Libya: The propaganda war
Listening Post (Al Jazeera)
There are a cacophony of competing narratives coming out of Libya - we take a look at the war of words and images.
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
Linda Greenhouse: The Rhetoric That Shaped The Abortion Debate
Linda Greenhouse: The Rhetoric That Shaped The Abortion Debate
Fresh Air (NPR)
Before the Supreme Court struck down many state laws restricting abortion in the 1973 landmark case Roe v. Wade, the Justices read briefs from both abortion-rights supporters and opponents.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Linda Greenhouse has collected the best of these briefs — as well as important documents leading up to the decision — in a new book, Before Roe v. Wade: Voices that Shaped the Abortion Debate Before the Supreme Court's Ruling.
In an interview on Fresh Air, Greenhouse explains the arguments in favor of decriminalizing abortion — and the rhetoric used by both sides of the debate that continues to resonate more than 35 years after Roe.
After researching the book, Greenhouse says, she came away with a more nuanced understanding of how the abortion debate has affected so many other issues.
"What the research did indicate to me is how multifaceted the issue is and how the word [abortion] came over time to stand for so much more than the termination of a pregnancy," she says. "It really came to stand for a debate about the place of women in the world."
To Read More and To Listen to the Interview
Fresh Air (NPR)
Before the Supreme Court struck down many state laws restricting abortion in the 1973 landmark case Roe v. Wade, the Justices read briefs from both abortion-rights supporters and opponents.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Linda Greenhouse has collected the best of these briefs — as well as important documents leading up to the decision — in a new book, Before Roe v. Wade: Voices that Shaped the Abortion Debate Before the Supreme Court's Ruling.
In an interview on Fresh Air, Greenhouse explains the arguments in favor of decriminalizing abortion — and the rhetoric used by both sides of the debate that continues to resonate more than 35 years after Roe.
After researching the book, Greenhouse says, she came away with a more nuanced understanding of how the abortion debate has affected so many other issues.
"What the research did indicate to me is how multifaceted the issue is and how the word [abortion] came over time to stand for so much more than the termination of a pregnancy," she says. "It really came to stand for a debate about the place of women in the world."
To Read More and To Listen to the Interview
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Democracy Now Reports on the Egyptian Revolution: February 9th/10th
Democracy Now
February 10th
Striking Egyptian Workers Fuel the Uprising After 10 Years of Labor Organizing
Egypt’s pro-democracy uprising is surging after striking workers joined in the protests nationwide. Thousands of Egyptian workers walked off the job Wednesday demanding better wages and benefits. Strikes were reported in Cairo, Alexandria, Luxor and the Suez Canal. We speak to Stanford University Professor Joel Beinin, who, as the former director of Middle East Studies at the American University in Cairo, has closely studied the Egyptian labor movement for years. “This is huge, because there has been for the last 10 years an enormous wave of labor protests in Egypt,” Beinin says. “In the last few days what you’ve seen is tens of thousands of workers linking their economic demands to the political demand that the Mubarak regime step aside.”
Defying Regime Threats, Thousands of Workers Join Protesters in Tahrir Square
February 9th
After Record-Level Turnout in Tahrir, Egyptian Protests Spread to Parliament, Cabinet Buildings; Labor Unions Launch Strikes Nationwide
Egypt’s pro-democracy uprising is seizing new momentum one day after hundreds of thousands turned out for one of the largest protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square to date. A gathering of protesters led to the evacuation of the Egyptian cabinet building today, and tent camps are also being set up outside the Egyptian parliament. Egypt’s labor movement has launched new strikes across the country, with an estimated 10,000 workers taking part. Democracy Now! senior producer Sharif Abdel Kouddous interviews a demonstrator outside the Egyptian parliament building.
“We Are Writing History by Our Blood”: Egyptian Physician on Why Protests Won’t End Until Mubarak Resigns
Democracy Now! senior producer Sharif Abdel Kouddous speaks to Egyptian physician Dr. Ali El Mashad in Cairo’s Tahrir Square over the weekend. Dr. Mashad describes being injured in the streets and bleeding from the head. “We are writing history by our blood,” he says. Mashad says he will not stop demonstrating until Mubarak leaves office.
