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War, Propaganda and the Media

How can the media be used to peddle propaganda in a liberal democracy?

The notorious Nazi Party Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, once said, “it is the absolute right of the State to supervise the formation of public opinion” (1948). He also likened the press to a “great keyboard on which the government can play.” Goebbels was a master of manipulation and is largely credited with selling the Nazi cause to the German populace.

In her 2007 book A Russian Diary, Anna Politkovskaya wrote of the overwhelming influence President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin had over all aspects of Russian society, from business, to individual lives, to the media. A journalist writing for the Russian newspaper Novaya gazeta, Politkovskaya described the pro-Putin stance of the media: “As election day approaches, the television news bulletins increasingly resemble heartening dispatches on Putin’s achievements”(2007, p. 67). She recalls occasions of press censorship, threats from political leaders and an occasion where journalists were even detained for filming an anti-Putin demonstration. Those in the media that do not apply self-censorship and question the Kremlin risk losing their jobs. “Where freedom is, there is low pay, irregularly paid. The big time is the mass media that play ball with the Kremlin”(2007 p.154). Politkovskaya made a name for herself as a journalist who would tell the truth no matter what, reporting on the situation in Chechnya and the Caucasus, and the truth behind scandals such as the Dubrovka theatre siege in 2002 and the Beslan school siege in 2005 (2007, p. 44-45). Refusing to be silenced ultimately took her life; Politkovskaya was murdered outside her Moscow apartment in October 2006.

However, in liberal democracies the overt propaganda of the sort Goebbels used to great effect in Germany, or the political pressure placed on journalists like Politkovskaya in Russia would not be possible. But it would naïve to believe democratic governments are unable to use the media to sell their policies to the voting masses. And as we have seen in recent years with the “War on Terror” and the Iraq War, the media can be as complicit as their governments in deceiving the public. Continue reading →