record for the station.
In 1996, when Chomsky was interviewed by Andrew Marr
the producer commented that the response was "astonishing". He
commented that "[t]he audience reaction was astonishing... I have never
worked on a programme which elicited so many letters and calls".
In May 2007, Chomsky and Herman spoke at the University of Windsor in Canada summarizing developments and responding to criticisms related to the model.
Both authors stated they felt the propaganda model is still applicable
(Herman said even more so than when it was introduced), although they
did suggest a few areas where they believe it falls short and needs to
be extended in light of recent developments.
Chomsky has insisted that while the propaganda role of the media
"is intensified by ownership and advertising" the problem mostly lies
with "ideological-doctrinal commitments that are part of intellectual
life" or intellectual culture
of the people in power. He compares the media to scholarly literature
which he says has the same problems even without the constraints of the
propaganda model.
At the Windsor talk, Chomsky pointed out that Edward S. Herman
was primarily responsible for creating the theory although Chomsky
supported it. According to Chomsky, he insisted Herman's name appear
first on the cover of Manufacturing Consent because of his primary role researching and developing the theory.
Harvard media torture study
From the early 1930s until...2004, the newspapers that covered waterboarding almost uniformly called the practice torture or implied it was torture: The New York Times characterized it thus in 81.5% (44 of 54) of articles on the subject and the Los Angeles Times
did so in 96.3% of articles (26 of 27). By contrast, from 2002‐2008,
the studied newspapers almost never referred to waterboarding as
torture.
—Desai et al.
In April 2010, a study conducted by the Harvard Kennedy School showed that media outlets such as The New York Times and Los Angeles Times stopped using the term "torture" for waterboarding when the US government committed it, from 2002 to 2008.
It also noted that the press was "much more likely to call
waterboarding torture if a country other than the United States is the
perpetrator."
The study was similar to media studies done in Manufacturing Consent for topics such as comparing how the term "genocide" is used in the media when referring to allied and enemy countries.
Glenn Greenwald in response said that "We don’t need a state-run media
because our media outlets volunteer for the task..." and commented that
the media often act as propaganda for the government without coercion.
Studies of media outside the United States
Chomsky
has commented in the "ChomskyChat Forum" on the applicability of the
Propaganda Model to the media environment of other countries:
That's only rarely been done in any systematic way. There
is work on the British media, by a good U[niversity] of Glasgow media
group. And interesting work on British Central America coverage by Mark
Curtis in his book Ambiguities of Power. There is work on France, done in Belgium mostly, also a recent book by Serge Halimi (editor of Le Monde diplomatique).
There is one very careful study by a Dutch graduate student, applying
the methods Ed Herman used in studying US media reaction to elections
(El Salvador, Nicaragua) to 14 major European newspapers. ...
Interesting results. Discussed a bit (along with some others) in a
footnote in chapter 5 of my book "Deterring Democracy," if you happen to
have that around.
For more than a decade, a British-based website Media Lens has examined their domestic broadcasters and liberal press. Its criticisms are featured in the books Guardians of Power (2006) and Newspeak in the 21st Century (2009).
Studies have also expanded the propaganda model to examine news media in the People's Republic of China and for film production in Hollywood.
In July 2011, the journalist Paul Mason, then working for the BBC, pointed out that the News International phone hacking scandal
threw light on close links between the press and politicians. However,
he argued that the closure of the mass-circulation newspaper News of the World, which took place after the scandal broke, conformed only partly to the propaganda model. He drew attention to the role of social media,
saying that "large corporations pulled their advertising" because of
the "scale of the social media response" (a response which was mainly to
do with the newspaper's behaviour towards Milly Dowler, although Mason did not go into this level of detail).
Mason praised The Guardian for having told the truth about the phone-hacking, but expressed doubt about the financial viability of the newspaper.
One part of the Chomsky doctrine has been proven by
exception. He stated that newspapers that told the truth could not make
money. The Guardian...is indeed burning money and may run out of it in three years' time.
Criticism
The Anti-Chomsky Reader
Eli Lehrer of the American Enterprise Institute criticized the theory in The Anti-Chomsky Reader. According to Lehrer, the fact that papers like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal
have disagreements is evidence that the media is not a monolithic
entity. Lehrer also believes that the media cannot have a corporate bias
because it reports on and exposes corporate corruption. Lehrer asserts that the model amounts to a Marxist conception of right-wing false consciousness.
Herman and Chomsky have asserted that the media "is not a solid
monolith" but that it represents a debate between powerful interests
while ignoring perspectives that challenge the "fundamental premises" of
all these interests.
For instance, during the Vietnam War there was disagreement among the
media over tactics, but the broader issue of the legality and legitimacy
of the war was ignored (see Coverage of "enemy" countries).
Additionally, Chomsky has said that while the media are against
corruption, they are not against society legally empowering corporate
interests which is a reflection of the powerful interests that the model
would predict.
The authors have also said that the model does not seek to address "the
effects of the media on the public" which might be ineffective at
shaping public opinion.
Edward Herman has said "critics failed to comprehend that the
propaganda model is about how the media work, not how effective they
are".
Inroads: A Journal of Opinion
Gareth Morley argues in an article in Inroads: A Journal of Opinion that widespread coverage of Israeli
mistreatment of protesters as compared with little coverage of similar
(or much worse) events in sub-Saharan Africa is poorly explained. This was in response to Chomsky's assertion that in testing the Model, examples should be carefully paired to control reasons for discrepancies not related to political bias.
Chomsky himself cites the examples of government mis-treatment of
protesters and points out that general coverage of the two areas
compared should be similar, raising the point that they are not: news
from Israel (in any form) is far more common than news from sub-Saharan
Africa. Morley considers this approach dubiously empirical.
The New York Times review
Writing for The New York Times, the historian Walter LaFeber criticized the book Manufacturing Consent
for overstating its case, in particular with regards to reporting on
Nicaragua and not adequately explaining how a powerful propaganda system
would let military aid to the Contra rebels be blocked.
Herman responded in a letter by stating that the system was not "all
powerful" and that LaFeber did not address their main point regarding
Nicaragua. LaFeber replied that:
Mr. Herman wants to have it both ways: to claim that
leading American journals "mobilize bias" but object when I cite crucial
examples that weaken the book's thesis. If the news media are so
unqualifiedly bad, the book should at least explain why so many
publications (including my own) can cite their stories to attack
President Reagan's Central American policy.
What is more, a propaganda model is not weakened by the
discovery that with careful and critical reading, material could be
unearthed in the media that could be used by those that objected to
"President Reagan's Central American policy" on grounds of principle,
opposing not its failures but its successes: the near destruction of
Nicaragua and the blunting of the popular forces that threatened to
bring democracy and social reform to El Salvador, among other
achievements.
