Reading newspaper in the Chomsky's way

Every morning after getting ready, I open up the website of national newspaper and go through its headlines. I have been doing this for quite a while. Most of the times I start with main page, read headlines and if anything interests, would read the full news. Recently, I have been reading about role of media in the democracy. It is astonishing how media plays so important role in shaping beliefs of middle class (Poor can't buy newspapers or they do not as they already feel alienated from system) Noam Chomsky's explanation on how media utilized to spread propaganda in 'Manufacturing Consent' book gave me new way of looking towards media. It made me to rethink about how I should read the newspaper and I have been practicing it for last few weeks. In this blog, I would like to share it. Before we jump into this, I would like to warn that this way is NOT going to help you to crack any exam but will definitely help you to read real news.

The main page of newspaper is supposed to give all major headlines that concerns the reader (customer of product in this case). However, one does observe that a significant space is devoted for utterly useless news. Here a snippet from front page of Indian Express

The main story of 23rd March (Page one anchor) is about bureaucrat in a privately owned society. 

There are some news which act as just 'fill in' between ads. Those news are another example of distraction from main issue. Why can't newspaper use this space for news which is relevant to daily life of the reader?

Does this fill in qualified to be called even news? Dainik Bhaskar is 4th largest circulating newspaper in the world!

In order to find real news, you have to dig-in into last pages of newspaper. Here is an example:

Doesn't Economic Advisor's comment on future of economy deserve a separate heading and better place than 17th page?

Why this is buried on 8th page while the upcoming election in nearby state (this is Mumbai edition) is picked as main story (picture below)?

Some news items are aimed at justifying government policy. India's rising expenditure on defense (majorly on arms import) receives public support because of manufactured news like below. On the other hand, news about expenditure on health, education, nutrition is treated as not so important.

Very often, comparison with China is presented to incite feelings that we are lagging behind China. Shouldn't there be discussion about what cost China is paying for such huge military budget? Can India afford to spend same?

Though the heading points out decline with respect to GDP, the same article mentions somewhere in bottom that allocation has actually increased 5.8% compared to last year.

Above news is aimed at creating public support for arms purchase (see news below). Please note that I am not saying that we do not need defense budget, but don't you think defense budget has gotten too much focus and weight-age?.

Forget about your education, health and unemployment, let us import arms first!

People's demands and opinions get place on 19th page.

I think you must have gotten my point by now. What happens in newspaper, happens in TV news channels and social media also. Those mediums have found to be more effective in spreading propaganda. Perhaps, media is the only industry where customer consumes content without asking any question. In most cases, he has to because there is no other option available! The arrival of internet was supposed to help independent media but it hasn't happened on large scale. This is mainly because of the funding architecture of media. It is heavily dependent on corporate ads and political parties. In US, the independent media like Democracy Now, Progressive is rising and have sustained for long period. Lets hope same happens in our country too.

Finally, as a reader we have only one option - to read news critically and skeptically. Note that the skepticism is important because all governments lie!. Don't agree? Watch this:

Here Chomsky explains in 2 min. what readers can do:

To know more about how media manufactures public opinion, do read Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky. 

Why I'll not spend more than 30 minutes thinking about upcoming elections

Recently, I finished this book - 'A People's History of the United States' by Howard Zinn. It is considered a classic in the American history category. I must say that the book really impressed me and it is must have in everyone's collection, even though one (thinks that) he/she does not have an even remote connection with the United States. Here are two reasons for that: One, every person on earth has either consumed goods, services produced by US company (includes the very site which is delivering you this blog) or has a direct/indirect influence of the US foreign policy. Second, I cannot find any other book which narrates the history of my country from people's perspective. The 'people' includes farmers, workers, woman, laborers, middle class. Most history books are focused on actions taken by leaders of freedom movements or decisions taken by ministers. There is hardly any mention of what people were doing, thinking during that period.

According to me, a good book should not just offer the pleasure of reading but should also provoke the reader to ask questions. Zinn's book does exactly the same. It made me ask: Should US be considered democratic country? Is the ballot box the only way for citizens to raise their voice? How come 1% of the population controls 99%? The good part is that Zinn answers most of these questions with his awesome, fluid narrative. I would like to share that and draw parallel in the Indian context.

