Media Control

by:

Noam Chomsky
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

...Let me begin by counter-posing two different conceptions of democracy. One conception of democracy has it that a democratic society is one in which the public has the means to participate in some meaningful way in the management of their own affairs and the means of information are open and free....

An alternative conception of democracy is that the public must be barred from managing of their own affairs and the means of information must be kept narrowly and rigidly controlled. That may sound like an odd conception of democracy, but it's important to understand that it is the prevailing conception....

Early History of Propaganda

...[The Wilson administration] established a government propaganda commission, called the Creel Commission, which succeeded, within six months, in turning a pacifist population into a hysterical, war-mongering population which wanted to destroy everything German, tear the Germans limb from limb, go to war and save the world.

That was a major achievement, and it led to a further achievement. Right at that time and after the war the same techniques were used to whip up a hysterical Red Scare, as it was called, which succeeded pretty much in destroying unions and eliminating such dangerous problems as freedom of the press and freedom of political thought. There was very strong support from the media, from the business establishment, which in fact organized, pushed much of this work, and it was in general a great success.

Among those who participated actively and enthusiastically were the progressive intellectuals, people of the John Dewey circle, who took great pride, as you can see from their own writings at the time, in having shown that what they called the "more intelligent members of the community," namely themselves, were able to drive a reluctant population into a war by terrifying them and eliciting jingoist fanaticism. The means that were used were extensive. For example, there was a good deal of fabrication of atrocities by the Huns, Belgian babies with their arms torn off, all sorts of awful things that you still read in history books. They were all invented by the British propaganda ministry, whose own committment at the time, as they put it in their secret deliberations, was "to control the thought of the world." But more crucially they wanted to control the thought of the more intelligent members of the community in the U.S., who would then disseminate the propaganda that they were concocting and convert the pacifist country to wartime hysteria. That worked. It worked very well. And it taught a lesson: State propaganda, when supported by the educated classes and when no deviation is permitted from it, can have a big effect. It was a lesson learned by Hitler and many others, and it has been pursued to this day.

Spectator Democracy

...Walter Lippman, who was the dean of American journalists, a major foreign and domestic policy critic and also a major theorist of liberal democracy...argued that what he called a "revolution in the art of democracy," could be used to "manufacture consent," that is, to bring about agreement on the part of the public for things that they didn't want by the new techniques of propaganda....

...He argued that in a properly-functioning democracy there are classes of citizens. There is first of all the class of citizens who have to take some active role in running general affairs. That's the specialized class. They are the people who analyze, execute, make decisions, and run things in the political, economic, and ideological systems. That's a small percentage of the population... Those others, who are out of the small group, the big majority of the population, they are what Lippman called "the bewildered herd." We have to protect ourselves from the trampling and rage of the bewildered herd...

...So we need something to tame the bewildered herd, and that something is this new revolution in the art of democracy: the "manufacture of consent." The media, the schools, and popular culture have to be divided. For the political class and the decision makers have to give them some tolerable sense of reality, although they also have to instill the proper beliefs. Just remember, there is an unstated premise here. The unstated premise -- and even the responsible men have to disguise this from themselves -- has to do with the question of how they get into the position where they have the authority to make decisions. The way they do that, of course, is by serving people with real power. The people with real power are the ones who own the society, which is a pretty narrow group. If the specialized class can come along and say, I can serve your interests, then they'll be part of the executive group. You've got to keep that quiet. That means they have to have instilled in them the beliefs and doctrines that will serve the interests of private power. Unless they can master that skill, they're not part of the specialized class. They have to be deeply indoctrinated in the values and interests of private power and the state-corporate nexus that represents it. If they can get through that, then they can be part of the specialized class. The rest of the bewildered herd just have to be basically distracted. Turn their attention to something else....

...In what is nowadays called a totalitarian state, then a military state, it's easy. You just hold a bludgeon over their heads, and if they get out of line you smash them over the head. But as society has become more free and democratic, you lose that capacity. Therefore you have to turn to the techniques of propaganda. The logic is clear. Propaganda is to democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state....

Public Relations

The U.S. pioneered the public relations industry. Its committment was to "control the public mind," as its leaders put it. They learned a lot from the successes of the Creel Commission and the success in creating the Red Scare and its aftermath. The public relations industry underwent a huge expansion at that time. It succeeded for some time in creating almost total subordination of the public to business rule through the 1920s....

Public relations is a huge industry. They're spending by now something on the order of a billion dollars a year. All along its committment was to controlling the public mind....

...The corporate executive and the guy who cleans the floor all have the same interests. We can all work together and work for Americanism in harmony, liking each other. That was essentially the message. A huge amount of effort was put into presenting it. This is, after all, the business community, so they control the media and have massive resources... Mobilizing community opinion in favor of vapid, empty concepts like Americanism. Who can be against that? Or, to bring it up to date, "Support our troops." Who can be against that? Or yellow ribbons. Who can be against that?... The point of public relations slogans like "Support our troops" is that they don't mean anything. They mean as much as whether you support the people in Iowa. Of course, there was an issue. The issue was, Do you support our policy? But you don't want people to think about the issue. That's the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody's going to be against, and everybody's going to be for, because nobody knows what it means, because it doesn't mean anything, but its crucial value is that it diverts your attention....

That's all very effective. It runs right up to today. And of course it is carefully thought out. The people in the public relations industry aren't there for the fun of it. They're doing work. They're trying to instill the right values. In fact, they have a conception of what democracy ought to be: It ought to be a system in which the specialized class is trained to work in the service of the masters, the people who own the society. The rest of the population ought to be deprived of any form of organization, because organization just causes trouble. They ought to be sitting alone in front of the TV and having drilled into their heads the message, which says, the only value in life is to have more commodities or live like that rich middle class family you're watching and to have nice values like harmony and Americanism. That's all there is in life. You may think in your own head that there's got to be something more in life than this, but since you're watching the tube alone you assume, I must be crazy, because that's all that's going on over there....

