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Propaganda Inc.
Dr. Nancy Snow spent two years working within the ranks of America’s officia propaganda organ, the United States Information Agency, and then urgically exposed the inner workings of the organization in her acclaimed publication, ropaganda Inc.. In this interview with GNN, Dr. Snow breaks down the covert history of U.S. propaganda efforts both inside and outside of the country’s borders.
Propaganda Inc.: Behind the curtain at the U.S.I.A.
Stephen Marshall: Why don\'t we start by having you introduce yourself and giving us
a little background on your career and what led you to write Propaganda, Inc.
Dr. Nancy Snow: I\'m Nancy Snow and I\'m the Associate Director of the Center for
Communications and Community at U.C.L.A. I\'m formerly an assistant professor of
political science at New England College in Henniker, New Hampshire and former
Executive Director of Common Cause in New Hampshire. Before that I was a
propagandist for the U.S. Information Agency in the early 90\'s, the first couple of years
of the Clinton administration. And I wrote a book, Propaganda, Inc., about that
experience as well as the entire history of the U.S. government\'s propagandizing its
message to an overseas audience..
You\'re one of these people who has seen the inner workings of the U.S. foreign policy
machine - most specifically in the realm of propaganda. And you are also a Fulbright
Scholar who has had great access to the international organs most involved with
promoting U.S. interest in the global forum. But here you go and write a book exposing
all of the facts of that enterprise. Pulling back the curtain and exposing the wizard.
What was the catalyzing moment for you where you thought you might want to report
on what you were doing, you know, when you thought it was worth public analysis?
Right, well, I didn\'t really know about the history of public diplomacy and I should
explain that public diplomacy is a euphemism for propaganda. In the United States, we don\'t think of ourselves as a country that propagandizes, even though to the rest of the
world we are seen as really the most propagandistic nation in terms of our advertising,
in terms of our global reach, our public relations industry - we have more public relations professionals and consultants in the United States than we do news reporters. So there\'s an entire history of advertising, promoting, and getting across the message of America both within and also outside of the United States.
Now, when I was a Fulbright student, I was in my early twenties and I didn\'t know anything about the Fulbright program. I certainly hadn\'t heard of the U.S. Information Agency and there\'s a reason for not having heard of U.S.I.A. and that is because, as a
propaganda agency, it\'s prohibited from distributing its materials to a U.S. audience.
So even though the Fulbright program was an educational program within the agency,
it was attached to a private subsidiary known as the Institute for International
Education (I.I.E.). So when I applied, I was actually applying to I.I.E. which is located
in New York City. It wasn\'t until I went overseas as a Fulbright student that I began
hearing questions about
Stephen Marshall: Why don\'t we start by having you introduce yourself and giving us
a little background on your career and what led you to write Propaganda, Inc.
Dr. Nancy Snow: I\'m Nancy Snow and I\'m the Associate Director of the Center for
Communications and Community at U.C.L.A. I\'m formerly an assistant professor of
political science at New England College in Henniker, New Hampshire and former
Executive Director of Common Cause in New Hampshire. Before that I was a
propagandist for the U.S. Information Agency in the early 90\'s, the first couple of years
of the Clinton administration. And I wrote a book, Propaganda, Inc., about that
experience as well as the entire history of the U.S. government\'s propagandizing its
message to an overseas audience..
You\'re one of these people who has seen the inner workings of the U.S. foreign policy
machine - most specifically in the realm of propaganda. And you are also a Fulbright
Scholar who has had great access to the international organs most involved with
promoting U.S. interest in the global forum. But here you go and write a book exposing
all of the facts of that enterprise. Pulling back the curtain and exposing the wizard.
What was the catalyzing moment for you where you thought you might want to report
on what you were doing, you know, when you thought it was worth public analysis?