India is considered as the largest democracy in the world. Our favorite topics are Bollywood, cricket, and election. Let's talk about the third one.Even though we have gone through the turmoil of Presidential rule in past and politicians haven't stopped giving false promises, every five years, we hold general elections and majority participates with new hope every time. So, is democracy working for common people? I think, no. Look at these facts: 80% of Indians barely manage to survive with half a dollar a day [1], 1% of top Indians own 58% of the country wealth [2], farmer suicide is rising. I can add many more such facts. Even though the situation is getting worse every day, we are still hopeful. Why? Well, US history helps to answer this. In the US, the government has managed to keep controlling people by provoking them to fight with each other using class war, racism, suppression rights (in case of women, blacks, native americans) etc. After the arrival of TV, it has successfully managed by running government propaganda through media. Today, the internet is used to bombard citizens with manufactured content to shape belief. If beliefs of citizens are manufactured, the information is controlled by few people, can citizens make an informed voting decision? I doubt. If someone tries to dig all information and make the decision, does he/she get a good candidate to choose? Usually, people are left with only one strategy - chose the least corrupt. So, I want to ask: is ballot box powerful enough to create change?

If we look at the history of US, people won their rights by fighting for it, not by voting for right politicians. Take the example of blacks. They did not have voting rights. They fought the war for it. Same is the story of women. They fought for voting rights. After a while, they realized the truth - voting is not a sufficient task to control government. People also observed that there is hardly any media that was in their problems. So, people started their own newspapers, radio channels and started discussing the issues that mattered to them. So, a platform was created. Women, blacks, native Americans benefitted a lot with this. By 60's, new media created awareness among people and united them. Of course, traditional media and government administration did their best to divide them and succeeded in some cases. By 60's, after fighting two world wars for the government, people lost faith in government and started the civil disobedience movement. It was similar to Gandhi's non-cooperative movement. The government realized very soon that there is 'too much of democracy' [3]. In order to pacify people's anger, few people-centric policies were implemented (food coupons scheme, monetary support for unemployed people, investment in research, low-cost education etc). Civil disobedience worked. The growth of US that we see today is the result of 60's movement.

Today we need another civil disobedience movement. It seems that everyone knows that the government is run by crooks today but everyone feels powerless in front of it. The reason is: we have become too obedient. Well, the root of this lies in the structure of education system. Here is a paragraph from Zinn's book that captures how the education system is designed to control workers who were challenging inhuman policies of factory owners by doing strikes:

Back in 1859, the desire of mill owners in the town of Lowell that their workers be educated was explained by the secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education: 

The owners of factories are more concerned than other classes and interests in the intelligence of their laborers. When the latter are well-educated and the former are disposed to deal justly, controversies and strikes can never occur, nor can the minds of the masses be prejudiced by demagogues and controlled by temporary and factious considerations.

To translate above paragraph in simple words, 'we [government] should put workers in the education system in order to imbibe ideas that will make them think that the current system is good'.

We often read, see in the media that India hasn't lost faith in the democratic system. Is this true? Take any recent election, one hardly finds people's voting percentage touching 60%. Middle class comprises of the biggest participant in this. It thinks the remaining 40% (mostly poor, backward class) do not vote because they are lazy, uneducated and unpatriotic. I do not think so. If voting would have solved problems of poor, why wouldn't they go out once in five years and vote for their candidate? Why do they still choose to work in farms, factories on voting day? The reason is - they have lost hope. Their anger is visible through resistance (usually, not shown in mainstream media) but the administration (read government) has managed to keep them in control with the power of guns and religious violence. As a result, the system is under control. In future, when middle class realizes this whole game, it will be too difficult to handle their disobedience. As long as the middle class is 'hooked' to propaganda, the system will run forever.

2019 elections are coming up. Media has already successfully created hype for it. I do not see any political leader talking about income inequality or issue of economic policies [4]. Drawing parallel, from American history, I think we should not have high hopes from ballot box anymore. So, I would suggest you to spend less than 30 minutes to think about elections and more about civil disobedience. And yes, do read the book. It's awesome!