So that's the ideal. Great efforts are made in trying to achieve that ideal. Obviously, there is a certain conception behind it. The conception of democracy is the one that I mentioned. The bewildered herd is a problem. We've got to prevent their rage and trampling. We've got to distract them. They should be watching the Superbowl or sitcoms or violent movies. Every once in a while you call on them to chant meaningless slogans like "Support our troops." You've got to keep them pretty scared, because unless they're properly scared and frightened of all kinds of devils that are going to destroy them from outside or inside or somewhere, they may start to think, which is very dangerous, because they're not competent to think. Therefore it's important to distract them and marginalize them.

Engineering Opinion

It is also necessary to whip up the population in support of foreign adventures. Usually the population is pacifist, just like they were during the First World War. The public sees no reason to get involved in foreign adventures, killing, and torture. So you have to whip them up. And to whip them up you have to frighten them....

To a certain extent then, that ideal was achieved, but never completely. There are institutions which it has as yet been impossible to destroy. The churches, for example, still exist. A large part of the dissident activity in the U.S. comes out of the churches, for the simple reason that they're there. So when you go to a European country and give a political talk, it may very likely be in the union hall. Here that won't happen, because unions first of all barely exist, and if they do exist they're not political organizations. But the churches do exist, and therefore you often give a talk in a church. Central American solidarity work mostly grew out of the churches, mainly because they exist.

The bewildered herd never gets properly tamed, so this is a constant battle. In the 1930s they arose again and were put down. In the 1960s there was another wave of dissidence. There was a name for that. It was called by the specialized class "the crisis of democracy." Democracy was regarded as entering into a crisis in the 1960s. The crisis was that large segments of the population were becoming organized and active and trying to participate in the political arena. Here we come back to these two conceptions of democracy. By the dictionary definition, that's an advance in democracy. By the prevailing conception that's a problem, a crisis that has to be overcome. The population has to be driven back to the apathy, obedience and passivity that is their proper state. We therefore have to do something to overcome the crisis. Efforts were made to achieve that. It hasn't worked. The crisis of democracy is still alive and well, fortunately, but not very effective in changing policy. But it is effective in changing opinion, contrary to what a lot of people believe. Great efforts were made after the 1960s to try to reverse and overcome this malady. It was called the "Vietnam Syndrome." The Vietnam Syndrome, a term that began to come up around 1970, has actually been defined on occasion. The Reaganite intellectual Norman Podhoretz defined it as "the sickly inhibitions against the use of military force." There were these sickly inhibitions against violence on the part of a large part of the public. People just didn't understand why we should go around torturing people and killing people and carpet bombing them. It's very dangerous for a population to be overcome by these sickly inhibitions, as Goebbels understood, because then there's a limit on foreign adventures. It's necessary, as the Washington Post put it the other day, rather proudly, to "instill in people respect for the martial virtues." That's important. If you want to have a violent society that uses force around the world to achieve the ends of its own domestic elite, it's necessary to have a proper appreciation of the martial virtues and none of these sickly inhibitions about using violence. So that's the Vietnam Syndrome. It's necessary to overcome that one.

Representation as Reality

It's also necessary to completely falsify history... There has been a huge effort since the Vietnam war to reconstruct the history of that. Too many people began to understand what was really going on. Including plenty of soldiers and a lot of young people who were involved with the peace movement and others. That was bad. It was necessary to rearrange those bad thoughts and to restore some form of sanity, namely, a recognition that whatever we do is noble and right. If we're bombing South Vietnam, that's because we're defending South Vietnam against somebody, namely the South Vietnamese, since nobody else was there. It's what the Kennedy intellectuals called "defense against internal aggression in South Vietnam." That was the phrase that Adlai Stevenson used. It was necessary to make that the official and well understood picture. That's worked pretty well. When you have total control over the media and the educational system and scholarship is conformist, you can get that across... The picture of the world that's presented to the public has only the remotest relation to reality. The truth of the matter is buried under edifice after edifice of lies. It's all been a marvelous success from this point of view in deterring the threat of democracy, achieved under conditions of freedom, which is extremely interesting. It's not like a totalitarian state, where it's done by force. These achievements are under conditions of freedom. If we want to understand our own society, we'll have to think about these facts. They are important facts, important for those who care about what kind of society they live in.

Dissident Culture

Despite all of this, the dissident culture survived. It's grown quite a lot since the 1960s. In the 1960s the dissident culture first of all was extremely slow in developing. There was no protest against the Indochina war until years after the U.S. had started bombing South Vietnam. When it did grow it was a very narrow dissident movement, mostly students and young people. By the 1970s that had changed considerably. Major popular movements had developed... In the 1980s there was an even greater expansion to the solidarity movements, which is something very new and important in the history of at least American, and maybe even world dissidence. These were movements that not only protested but actually involved themselves, often intimately, in the lives of suffering people elsewhere. They learned a great deal from it and had quite a civilizing effect on mainstream America. All of this has made a very large difference....

These are all signs of the civilizing effect, despite all the propaganda, despite all the efforts to control thought and manufacture consent. Nevertheless, people are acquiring an ability and a willingness to think things through. Skepticism about power has grown, and attitudes have changed on many, many issues. It's kind of slow, maybe even glacial, but perceptible and important. Whether it's fast enough to make a significant difference in what happens in the world is another question... Organization has its effects. It means that you discover that you're not alone. Others have the same thoughts that you do. You can reinforce your thoughts and learn more about what you think and believe. These are very informal movements, not like membership organizations, just a mood that involves interactions among people. It has a very noticeable effect. That's the danger of democracy: If organizations can develop, if people are no longer just glued to the tube, you may have all these funny thoughts arising in their heads, sickly inhibitions against the use of military force. That has to be overcome, but it hasn't been overcome.

