Monday 5 August 2002

Correcting distorted vision of the corporate media

Chemistry teachers have long delighted students by showing how near-perfect symmetrical structures can be produced by pouring a large number of small balls into a square box, whereupon a perfect pyramid is inevitably produced. The balls either land in a pyramid-building position, bounce into such a position, or bounce out of the structure. The resulting pyramid like crystalline structures found in the natural world - looks for all the world like it has been carefully designed; in fact it is merely a consequence of the random flow of small round objects over a square framework.

We believe that the flow of journalists in and out of the framing structure of the mainstream corporate media accounts, in a roughly analogous way, for the remarkably uniform patterns found in mainstream reporting. As we have shown in earlier Media Alerts, the corporate media is structured in a way that protects and furthers the interests of state-corporate power in the absence of any conspiracy, or even overt interference. The uniformity of reporting simply follows from the interaction of human nature with the framing structures of state-corporate capitalism - journalists with the correct views, priorities and goals 'fall into place' in the media pyramid, while others bounce (or are bounced) out.

WAR IN IRAQ THIS OCTOBER // the UP! 125 // aug 3 2002