Notes:

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSDEL218894

[2] http://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ani/india-needs-inclusive-and-employment-based-development-118040500168_1.html

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crisis_of_Democracy

[4] Watch this discussion by US politicians: https://youtu.be/Mw46J5F4T_c  It is still rare to find such discussion in India.

“We don't have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.”
- Howard Zinn

People's victory against mighty government

Whenever you hear or read the word 'protest', what does come to your mind? Violence, Shouting people, traffic jams, Police doing lathi charge, right?. In the case of silent protest, violence is not present but citizens still face problems like traffic jams. Plus, it doesn't receive attention because it doesn't qualify to be 'sensational'[1]. What if I tell you that there is an example in history where people protested without hitting streets or using the Internet and won? In 1981, Polish people displayed the strength of unity and participated in a protest without hitting roads or doing any violence and won against mighty, oppressive government.

At the midnight of 12th December of 1981, Polish state brought the Martial law into immediate effect. This was in the response to opposition from writers, artists, journalists, worker unions who were demanding freedom of expression under the totalitarian government. The opposition was growing mainly from the 60s but it reached its peak in 1981. At the stroke of midnight, all newspapers, writers spreading 'false information' were put behind the bars and their properties were seized. In response to this, independent underground movement (called Solidarnosc) started which was made successful with support and participation from people. For example, the military started checking every big bag under the suspicion of carrying newspapers. Solidarnosc asked every stroller to carry a bag to protest against this. People supported this. Now, the military had to check every bag and this used to drive them crazy!

During Martial law, the TV news anchors were also appointed by the government. There used to be only one channel allowed and that too was completely under government 'censorship'. The public was very well aware of hijacked TV and intentions of government - to spread propaganda. They protested against this by turning off the TV. Some refused to pay TV license fee also. To underscore the fact that nobody was watching propaganda, people turned up the TV volume, faced it towards the window and went out for evening walks. The message from the public was strong - 'we are not going to get affected by false propaganda'. The authorities retaliated this by cutting off electricity and water. They also imposed restrictions on evening walks. Opposing this, people protested even strongly by participating more in evening strolls!

Like TV, newspapers were also controlled by the government. The public was completely cut off from international news media and forced to buy propaganda material by banning other independent media. A new movement called 'let the piles of unsold newspapers show our opposition to military rule' started. It got huge support. 80% of the newspaper stocks remained unsold! During the same period, Solidarnosc used to publish updates of movement through pamphlets. They were very popular among people. They helped people to get international news and more important, united them against the imposed martial law. The government tried to break Solidarnosc by publishing similarly looking leaflets, spreading rumors about fall of Solidarnosc. People did not fall prey to this and continued to oppose the martial law.

The protest by artists was the most noteworthy one. They refused to appear on any TV programs or act in any films directed by government-backed directors. Instead, they organized their own plays and asked the public to support them by buying tickets. The public supported them and in many cases, provided financial assistance. On the other hand, there were some writers, artists who compromised their values by joining pro-government groups. People did not spare them. Such writers woke up to find piles of their novels at the doorstep with angry messages from the public. It was called 'paper recycling' movement.

As a result of such kind of silent, the non-co-operative response from the public, on 22nd July 1983 i.e. around two and half years later, martial law was lifted and public won! This period is very important in Polish history. To the world, it demonstrated how society can fight against strong powers. Since then, people in Poland are very aware and sensitive about freedom of information. Recently, Polish government restricted access to parliament by only inviting limited media houses. It received so huge flak from the public that it forced government to go back foot.[2]

The Guardian, 20th December 2016, Poland scraps proposed media restrictions in wake of street protests

References:

[1] Chapter 3 : Mass Communication, Propaganda and Persuation, 'The Social Animal' by Elliot Aronson

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/20/poland-scraps-proposed-media-restrictions-in-wake-of-street-protests

This article is based on the paper published by Fedorowicz, Hania M. titled "The War for Information: The Polish Response to Martial Law." published in Canadian Journal of Communication (1988).