Parade of Enemies

...There is a very characteristic development going on in the U.S. now. It's not the first country in the world that's done this. There are growing domestic social and economic problems, in fact, maybe catastrophes. Nobody in power has any intention of doing anything about them. If you look at the domestic programs of the administrations of the last ten years -- I include here the Democratic opposition -- there's really no serious proposal about what to do about the severe problems of health, education, homelessness, joblessness, crime, soaring criminal population, jails, deterioration in the inner cities -- the whole raft of problems. You all know about them and they're all getting worse... In such circumstances you've got to divert the bewildered herd, because if they start noticing this they may not like it, since they're the ones suffering from it. Just having them watch the Superbowl and the sitcoms may not be enough. You have to whip them up into fear of enemies. In the 1930s Hitler whipped them into fear of the Jews and Gypsies. You had to crush them to defend yourselves. We have our ways, too. Over the last ten years, every year or two, some major monster is constructed that we have to defend ourselves against. There used to be one that was always available: the Russians. But they're losing their attractiveness as an enemy, and it's getting harder and harder to use that one, so some new ones have to be conjured up... So it was international terrorists and narco-traffickers and crazed Arabs and Saddam Hussein, the new Hitler, is going to conquer the world. They've got to keep coming up, one after another. You frighten the population, terrorize them, intimidate them so that they're too afraid to travel and cower in fear. Then you have a magnificent victory over Grenada, Panama, or some other defenseless Third World army that you can pulverize before you ever bother to look at them -- which is just what happened. That gives relief. We were saved at the last minute. That's one of the ways in which you can keep the bewildered herd from paying attention to what's really going on around them, keep them diverted and controlled....

Selective Perception

...[In May of 1987,] the surviving members of the Human Rights Group of El Salvador -- the leaders had been killed -- were arrested and tortured, including Herbert Anaya, who was the director. They were sent to a prison -- La Esperanza (hope) Prison. While they were in prison they continued their human rights work. They were lawyers, they continued taking affidavits. There were 432 prisoners in that prison. They got signed affidavits from 430 of them in which they described, under oath, the torture that they had received: Electrical torture and other atrocities, including, in one case, torture by a North American U.S. major in uniform, who is described in some detail. This is an unusually explicit and comprehensive testimony, probably unique in its detail about what's going on in a torture chamber. This 160-page report of the prisoners' sworn testimony was sneaked out of prison, along with a videotape which was taken showing people testifying in prison about their torture. It was distributed by the Marin County Interfaith Task Force. The national press refused to cover it. The TV stations refused to run it. There was an article in the local Marin County Newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner, and I think that's all. No one else would touch it. This was a time when there were more than a few "light-headed and cold-blooded Western intellectuals" who were singing the praises of Jose Napoleon Duarte and of Ronald Reagan. Anaya was not the subject of any tributes. He didn't get on Human Rights Day. He wasn't appointed to anything. He was released in a prisoner exchange and then assassinated, apparently by the U.S.-backed security forces. Very little information about that ever appeared. The media never asked whether exposure of the atrocities -- instead of sitting on them and silencing them -- might have saved his life.

[...]

...In February, right in the middle of the bombing campaign, the government of Lebanon requested Israel to observe U.N. Security Resolution 425, which called on it to withdraw immediately and unconditionally from Lebanon. That resolution dates from March 1978. There have since been two subsequent resolutions calling for immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Israel from Lebanon. Of course it doesn't observe them because the U.S. backs it in maintaining that occupation. Meanwhile southern Lebanon is terrorized. There are big torture-chambers with horrifying things going on. It's used as a base for attacking other parts of Lebanon. In the course of these thirteen years Lebanon was invaded, the city of Beirut was bombed, about 20,000 people were killed, about 80% of them civilians, hospitals were destroyed, and more terror, looting, and robbery was inflicted. All fine, the U.S. backed it. That's just one case. You didn't see anything in the media about it or any discussion about whether Israel and the U.S. should observe U.N. Security Council Resolution 425 or any of the other resolutions... That's just one case. There are much worse ones. The Indonesian invasion of East Timor knocked off about 200,000 people. They all look minor by that one. That was strongly backed by the U.S. and is still going on with major U.S. diplomatic and military support....

The Gulf War

That tells you how a well-functioning propaganda system works. People can believe that when we use force against Iraq and Kuwait it's because we really observe the principle that illegal occupation and human rights abuses should be met by force. They don't see what it would mean if those principles were applied to U.S. behavior. That's a success of propaganda of quite a spectacular type.

[...]

Let's take the question of the reasons for the war. Reasons were offered for the war. The reasons are: Aggressors cannot be rewarded and aggression must be reversed by the quick resort to violence. That was the reason for the war. There was basically no other reason advanced. Can that possibly be the reason for the war? Does the U.S. uphold those principles, that aggressors cannot be rewarded and that aggression must be reversed by a quick resort to violence?... Has the U.S. opposed its own aggression in Panama and insisted on bombing Washington to reverse it? When the South African occupation of Namibia was declared illegal in 1969, did the U.S. impose sanctions on food and medicine? Did it go to war? Did it bomb Capetown? No, it carried out twenty years of "quiet diplomacy." It wasn't very pretty during those twenty years. In the years of the Reagan-Bush administration alone, about a million-and-a-half people were killed by South Africa just in the surrounding countries. Forget what was happening in South Africa and Namibia. Somehow that didn't sear our sensitive souls. We continued with "quiet diplomacy" and ended up with ample reward for the aggressors. They were given the major port in Namibia and plenty of advantages that took into account their security concerns. Where is this principle that we uphold?... No reason was given for going to war. None. No reason was given for going to war that could not be refuted by a literate teenager in about two minutes. That again is the hallmark of a totalitarian culture. It ought to frighten us, that we are so deeply totalitarian that we can be driven to war without any reason being given for it and without anybody noticing it or caring. It's a very striking fact.

[...]