Right, well, I didn\'t really know about the history of public diplomacy and I should
explain that public diplomacy is a euphemism for propaganda. In the United States, we don\'t think of ourselves as a country that propagandizes, even though to the rest of the
world we are seen as really the most propagandistic nation in terms of our advertising,
in terms of our global reach, our public relations industry - we have more public relations professionals and consultants in the United States than we do news reporters. So there\'s an entire history of advertising, promoting, and getting across the message of America both within and also outside of the United States.
Now, when I was a Fulbright student, I was in my early twenties and I didn\'t know anything about the Fulbright program. I certainly hadn\'t heard of the U.S. Information Agency and there\'s a reason for not having heard of U.S.I.A. and that is because, as a
propaganda agency, it\'s prohibited from distributing its materials to a U.S. audience.
So even though the Fulbright program was an educational program within the agency,
it was attached to a private subsidiary known as the Institute for International
Education (I.I.E.). So when I applied, I was actually applying to I.I.E. which is located
in New York City. It wasn\'t until I went overseas as a Fulbright student that I began
hearing questions about
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For starters, what is the standard definition of propaganda? And, also, what are the
tools that are used for propaganda? You use the term psychological warfare in
describing one aspect of propaganda, it sounds so harsh, but it is in fact a form of
propaganda, isn't it?
I’ve looked at a number of different sources. There are different types of propaganda but
I think the most important point to make here is that it’s not a term to be feared.
There is one definition that I use in my book, which is an encyclopedia definition for
propaganda and it's in more of a war context. It defines propaganda as "instruments of
psychological warfare aimed at influencing the actions of human beings in ways that
are compatible with the national interest objectives of the purveying state.’ Now that’s
an official form of propaganda. Propaganda really is a mass persuasion campaign. An
individual does not propagandize another individual. It is a form of mass persuasion
that is sponsored by an institution, in this case, of that definition, a government
institution. In a private sense, it could be a sponsoring organization - like Disney or
A&E or CNN — can propagandize because they are vehicles for mass persuasion.
And there are some tenets, there are some attributes of propaganda. One being that it
is generally one-way, so it is designed to be intentional communication that really
favors the institution propagating that message. By the way, historically… the first
time we come across the term ‘propaganda,’ it was used by the Roman Catholic
Church: to propagate, to spread, to disseminate… the gospel of Catholicism
worldwide.
So, whether you are propagating a message of your organization, be it the United
States government or you are propagating the message of Eddie Bauer or the Gap, it
is not something that people should fear, it is something that they should understand
because we are subjects of propaganda campaigns. And when you think about the
thousands of advertising messages that we are subjected to on a daily basis, I would
urge people to think of that in the context of mass persuasion: How are these
advertising appeals really affecting communities as a whole? So with propaganda, look
at it as persuasion but more in a holistic, in an environmental sense.
In many of the different literatures that I have looked at related to propaganda, we think
of propaganda as separate from education because we think of the educational
environment as two-way and I’m not so sure about that. I think that’s part of the
mythology around education. I think that educational institutions, including our elite
institutions of education, are wonderful vehicles for propagandizing people because
they give people a sense of ‘who is in charge’ and ‘who you have to answer to’ and that
hierarchy is involved and that, again, you, as an individual, cannot do much to really
affect that overarching system. Mass persuasion, again, tends to stymie free
exchange and individual dissent. So it is the converse, really, of what I believe
education and the role of an educational institution is meant to be. But as we know
there is theory and practice… and educational institutions, as Chomsky has said, are,
again, wonderful vehicles for propaganda.
Another point I would make is that when it comes to propaganda… I know that at the
U.S. Information Agency, the propaganda programs we had in place were targeting the
top level, the upper echelon of our target country. So when I was working in my role as
a propagandist, it was to reach out to the top 10 — 20 % of the target population. Now
why would you do that? Because, generally speaking, the better educated, those who
are in academia, media and business, they are the ones you want to reach because
they are the elites of countries. And many of the developing, so-called Third World
countries, these are the countries that, throughout the Cold War ear and now in the
post-Cold War, if you want to call it, hyper-Capitalist era, these were the people we
wanted to influence when I was working for the U.S. government. To get them to open
up their countries to U.S. marketing, U.S. business interests overseas. So, what the
masses thought was irrelevant. The masses, for the most part, are distracted by
sports and entertainment which, again, have their own propaganda function. But these
are not really the targeted individuals of official propaganda — that being, official
government programs.
