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The Propaganda model proposed by Herman and Chomsky has been widely discussed on the left for 35 years, even if those discussions didn't mention it by it's form
by Dudelander 4y ago
The Propaganda model proposed by Herman and Chomsky has been widely discussed on the left for 35 years, even if those discussions didn't mention it by it's formal name. So yeah it's nothing new. But to sum up:
1) Local media has a far right wing, pro police bias because it's customers are small business owners. Small business owners are pro police because they lose money from shoplifters and "bad" neighborhoods are bad for business. They're anti immigration because immigrants are over-represented among new small business owners and tend to outcompete established businesses. They're opposed to labor laws because they increase costs. They're opposed to estate / property / capitol gains taxes because they tend to have a large amount of family wealth. This is not to say that all small business owners are far right, it's just that they have a lot to gain from right wing policies.
2) Mass media tends to have a center left bias. This is because their customers are large national and multinational corporations, who are more interested in messaging and branding. For many reasons, the ages of 18-55 are considered to be the main focus of advertising, with 18-35 year olds being seen as especially valuable. Also, people who live in urban areas tend to have more disposable income. Finally, since what is progressive 30 years ago is often mainstream today, being left wing on social issues is generally a good idea. Imagine if the US only let 18-55 year olds vote, and gave an extra vote to people who were 18-35, lived in an urban area, or had progressive beliefs. That is the ideal media landscape for large media companies. Now there are limits, because large businesses don't want to promote pro-worker or anti-capitalist ideas. That's why the socially progressive economically centrist point of view dominates mass media.
Twitter is a mass media platform, and it must do something to promote center left tweets if it wants to be a profitable ad supported business. And it's more than happy to work with the government to further that goal.
If Elon wants to make Twitter into a privately owned microtransaction supported site, then we can expect it to boost far right wing positions - which is exactly what's happening.
- objetovoador 4y agoThis is very conspiratorial and generalizing. Everyone paints the right as conspiracy crazy but the left usually gets away with discussing their own conspiracies unchallenged. Marxism (along with all the other anti-capitalist tropes) is fundamentally a conspiracy theory, for instance. Not to mention you claim that all these small business owners are anti-immigration yet they don't want labor laws? That seems contradictory since labor laws are usually enacted as a protectionist measure. If anything immigration in all of its forms is essential for small and big business alike since it provides cheap labor.
- licebmi__at__ 4y agoWell, he’s trying to describe a group dynamic, an explanation like that will obviously be generalizing.
- Dudelander 4y agoI don't see how it's conspiratorial at all. There are market forces that are influencing these decisions, and there will always be exceptions. It is a generalization, but it's a stochastic generalization based on real life data - not on the assumption that there is a secret cabal of evil suits smoking cigars in a dark room. I'm not a Marxist, but I don't see how Marxism is a conspiracy theory. There are certainly some conspiracy theories on the left sure, but Marx never assumed that there was a secret conspiracy trying to control things behind the scenes. Regarding small businesses preferring cheap labor, it depends. Take the transportation industry - if you're a small business owner who works in the transportation industry you're likely to be an owner-operator - in which case you don't really care about cheap labor. Likewise in the hospitality / retail industry you're likely to hire American workers if you're an American and non-American workers if you're non-American. So the cheap labor from immigration only impacts you indirectly. Obviously if you're an immigrant you're going to be more likely to lean to the left, but must small business owners are American. It's true that the construction industry benefits from cheap labor, but we're talking about general trends here. Someone who owns a Yoga studio is more likely to be left wing. But on the whole, small business owners lean to the right.