...The fact of the matter is, this [Iraq] was a Third World country with a peasant army. It is now being conceded that there was a ton of disinformation about the fortifications, the chemical weapons, etc. But did you find anybody who pointed it out? Virtually nobody. That's typical. Notice that this was done one year after exactly the same thing was done with Manuel Noriega. Manuel Noriega is a minor thug by comparison with George Bush's friend Saddam Hussein or George Bush's other friends in Beijing, or George Bush himself, for that matter. In comparison with them, Manuel Noriega is a pretty minor thug. Bad, but not a world class thug of the kind we like. He was turned into a creature larger than life. He was going to destroy us, leading the narco-traffickers. We had to quickly move in and smash him, killing a couple hundred or maybe thousand people, restoring to power the tiny, maybe eight percent white oligarchy, and putting U.S. military officers in control at every level of the political system. We had to do all those things because, after all, we had to save ourselves or we were going to be destroyed by this monster. One year later the same thing was done by Saddam Hussein. Did anybody point it out? Did anybody point out what had happened or why? You'll have to look pretty far for that.

Notice that this is not all that different from what the Creel Commission did in 1916--1917, when within six months it had turned a pacifistic population into raving hysterics who wanted to destroy everything German to save ourselves from Huns who were tearing the arms off Belgian babes. The techniques are maybe more sophisticated, with television and lots of money going into it, but it's pretty traditional. I think the issue, to come back to my original comment, is not simply disinformation and the Gulf crisis. The issue is much broader. It's whether we want to live in a free society or whether we want to live under what amounts to a form of self-imposed totalitarianism, with the bewildered herd marginalized, directed elsewhere, terrified, screaming patriotic slogans, fearing for their lives and admiring with awe the leader who saved them from destruction while the educated masses goose-step on command, repeat the slogans they're supposed to repeat, the society deteriorates at home, we end up serving as a mercenary enforcer state, hoping that others are going to pay us to smash up the world. Those are the choices. That's the choice that you have to face. The answer to those questions is very much in the hands of people exactly like you and me.

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Privacy and Human Rights as an Enabler to the Information Society

We would like to draw privacy and human rights to the attention of those involved in the WSIS process and the Working Group on Internet Governance.

Privacy is an essential human right, and is enshrined in the UN Declaration of Human Rights in Article 12, and Article 17 of the International Covenant of Political and Civil Rights. Its importance as a basis for the development of a democratic society is stressed time and again by the UN Human Rights Committee and by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. It has also been emphasized by regional instruments such as the European Court of Human Right.

In an ‘Information Society’, where almost all attributes of an individual can be known, all interactions mapped, and all intentions assumed based on records, the need for protection of privacy is crucial to retain a sense of freedom.

We believe that privacy and other fundamental human rights will not only benefit those within the Information Society, but will in enable the Information Society as such.

We are emphasising privacy because we contend that privacy is an enabler for individuals to practice and enjoy their human rights, and to participate within the Information Society.

As we all consider means to enable political participation within the Information Society, we must in turn promote, protect, and enhance privacy. Privacy enables political participation. The right of free expression includes not only the right to utter or to print, but the right to distribute, the right to receive, the right to read and freedom of inquiry, freedom of thought, and freedom to teach. This right is enabled and protected through privacy. The freedom to associate and privacy in one's associations are intertwined. With privacy we may interact politically without fear, we may speak our mind without retribution, we may access fora without membership.

Privacy also encourages co-operation and trust. Whether in support groups on-line, or in consultations with doctors and counsellors, or within the marketplace, such interactions are supported by privacy. The dynamics surrounding an autonomous individual's disclosure of personal information are the same dynamics that generate trust in a society.

Following from the WSIS declaration in Geneva in 2003 and the work of the Working Group on Internet Governance, we notice with great interest the vertical foci upon access, consumer protection, dispute resolution, e-commerce, education, intellectual property rights, network security, domain issues, standards, unlawful content, and voice-over IP. All of these areas require privacy and other fundamental human rights not only as essential ingredients, but as the starting position. For instance

· Access policies that also include marketing and advertising regimes, or policies that promote the creation of kiosks that do not adequately protect users' privacy will create inequalities in the protection of fundamental human rights.

· Voice-over IP policies and standards that promote surveillance over confidentiality of communications may inhibit the growth potential of this technology.

· Initiatives on unlawful speech and measures to protect intellectual property may cast wide nets through the collection of personal information, which will in turn chill free expression.

· Requirements to disclose your identity prior to speak, whether through policies on domain names or through authentication protocols, will unnecessarily hamper free expression.

· Agreements, standards and protocols on network security that do not first protect the privacy of individuals will affect all conduct within the Information Society.

· We must consider policies on education that remind us all of the importance of human rights, not merely as something that we would like, but as necessities.

The challenges and threats to privacy and other fundamental human rights are numerous and varied. At this time where we see many global fora and agreements emerging to protect intellectual property rights, to help combat crime and terrorism, to manage resources and accounting, and so on and so forth, we need one fora to carry the standard on human rights. The World Summit on the Information Society is the greatest, and possibly only, opportunity for a renewed world consensus on these rights and values. Not since 1948, when we all signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, has the world stood up to acknowledge that human rights are essential starting blocks to the building of a better world.

Privacy and other human rights protect the greatest social value: human dignity. We have seen far too many times the gross mis-carriages of justice that were enabled through vast surveillance and curtailment of other human rights. These mis-carriages are not only blights upon our legal systems but they reflect negatively upon our societies and our sense of humanity.

Privacy protects individual autonomy and human agency. Knowing everything about someone reduces that person to a set of known facts, controllable and manipulatable. As long as a zone of autonomy exists around the individual, the opportunities for abuse and oppression are lessened. In an open society, privacy provides a core pre-condition to participation, a most basic civil liberty. Privacy is thus a fundamental component to freedom.

There is no time more important for these rights than now. And there is no greater opportunity than this. We are asking you all to act.