Hmmm. That says a lot to me about the way that we can begin to look at how those
same 10 — 20 % of Americans have been propagandized… and how those same
masses have been so distracted by, as you call it, sports and entertainment. It would
seem that propaganda truly works on all fronts. Let me ask you this — when you
speak of propaganda and, specifically, American propaganda, it makes me wonder to
what extent that is just the marketing of capitalism itself. I mean, for many people,
America is less of a cultural entity than a capitalist organ. And that when we speak
about propagandizing on behalf of the United States, on the surface it would seem
that it’s about America and national values but really it’s more than that. It’s about
pushing a whole way of life, isn’t it?
Sure. When you hear terms like ‘democracy’, ‘peaceful co-existence’, and ‘diversity’
— these are coded terms for, really, promoting commercial interests and a
consumer-driven culture. That should concern us a bit because the more that we are
appealed to as consumers, the less we are appealed to as citizens… the less sense
of knowledge and understanding we have as citizen agitators. And it’s important,
really, to be agitators within a free and open society.
If that’s what we are.
But when we hear about promoting the American way of life, you need to understand
that in a political-economic context. It’s really more about promoting the notion that
official sources have of power… and promoting what the official sources of that
economic power say. Because economic power is private power. Economic power is
also the State, the government, working in concert, in a healthy marriage, with private
power. So the government really acts as a shadow to private power.
Now, what is private power? Private power would be the very, very top levels of the
multi-national corporations that are really promoting, now, a commercial culture of
people, not working truly independently, but for conglomerates. That is, a way of life
that is really getting away from ownership at the grass-roots level and giving up
ownership, giving up power to incredibly concentrated avenues of power that are really
more totalitarian than they are democratic.
The conundrum for us in the United States is that we are socialized to believe that we
are truly free, that we are truly democratic. And all I would say is: ‘Well, let’s look at
how we actually get elected officials into office. There is an incredible amount of
money that goes into that system where you really, practically, either have to be a
millionaire or have to have a whole list of millionaires to even think about running for
so-called public office. So we have a very, very concentrated private source for our
public officials. Which means that it’s basically a farce. We don’t have a true
democracy, we don’t really have a truly representative form of government. We have
elites who showcase themselves as really representing the people but these are very,
very well-connected business people, for the most part, lawyers… the elites whom the
U.S government would target, in a propaganda sense, in other countries. And they are
always public officials when they are running for office. But once they are in and they
are doing their fund-raising, it’s very clear that they are operating in a network that is
very limited and, really, is closed off to the rest of us out here. And I’m referring to the
80% or so of the masses, the 3/4 of us — if not more, maybe 90% - who are really not
involved in the decision-making process of our political economy, of our legislation and
government. Who are really, sort of, left to join a few very limited public interest groups
that have limited power, that are under-funded and whose message is diluted and is
not really disseminated, like a good propaganda campaign, to the rest of country to
really and truly empower people at the grass roots.
Let me ask you this then: do you think that people in other countries are aware of the
farce — as you call it — of American democracy? Of the reality… of the system and
the way that it operates? More so than the majority of the people here? And, secondly,
do you think that there is a cynicism developing outside of our borders… one that has
become so dispassionate that some foreign nationals may even feel a sense of
vindication for what happened on September 11? Because they have seen how our
total sense of political apathy has led to harm being inflicted on their own people, as a
result of U.S. foreign policy?
Well, I think that 9-11, as a point of reference, was, to many Americans — I heard it
often said - it was a loss of our innocence. And I really thought, when I woke up to the
news that day, that it was chickens coming home to roost. It was a wake up call.