Human Rights Watch: 300 Deaths, Massive Detentions and Abuse under Mubarak Regime Crackdown
Human Rights Watch is reporting that at least 302 people have died in Egypt since pro-Mubarak forces launched a violent response to the popular uprising last month. The group says at least 232 people have died in Cairo, 52 in Alexandria, and 18 in Suez, but warns the actual death toll could be far higher. We speak with Human Rights Watch researcher Heba Morayef, who has been monitoring the situation on the ground since the protests began.
“People Are Taking Care of Each Other”: Democracy Now!’s Anjali Kamat Camps with Protesters Overnight in Tahrir Square
Democracy Now! correspondent Anjali Kamat reports on the festive atmosphere in Tahrir Square last night following a record-level turnout of protesters: “People are really taking care of each other very well, giving each other food, water and blankets. It was a very moving experience,” Kamat says.
“The Great Tragedy is Obama Chose Not to Hold Out His Hand”: Robert Fisk on the Gap Between U.S. Rhetoric and Action in the Egyptian Uprising
The longtime Middle East correspondent of The Independent newspaper in London joins us from Cairo to talk about the popular uprising ongoing across Egypt, its regional implications, and how Obama should respond. “[The protesters] are asking for nothing less than Americans accept in their own lives,” Fisk says.
February 10th
Striking Egyptian Workers Fuel the Uprising After 10 Years of Labor Organizing
Egypt’s pro-democracy uprising is surging after striking workers joined in the protests nationwide. Thousands of Egyptian workers walked off the job Wednesday demanding better wages and benefits. Strikes were reported in Cairo, Alexandria, Luxor and the Suez Canal. We speak to Stanford University Professor Joel Beinin, who, as the former director of Middle East Studies at the American University in Cairo, has closely studied the Egyptian labor movement for years. “This is huge, because there has been for the last 10 years an enormous wave of labor protests in Egypt,” Beinin says. “In the last few days what you’ve seen is tens of thousands of workers linking their economic demands to the political demand that the Mubarak regime step aside.”
Defying Regime Threats, Thousands of Workers Join Protesters in Tahrir Square
February 9th
After Record-Level Turnout in Tahrir, Egyptian Protests Spread to Parliament, Cabinet Buildings; Labor Unions Launch Strikes Nationwide
Egypt’s pro-democracy uprising is seizing new momentum one day after hundreds of thousands turned out for one of the largest protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square to date. A gathering of protesters led to the evacuation of the Egyptian cabinet building today, and tent camps are also being set up outside the Egyptian parliament. Egypt’s labor movement has launched new strikes across the country, with an estimated 10,000 workers taking part. Democracy Now! senior producer Sharif Abdel Kouddous interviews a demonstrator outside the Egyptian parliament building.
“We Are Writing History by Our Blood”: Egyptian Physician on Why Protests Won’t End Until Mubarak Resigns
Democracy Now! senior producer Sharif Abdel Kouddous speaks to Egyptian physician Dr. Ali El Mashad in Cairo’s Tahrir Square over the weekend. Dr. Mashad describes being injured in the streets and bleeding from the head. “We are writing history by our blood,” he says. Mashad says he will not stop demonstrating until Mubarak leaves office.
Human Rights Watch: 300 Deaths, Massive Detentions and Abuse under Mubarak Regime Crackdown
Human Rights Watch is reporting that at least 302 people have died in Egypt since pro-Mubarak forces launched a violent response to the popular uprising last month. The group says at least 232 people have died in Cairo, 52 in Alexandria, and 18 in Suez, but warns the actual death toll could be far higher. We speak with Human Rights Watch researcher Heba Morayef, who has been monitoring the situation on the ground since the protests began.
“People Are Taking Care of Each Other”: Democracy Now!’s Anjali Kamat Camps with Protesters Overnight in Tahrir Square
Democracy Now! correspondent Anjali Kamat reports on the festive atmosphere in Tahrir Square last night following a record-level turnout of protesters: “People are really taking care of each other very well, giving each other food, water and blankets. It was a very moving experience,” Kamat says.