THE HISTORICITY OF MASS MEDIA SCIENCE

Denis Mc Quail ingin meneliti ketegangan antara peneliti, praktisi media dan pemerintah, di mana masing-masing mau mendefinisikan peran dari media massa. Dan memang hubungan antara praktisi media dengan pembangunan dalam arti ada range/jarak dari kerjasama yang normal sampai suatu pendirian yang berbeda satu sama lain. Dan Denis Mc Quail ingin menggambarkan hubungan antara kedua hal itu. Yang jelas Denis Mc Quail mau menggambarkan sejauh mana media massa (komunikasi massa) menjadi independen atau mandiri dan Denis Mc Quail menggambarkan bahwa kita harus memperjuangkan prinsip bahwa pengaruh komunikasi massa (kommas) itu selalu berada dan masuk menjadi bagian dalam proses ruang dan waktu. Arti proses ruang dan waktu adalah bahwa media masuk dan menjadi bagian dalam suatu masyarakat tertentu/ jaman tertentu/ periode tertentu sehingga Denis Mc Quail bahwa mengatakan kommas tidak bisa dipisahkan dengan perspektif sejarah maka Denis Mc Quail mengambil judul Historisitas Pengetahuan Media.

Ketegangannya adalah bahwa media itu ikut hanyut dalam sejarah atau menjadi sarana yang mengarahkan sejarah ? Artinya tarik menarik antara media dengan orang yang menerima media. Kalau seumpama terjadi ketegangan seperti itu maka akan dilihat secara jernih independensi media itu sendiri. Pertanyaan yang penting adalah sejauh mana media atau kommas mandiri atau independen ?

Seperti kita ketahui ada 3 unsur dalam kommas :

a. Peneliti media : orang-orang yang mempelajari kommas sebagai suatu disiplin pengetahuan.

b. Praktisi media itu sendiri : yang menjalankan media, dia yang menawarkan pesan dalam isi tertentu.

c. Pemerintah : dia menjadi penjaga kepentingan umum dalam proses komunikasi.

Oleh karena itu harus ada asumsi dasar yang mau melihat proses hubungan antara ketiga prilaku subyek tersebut :

1. Proses komunikasi massa adalah proses masyarakat menanggapi perspektif sejarah masyarakat itu sendiri.

Dalam arti bahwa komunikasi masuk didalam suatu proses sejarah manusia. Orang membangun peradaban atau budaya dalam perspektif sejarah yaitu masa lalu, masa sekarang dan masa depan. Oleh karena itu komunikasi penting didalam seluruh proses pembudayaan tadi.

2. Keberpihakan pada proses pengetahuan yang bersifat :

* obyektif, artinya : komunikasi yang benar-benar diterima semua orang secara universal dan itu menjadi kebenaran bersama.

* konstruktif, : pengetahuan yang bisa membangun peradaban artinya ada pembangunan yang mengarah positif yang akhirnya meningkatkan proses pembangunan maju ke depan.

* mengarah pada perubahan sosial : komunikasi selalu membuat sesuatu yang baru. Karena konstruktif adalah membuat yang baru maka disitu ada perubahan sosial.

3. Sifat pelayanan dari komunikasi massa.

Artinya komunikasi massa akan menjadi sesuatu yang baik atau positif apabila menengahi dan mengarahkan tindakan manusia terhadap proses sosial masyarakat. Manusia artinya dia membuat sesuatu sarana yang menyediakan manusia dapat berinteraksi dengan manusia lain di dalam proses sosialnya. Jadi dalam hal ini dapat dikatakan publik opini.

Oleh karena adanya asumsi dasar ini maka ada argumentasi untuk memunculkan ide independensi media tadi. Mengapa Denis Mc Quail mengatakan bahwa komunikasi perlu independen:

1. Keraguan akan masa depan komunikasi massa dalam bentuk sekarang artinya Denis Mc Quail melihat bahwa sistem komunikasi sekarang ini selalu cepat berubah. Akhirnya bentuk kommas yang bisa berjalan secara konstan, konsisten itu tidak ada, dia selalu memperbaharui terus menerus. Kalau dia selalu memperbaharui terus menerus akhirnya dapat dikatakan bagaimana isinya/ konteksnya dari komunikasi itu sendiri. Kalau dia selalu memperbaharui terus menerus memang ada sesuatu yang baik, tapi dalam proses kemapanan/establisment suatu proses itu tidak bisa diterima / itu akan membingungkan.

2. Kemunduran sifat massif dalam komunikasi massa.

Sifat massif, dulu kommas pasti berhubungan dengan massa/jumlah yang banyak tetapi ternyata ada perubahan yaitu :

· Sentralisasi produksi & distribusi

Pemusatan apa yang diproduksi dan apa yang didistribusikan didalam proses komunikasi entah itu monopoli komunikasi/monopoli yang lain. Ini adalah sifat mundur dari kemassifan kommas.

· Pemilahan pengirim & penerima

Pemilahan pengirim dan penerima sekarang ini dibedakan bahwa kamu pengirim, saya penerima kalau kamu pengirim maka kamu selalu mengirim terus menerus dan saya menerima terus menerus, maka akan ada suatu kecenderungan subyek dan obyek. Kalau ada hubungan subyek dan obyek maka terjadi hubungan yang atas bawah. Subyek yang melakukan dan saya sebagai obyek yang diperlakukan entah yang diperlakukan apa terserah si pembuat komunikasi massa (subyek). Dalam hal ini yang dipermasalahkan bukan informasinya / prosesnya tetapi Dennis sebenarnya ingin mengatakan bahwa akibat atau pengaruhnya nanti.