And that wake up call is that we need, again, to know how the world understands us,
views us. And I do believe that growing up in countries that are on the receiving end of
American business interests, of American military interests, of American commercial
interests… even led by multi-nationals, which are nevertheless, perhaps, U.S.-based
— there is no question that when you are on the receiving end of that kind of influence,
that you are probably going to have a better understanding of the incredible power that
is concentrated in that country. And you’re probably going to question, ‘how did that
come about?’ And you may, because of your geography, be surrounded by countries
and citizens of those countries who are questioning that, just as you are.
It is a position, again, for many countries in the world who just don’t have the kind of
concentrated power that the United States has, that really forces people to begin to
question that. It’s amazing to me, when you think about the United States… if indeed
we are as we say we are, this superpower, then why is our international coverage so
limited and why are so many of our U.S.-based media nothing but cheerleaders for the
institutions of power — both government and private power — of the United States?
Why are they not — as our ‘perception managers’, which, really, reporters are — why
are they not questioning and critiquing and really holding the government/private power
marriage accountable for its consequences in the world?
Well, they’re not doing that because the U.S. media work in concert, they are the
offspring of this government/private power marriage. And so they act, really, more as
official spokespeople for the ‘official’ sources of their information. Most of the talking
heads on television, the bulk of those people are really representing the interests of the
political establishment in Washington and the financial establishment in New York.
They are not representing, really, the concerns and considerations of the majority of
the American people. And there is nothing conspiratorial about that. That’s the natural
way of doing business. That’s the way that it has always been for the United States.
And when you make the point about hypocrisy… you know, on the one hand, we think
of ourselves as a good country, as a good people. But then on the other hand, many
people in the world are also saying, ‘Yes, but you also do a lot of harm.’
Isn’t that hypocrisy in our foreign policy?
Not really, because the way that the U.S. government views it is that, ‘If our intentions
are good, then if we harm… well, it was all intended to be good because we are a good
people.’ So we have duped ourselves into believing that, if your intentions are good and
the result is otherwise, then the intentions overrule the result.
But the world is looking at the result, though.
The world is looking at the consequences. The world is saying, ‘There’s something
wrong here because your rhetoric is not matching your consequences. And your
consequences are causing a lot of harm. Whether you want to look at Iraqi sanctions,
whether you want to look at our ‘going-it-alone’ approach to international agreements
limiting the proliferation of weapons, if you want to look at the U.S. having a seat at the
table of the United Nations Human Rights Commission, where we are not seemingly
governed by its mandate. The U.S. needs to sit at the world table and listen to the
concerns and charges of other nations.
The United Nations really, again, is part of that family I spoke of earlier — the private
and state marriage, the offspring being the U.S. media and the U.N., perhaps, being a
close cousin there. The United Nations, really, has been so weakened as an
institution. It’s not independent of the U.S. government. Look where it’s located. Look
where its headquarters are located.
True. Too true. So, after all this — let me ask you, what can people do?
Absolutely nothing. It’s hopeless. (laughs)
Right. No, but what tools can people use, deploy or develop intuitively to cut through
the propaganda?
Well, the first thing… I am a major advocate and activist for — not just media reform,
that’s just a sort of feel-good term — I’m really an advocate for the type of work that
you are doing at the Guerrilla News Network. The type that Davey D is doing with his
Hip Hop newsletter. We have got to establish truly independent media that are not
alternative — because when we use the word ‘alternative,’ that’s a marginalization
term, that’s sort of like: ‘There, there, go do your thing but just don’t upset the apple
cart.’ We need to have an entire network of independent media and build a coalition
around this and demand change and call on the elite media to be more accountable.