· pengecualian ukuran dan keragaman audience

Dengan adanya argumentasi di atas tadi Dennis ingin melihat bahwa perubahan / proses komunikasi massa ternyata bukan sekedar kekuatan tehnologi belaka tetapi kekuatan dan pengaruh kommas yang dipunyai oleh pemilik modal. Maka bila terjadi semacam itu maka proses demassifisasi tersebut / sifat massif yang dikurangi tadi semakin lama semakin cenderung meningkat maka Dennis mengharapkan bahwa perlu dijaga supaya debat kommas sendiri tidak jatuh kepada soal ekstrim kepentingan tertentu saja. Jadi debat tentang studi kommas tetap melihat kommas sebagai suatu disiplin pengetahuan yang integral kompleks artinya tetap utuh diperhatikan soal masyarakatnya, soal budaya, soal proses komunikasi itu sendiri, soal tehnologi itu sendiri, isi media, dll.

Kalau kita ingin melihat soal segitiga peran prilaku dalam kommas maka akan dilihat adanya peneliti, praktisi dan pemerintah. Praktisi adalah orang yang menginstitusikan atau menjadi institusi didalam komunikasi massa, maka dia mau menyampaikan suatu hal bahwa dimata praktisi komunikasi massa adalah sesuatu yang efektif untuk menyampaikan info, ide & peran tertentu. Politikus, anggapan Dennis adalah didalam perkembangan sekarang ini politikus mengalami kewalahan mengkontrol kepentingan publik atas terjangan arus info maka terjadi ketegangan baru. Maksud ketegangan baru adalah ada suatu hal yang berbenturan disana yaitu apakah komunikasi sekarang ini mau mengatakan efektivitas penyampaian info atau tetap memperhatikan kepentingan publik.

Kalau misal ketegangan menjadi sesuatu yang nyata maka tetap diperlukan pandangan alternatif untuk melihatnya artinya harus ada ukuran yang jelas. Ukuran yang jelas artinya ada kriteria yang jelas untuk semakin lama semakin melihat kommas bukan hanya penyampaian info, bukan soal hanya mengemukakan / mengedepankan kepentingan publik tetapi ada nilai tertinggi didalamnya, ada sesuatu yang terbuka didalamnya sebuah komunikasi massa yang artinya semakin lama semakin menyatakan kebebasan berekspresi.

Sebelum sampai pada kebebasan berekspresi maka kita harus melihat bahwa kommas itu harus menjadi institusi yang :

· Mapan artinya kalau media selalu digoncang oleh banyak kepentingan maka media tidak bisa melakukan proses komunikasi itu sendiri karena selalu terganggu / ditarik.

· Self refleksi artinya bahwa institusi komunikasi massa / proses didalam komunikasi massa selalu merefleksikan diri sendiri terus menerus maksudnya semakin melihat dirinya apakah hal ini benar / tidak, selalu ada proses uji.

· Otoritatif maksudnya unsur bahwa dalam proses kommas itu sendiri ada sesuatu yang bisa dipegang, sesuatu yang jelas, ada kriteria yang kurang lebih bisa dipegang.

Kembali kepada kebebasan berekspresi, kalau komunikasi massa mengarah pada nilai tertinggi dalam hal ini TV-radio (tehnologi komunikasi yang dapat dikatakan maju) maka perkembangan media tetap mempertahankan aturan baru kalau tetap mau mengatakan kommas adalah sesuatu komunikasi yang tetap baik maka dia akan tetap mendahului aturan-aturan baru / aturan-aturan yang berlandaskan pada aturan moral, keamanan dan management.

Dennis mengambil contoh TV dan radio sekarang ini memilah pengirim dan penerima. TV dan radio hanya soal transmisi. Hal ini (TV radio) adalah situasi komunikasi yang tidak seimbang, komunikasi disini adalah komunikasi mendahului isi artinya proses komunikasi sudah lebih dahulu jadi dibandingkan isi yang dilemparkan. Kalau proses ini selalu ada maka orang tidak bisa melihat isi komunikasi, padahal yang harus dilihat adalah isi komunikasi bukan proses pembuatan komunikasi itu sendiri. Maka ada hal yang perlu dijaga yaitu bila terjadi ekstrim yang lain yaitu komunikasi mendahului isi, tawaran mendahului permintaan maka harus tetap dijaga sistem sosial-media harus memilih :

a. Bersatu artinya sistem sosial dan media bersatu tetapi selalu ada pertanyaan bagaimana otonomi media kalau media bergantung pada sistem sosial

b. tersendiri : sistem sosial sendiri, media sendiri : berbuat sendiri maka lalu yang perlu diperhatikan karena adalah bagaimana kontrol terhadap media itu sendiri.

Kalau melihat hal seperti itu maka dapat ada kerjasama antara peneliti media dan praktisi media peneliti media gunanya adalah bisa menerapkan tehnologi dan isi proses komunikasi dalam ini seperti riset / penelitian maka dapat dikatakan bahwa peneliti itu bisa merefleksikan tanggapan sosial pada gejala baru yang signifikan (yang terlihat nyata).

Kemudian praktisi media kemudian menterjemahkan / mewujudkan apa yang telah diteliti oleh peneliti media ke dalam masyarakat. Maka terjadi suatu sistem segitiga baru artinya sistem imbang dalam komunikasi massa artinya harus terjadi dimana Dennis melihat bahwa :

1. Komunikasi massa harus bisa sentral.

Sentral artinya media pasti ingin mewujudkan sesuatu realitas / kenyataan, kalau misal koran mau menyatakan ekonomi Indonesia sedang rapuh maka dalam proses pembuatan koran / media dalam koran itu akan mewujudkan realita bahwa ekonomi Indonesia rapuh.

2. Sarana kontrol sosial

Di lain kesempatan komunikasi massa yang sistem imbang yaitu hubungan baik antara peneliti media dan praktisi media, pemerintah maka komunikasi massa dapat menjadi sarana kontrol sosial bahwa komunikasi massa menjadi suatu alat dimana saling mengontrol satu sama lain didalam proses masyarakat.