And we need to not act so grateful when a member of the elite media wants to
interview us. Let’s remind that media that they have a public interest obligation that
involves two parts--to report news fairly and completely and to act as a watchdog for
the public (government) and private (corporate) abuses of power. The corporate media
are less likely to monitor private abuses because they are owned by private
companies. Nevertheless, we can remind these private media that we are here by
increasing our numbers, establishing our independent media websites, listserves. This
so-called monster, enemy of the state, whether it’s Osama bin Laden or these terrorist
cells that we fear… a lot of their power — and it’s often limited in a terrorist
organization, it’s here and there, it’s diffused — has come about through technology
and through the Internet. So, if you want to call that the force of evil… well, the force of
good and the force of change and the force of dissemination of the truth and what is
really going on, we can use the Internet for that. I'm for positive social change using
the Internet as a tool. It's like the old saying, "here's to the success of our hopeless
endeavor." But we also really have to try to preserve it and sites like yours, Media
Channel, Alternet, and Commondreams are excellent examples of the independent
power of the press. The major corporate mega media, it’s already going so commercial
and becoming dominated by advertising. It’s America Online/Time Warner/CNN. It’s
almost out of reach.
But I don’t want to sound like I am giving up because to your last breath you have to
fight and agitate and do it for your own sense of well-being. And a sense of wanting to
make change in the world.
We need a propaganda campaign of our own…
Yes. And I would also remind people that with any good propaganda campaign - for
good or for ill — you don’t reach everyone. You only need a critical mass of people.
People who are going to really work over the long term to make positive change, to
promote critical thinking.
At times that means stepping outside of an institution when your principles are
compromised. At other times, it means building bridges to elite media, to work with
them. Because there are journalists within these institutions who are sympathetic to
and just as concerned as we are about the conglomerization of the media. The
dumbing down of the media. The hyper-capitalism. The over-commercialization. The
latest on Britney Spears that is completely trivial and fluff…
Because we want to get back to the substance of our being.
There are people there that we can reach out to. It’s not useful, it’s not practical to
say, ‘Hate the media, F*** CNN, we don’t need them. You have to engage. But you
can do it in such a way that you make your point very clear and you say:
"I am an activist, I care about this and I am calling on you to be more accountable."
And they will listen to you but we do need a critical mass of people to do that. And to
do our bidding in various parts… both here, and in the rest of the world.
Beautiful Nancy. Thank you. I have one final question which relates to a report I saw
on CNN in which they featured Hafez al Mirazi, Washington Bureau Chief for the Al
Jazeera Arab-language satellite television channel. The reason I bring this up is that,
in the report they also mentioned that he had worked for Voice of America for some
years before joining Al Jazeera. What do you make of that?
I know that the New York Times reported that Hafez al Mirazi "honed his interviewing
skills" at VoA where he worked for 13 years as a producer, correspondent and
interpreter. He interviewed Colin Powell just six days after the September 11 attacks
and days before Powell gave interviews to many leading U.S. publications. Mr. Mirazi
even interviewed Governor George W. Bush in 1988 during his father's presidential
campaign. Al Jazeera, despite the criticism from the U.S. Government that it is at
times anti-West and anti-U.S., is known as the Arab World's CNN. The network's staff
consists of many BBC alumni and its presence is worldwide with over 35 bureaus.
What do I make of the VoA/BBC/Al Jazeera connection? The following:
Why does the U.S. need to rely on a VoA when commercial television stations like
CNN and now Al Jazeera can do such a good job of promoting the administration
position, but without the government subsidies? This connection lies at the heart
of propaganda in the 21st Century. The rise of the corporate persuader - in the form of
global media conglomerates - should not suggest to us that propaganda on an
international or national scale is diminishing. In fact, it seems to be just shifting public
attention. Here you've got the U.S. administration telling Al Jazeera to "tone down" its
coverage and not give so much coverage to anti-American oratory or U.S.-style
freewheeling phone-in shows. Think about it. If you wanted to use a network like Al
Jazeera as a propaganda weapon, then the U.S. official position must continue to be
that Al Jazeera is acting apart and truly independent of any global media influence, a
media influence that is U.S.-led and U.S.-dominated. Al Jazeera's independence was
put in question when it raised the ire of other U.S. broadcasting networks following an
exclusive arrangement with CNN to air the videotape of Osama Bin Laden after the
October 7 attacks on Afghanistan. What I'm suggesting is that commercial media are
taking the place of government-sponsored media in propaganda wars of the
21st Century.