3. Kiprah umum

Komunikasi dapat menjadi tempat kiprah masyarakat umum / kiprah masing-masing masyarakat didalamnya tetapi ini tetap satu artinya ini refleksi dari tanggapan sosial / masyarakat pada gejala sosialnya dalam waktu, tempat dan suasana.

Kalau sistem tadi (segitiga) saling bekerjasama ada gap yang terjadi yaitu adanya ketegangan lagi dimana praktisi mau menggambarkan media adalah sesuatu yang rasional, obyektif tetapi dengan apa yang disebarkan karena dalam hal ini praktisi mau melihat bahwa apa yang disebarkan itu adalah kejadian dari suatu keahlian profesional artinya praktisi melihat audience / penikmat media sebagai klien. Tetapi peneliti melihat bahwa yang diperlukan adalah definisi terus menerus dari media, tidak usah disibukkan siapakah pendengarnya, siapa menonton, apa pekerjaannya.

Maka kemudian terjadi divergensi/kemenduaan yaitu :

· komunikator melihat bahwa komunikasi itu personal, khusus, praktis dan langsung mengarah.

· tetapi kecenderungan peneliti akan melihat bahwa dispersonalisasi, tidak melihat klien sebagai person, sangat teoritis sekali dan cenderung untuk membingungkan.

Maka lalu harus ada suatu pembangunan / konstruksi / hubungan baru antara :

· pembuat kebijakan dengan memberi pertimbangan / nasihat-nasihat.

· kemudian peneliti menterjemahkan apa yang diberikan dari si pembuat kebijakan itu sendiri.

· praktisi mengambil model / membuat terjemahan dalam suatu bentuk realitas yang baru.

Maka disana ada peran otoritas dimana disana otoritas menjaga kepentingan publik dan merepresentatif permintaan. Maka disini harus ada data obyektif dimana data obyektif adalah nasihat praktis yang tidak ada tendensi teoritis karen kalau misalnya nasihat praktis ada tendensi teoritis maka proses komunikasi massa itu sendiri akhirnya tidak menjadi obyektif lagi. Hal ini dilihat dari otoritas.

Hal semacam inilah kalau media massa atau kommas terjadi semacam itu maka media mudah bias. Arti mudah bias adalah media dependen baik tergantung pada pemerintah, peneliti, praktisi. Jadi disini yang ingin dilihat adalah sejauh mana media mandiri, ini menurut Dennis.

Media atau kommas tidak bisa melepaskan begitu saja dengan soal kepentingan, siapa yang memiliki, pengaruh masyarakat yang bagaimana yang akhirnya mewarnai pemberitaan. Ini akhirnya media menjadi rentan artinya kritis dengan bias-bias. Media itu dependen artinya media kalau tidak ada hubungan satu sama lain diantara 3 pelaku tadi maka kommas / media yang dihasilkan itu akan lost control. Contoh : sifat media, liputan 6 ingin mengatakan ini gelas, wujud obyektifnya gelas, tetapi dengan pemberitaan bahwa gelas ini diminum oleh Bp. Harto maka setiap orang yang melihat pemberitaan itu tidak lagi melihat hal itu adalah gelas tetapi gelas yang diminum presiden, belum lagi tafsiran disana yang mengatakan gelas yang diminum presiden itu bertuah, atau di temapt lain mengatakan bahwa gelas itu dipecahkan saja, dll. Contoh diatas adalah hal diluar kontrol pembuat media (praktisi media). Kalau disini tidak ada hubungan dalam hal ini tidak ada pemerintah yang mengatur yang menjaga kepentingan publik dan tidak ada peneliti yang mencoba untuk secara obyektif itu merefleksikan keadaan-keadaan sosial masyarakatnya maka itu akan amburadul / chaos / kacau meskipun didalam media itu sendiri tidak kacau, tetapi ditafsirkan / diinterpretasikan sebagai yang kacau oleh orang lain, maka disana ada konflik yaitu : pentingnya media, adalah seberapa penting media itu dihasilkan, misal media itu mau independen atau dependen :

· referensi kepentingan didalamnya bagaimana, artinya siapa saja yang mengelilingi media itu , yang menghasilkan media itu dan mempunyai kepentingan apa saja disana.

· implikasi sosial dari tehnologi. Ternyata tehnologi tidak diperhitungkan didalam kommas padahal tehnologi sangat penting sekali dalam pembuatan media.

· kepentingan lebih luas.

Kemudian hal itu, konflik akademik dapat tanggungjawab apabila harus ada resiko yang harus diambil yaitu media harus rasional, konsisten, self sensor dan sepenuhnya harus bermanfaat.

Dari semua penjelasan itu, Dennis mau mengeluarkan kritik yaitu bahwa :

· semua kesimpulan-kesimpulan yang dibuat diatas tadi sebenarnya adalah kesimpulan yang tidak logis dan seringkah bila dikonfrontasikan dengan kenyataan itu berbeda.

· penelitian, Dennis mengatakan penelitian seringkali lambat dalam aksi atau terlambat dalam aksi.

· mengkritik praktisi sering menyimpang meskipun praktisi sudah ditentukan jalurnya (menyimpang ini banyak sebabnya).

· sifat media : repetitif (berulang-ulang), kontradiktoris (saling berlawanan), tidak menyakinkan.

Hal ini disebabkan :

* oleh metode yang sangat lemah didalam penilaian dan pengujian

* keterbatasan sumber media itu sendiri

Tetapi Dennis tetap berkeyakinan bahwa penelitian sosial itu harus tetap dilakukan.

Berbicara mengenai sifat media yang repetitif, kontradiktoris, tidak menyakinkan maka Dennis mengatakan maka mau tidak mau media harus mandiri. Mandiri artinya selalu harus ada penelitian yang berulang-ulang karena penelitian yang berulang-ulang itu untuk memantapkan kepentingan sosial yang ada, meningkatkan popularitas dan pengujian media / kesahihan media itu sendiri tetap mendalam.

Meskipun demikian menurut Dennis masih terjadi ketidakseimbangan antara TV & koran Apa yang terjadi? Ternyata meskipun dengan tehnologi yang canggih sekarang ini TV bisa mengatakan siap mengubah dunia tetapi koran yang banyak mempengaruhi opini publik dan peristiwa politik. Efek ini kemudian dikaji mendalam dan terjadi konflik akademik.

Menurut Denis, kondisi yang harus diperhatikan dalam mengkritik media :

· kekuatan dan pengaruh media

· harga inklusivitas artinya siapa saja yang dipengaruhi didalam media itu sendiri, apa yang dipengaruhi dan seberapa jauh pengaruhnya.

Kepentingan rupanya tetap menjadi bahan diskusi menarik karena kepentingan yang obyektif itu harus ada didalam media entah itu kriteria/kepentingan moral, kriteria politik, kriteria masyarakat dan ini sering berlaku, sejauh mana akhirnya hal ini tetap menjadi sebuah pertimbangan dalam sebuah istilah dependensi media.

Meskipun ini (ke-3 kriteria tersebut) merupakan penilaian yang siklis / berulang-ulang maka penilaian yang siklis harus juga :

· penilaian yang hati-hati disamping ada klaim yang kuat bahwa media itu kuat, bahwa media itu independen untuk yang lain.

· kompleksitas proses media itu sendiri sering kali diterjemahkan secara umum sekali tetapi yach memang harus begitu.

· pentingnya akibat sosial artinya Dennis mengatakan bahwa dia ingin melihat lagi efek atau dampak yang diakibatkan oleh media.

Kalau semacam itu akhirnya tetap diperlukan kerjasama diantara ke-3 hal itu (segitiga) untuk menemukan pengetahuan yang akhirnya diperlukan penelitian evaluatif dengan konsep yang memadai. Seberapa jauh konsep itu memadai diserahkan kepada ke-3 pelaku tersebut.

Catatan tambahan :

Pada masa krisis ini media justru menjadi sumber pengetahuan tetapi dengan syarat / kondisi :

· mempunyai kekuatan atau tidak dalam mempengaruhi atau masuk kedalam afiliasi kelompok. Dalam hal ini kuat tidaknya afiliasi kelompok.

· derajat / jenis motivasi dalam menghadirkan media itu sendiri.

· luas tau tidak media itu sebagai sumber info-ide.

· tingkat kepercayaan.

· penghormatan-penghargaan.

Media : itu tetap melihat bahwa ternyata ada ketergantungan.

Ketergantungan, maksudnya menurut Dennis bahwa inti masalahnya adalah pesan dan akibat yang disampaikan oleh media massa maka terjadi teori ketergantungan.

Teori ketergantungan maksudnya pada tingkat kepercayaan adalah semakin konsisten pesan dari suatu media maka semakin tinggi pula tingkat kepercayaan yang diberikan kepadanya. Semakin tinggi tingkat kepercayaan yang diberikan kepadanya maka semakin banyak pula definisi yang diterima masyarakat.

Akibat dari dependensi teori adalah :

· tingkat kepercayaan selalu harus dibandingkan dengan media lainnya.

· bentuk organisasi sosial yang hidup didalam media itu sendiri.

· kondisi perubahan yang ada.

Tingkat kepercayaan, bentuk organisasi sosial, kondisi perubahan, ini semua juga harus dalam suatu kondisi :

· audience / pemirsa harus aktif

· batasan mengenai informasi yang terjadi

· lingkungan yang membentuk

· kekuatan yang menarik hal itu

· variabilitas kelompok yang ada

Sehingga dapat disimpulkan dari hal-hal pokok diatas adalah audience harus kritis dan selektif didalam sebuah media.

Kesimpulan :

1. Studi komunikasi massa adalah usaha eksternal (yang selalu dipengaruhi oleh pihak-pihak eksternal) dan membuka asimilasi baru tetapi hal ini harus diuji.

2. Media adalah sebuah produk atau indikator perkembangan politik jangka panjang dari sebuah masyarakat.

3. Media itu sebagai sumber pengetahuan dan pengertian sebuah sejarah yang sedang berlangsung.

4. Inti masalah adalah pesan dan akibat yang disampaikan oelh media massa.

5. Perhitungan akibat ini dapat dibantu apabila setiap orang dapat mengerti secara imaginatif tentang waktu, budaya dan masyarakat yang dialami.

Komentar :

1. Pengaruh kuat tidaknya media dalam perkembangan selanjutnya tidak lagi dalam soal isi tetapi tehnologi dan ternyata tehnologi lebih kuat sekarang ini. Dan malah sekarang ini tehnologi memegang peranan penting. Faktor lain seperti kecepatan dalam memperoleh berita, menyampaikan berita kemudian keakuratan itu menjadi faktor-faktor tingkat kepercayaan juga.

2. Penelitian itu apakah selamanya juga bisa dijamin kemadiriannya misal Dennis mengatakan bahwa tetap dipakai penelitian, harus dipertanyakan dulu juga apakah penelitian itu selamanya bisa dijamin kemandiriannya atau bebas kepentingan. Apa sich yang berada didunia ini tanpa kepentingan semua kepentingan. Kedok ilmiah pun juga bisa untuk kepentingan.

3. Saya setuju dengan segitiga pelaku komunikasi massa tetapi yang harus ditambahakan lagi disana adalah ternyata sekarang ini audience harus ditambahkan didalam prose itu, tidak hanya sekedar pelaku media, penelitian media, pemerintah.Oleh karena itu harus ada tata nilai baru bahwa mau tidak mau harus ada kekritisan dan selektivitas dalam media.

4. Sekarang ini kepentingan komersialisasi menjadi sangat mencolok dan itu menjadi ciri khas media sekarang dan itu yang tidak diperhatikan oelh Dennis yaitu tehnologi komunikasi.