Nice. Thanks.
Oh, you’re welcome. But don’t you want to hear my favorite quote from the book?
Oh yeah, definitely.
OK. Here — actually there are three but they really bring home the point. (reads)
As Senator William J. Fulbright writes in his 1966 book, The Arrogance of Power,
"Intolerance of dissent is a well-noted feature of the American national character." His
words are echoed by the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville who wrote in Democracy in
America: "I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and
real freedom of discussion as in America." My point here is that guess what, you can
be a patriot and a dissenter, a patriot and a free thinker. They are not
mutually-exclusive.
And then this comes a little later:
In his book, The Phantom Public, Lippman said that "the public must be put in its
place, so that it may exercise its own powers, but no less and perhaps even more, so
that each of us may live free of the trampling and roar of a bewildered herd. Only the
insider can make decisions, not because he is inherently a better man but because he
is so placed that he can understand and can act. The outsider is necessarily ignorant,
usually irrelevant, and often meddlesome."
So… there you have it. Let's have hope for the bewildered herd in all of us.
Yes. Let's have hope. Thanks again.
---------------------------------------
Dr. Nancy Snow is the Associate Director Center for Communications and Community
University of California, Los Angeles. Her book, Propaganda Inc., can be ordered at
your local bookstore or bought online through Seven Stories Press, Media Channel,
Common Courage Press or Amazon. Check out her homepage and shoot her an email
regarding this interview and her work.
Transcription provided by Lisa Hsu.
"...weld the American people into one white hot
mass instinct with fraternity, devotion, courage and deathless determination.”
"...the American people require it because they've been conditioned to want a response and you will hear the government, the administration say, "We must be of one mind, we must do something, this will not stand" and it takes our attention away from, "Well, let's look at the underlying causes, the historical precedents that have led to this attack" - that requires a truly free people, a truly critically conscious population which we are not encouraged to be here. "
"...When you hear terms like ‘democracy’, ‘peaceful co-existence’, and ‘diversity’ — these are coded terms for, really, promoting commercial interests and a consumer-driven culture. That should concern us a bit because the more that we are appealed to as consumers, the less we are appealed to as citizens… the less sense of knowledge and understanding we have as citizen agitators. And it’s important, really, to be agitators within a free and open society. "
"The conundrum for us in the United States is that we are socialized to believe that we are truly free, that we are truly democratic. And all I would say is: ‘Well, let’s look at how we actually get elected officials into office..."
"...the way that the U.S. government views it is that, ‘If our intentions are good, then if we harm… well, it was all intended to be good because we are a good people.’ So we have duped ourselves into believing that, if your intentions are good and the result is otherwise, then the intentions overrule the result..."
"The world is looking at the consequences. The world is saying, ‘There’s something wrong here because your rhetoric is not matching your consequences. And your consequences are causing a lot of harm..."
"...We have got to establish truly independent media that are not alternative — because when we use the word ‘alternative,’ that’s a marginalization term, that’s sort of like: ‘There, there, go do your thing but just don’t upset the apple cart.’ We need to have an entire network of independent media and build a coalition around this and demand change and call on the elite media to be more accountable..."
"...building bridges to elite media, to work with them. Because there are journalists within these institutions who are sympathetic to and just as concerned as we are about the conglomerization of the media..."
"You have to engage. But you can do it in such a way that you make your point very clear and you say: "I am an activist, I care about this and I am calling on you to be more accountable."
And they will listen to you but we do need a critical mass of people to do that. And to do our bidding in various parts… both here, and in the rest of the world..."
..."What do I make of the Voice of America/BBC/Al Jazeera connection?..."