“The Great Tragedy is Obama Chose Not to Hold Out His Hand”: Robert Fisk on the Gap Between U.S. Rhetoric and Action in the Egyptian Uprising
The longtime Middle East correspondent of The Independent newspaper in London joins us from Cairo to talk about the popular uprising ongoing across Egypt, its regional implications, and how Obama should respond. “[The protesters] are asking for nothing less than Americans accept in their own lives,” Fisk says.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
David Dayen: Right Wing Hopping Mad Over Culture of Violence They Have Wrought
Right Wing Hopping Mad Over Culture of Violence They Have Wrought
By: David Dayen
Firedoglake
Right now, the public isn’t ready to believe an argument that Jared Loughner was motivated by right-wing rhetoric. Fortunately, nobody has said that, because it’s the wrong claim to make. Nobody has claimed that crosshairs on a map or talk of “Second Amendment remedies” is specifically to blame (some on the right have blamed heavy metal music and a skull in his backyard, and that’s just as silly). The main claim is that the toxic stew of noxious rhetoric, particularly in Loughner’s home district and home state of Arizona, creates an environment that amps up a lunatic fringe. Loughner couldn’t help but trip over that, and indeed his writings do have a cockeyed resonance to some of the really far-right groups like Posse Comitatus and the Patriot movement. That doesn’t make those practitioners of angry rhetoric culpable, but it sure doesn’t mean what they’re doing helped, either.
But even if you throw all of that away – and mind you, I think Loughner bears more resemblance to a Dylan Klebold, Eric Harris and Cho Seung-Hui than anyone else – I don’t think that the trend on the right is particularly deniable. Consider that, in the wake of the shooting, the feds arrested someone threatening Sen. Michael Bennet, Rep. Danny Davis received an email over the weekend saying he was next, and a leader of the Minutemen responded to the Tucson shooting by writing “Too bad Traitor Raul Grijalva wasn’t with her! He won’t be missed!” All three of these politicians are Democrats.
When Clarence Dupnik gained national attention by spotlighting the role of violent rhetoric (“We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry”… “pretty soon we’re not going to be able to find reasonable, decent people willing to subject themselves to serve in public office”), he didn’t actually mention any political party or movement in his statement. The fact that conservatives moved swiftly to marginalize and demonize him and his words, that was a tell. They didn’t like what Dupnik said because they’re afraid people would get the idea that he’s right. And right-wing talk radio hosts, for whom bile and anger is the coin of the realm, they felt the need to rebut Dupnik right away:
This sounds like one of those polls on the Ed Schultz show that miraculously gets 98% of the vote. Of course the radio hosts and call-in guests agreed. They’d have to reassess themselves and their career choices if they didn’t.
To Read the Rest of the Commentary
By: David Dayen
Firedoglake
Right now, the public isn’t ready to believe an argument that Jared Loughner was motivated by right-wing rhetoric. Fortunately, nobody has said that, because it’s the wrong claim to make. Nobody has claimed that crosshairs on a map or talk of “Second Amendment remedies” is specifically to blame (some on the right have blamed heavy metal music and a skull in his backyard, and that’s just as silly). The main claim is that the toxic stew of noxious rhetoric, particularly in Loughner’s home district and home state of Arizona, creates an environment that amps up a lunatic fringe. Loughner couldn’t help but trip over that, and indeed his writings do have a cockeyed resonance to some of the really far-right groups like Posse Comitatus and the Patriot movement. That doesn’t make those practitioners of angry rhetoric culpable, but it sure doesn’t mean what they’re doing helped, either.
But even if you throw all of that away – and mind you, I think Loughner bears more resemblance to a Dylan Klebold, Eric Harris and Cho Seung-Hui than anyone else – I don’t think that the trend on the right is particularly deniable. Consider that, in the wake of the shooting, the feds arrested someone threatening Sen. Michael Bennet, Rep. Danny Davis received an email over the weekend saying he was next, and a leader of the Minutemen responded to the Tucson shooting by writing “Too bad Traitor Raul Grijalva wasn’t with her! He won’t be missed!” All three of these politicians are Democrats.
When Clarence Dupnik gained national attention by spotlighting the role of violent rhetoric (“We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry”… “pretty soon we’re not going to be able to find reasonable, decent people willing to subject themselves to serve in public office”), he didn’t actually mention any political party or movement in his statement. The fact that conservatives moved swiftly to marginalize and demonize him and his words, that was a tell. They didn’t like what Dupnik said because they’re afraid people would get the idea that he’s right. And right-wing talk radio hosts, for whom bile and anger is the coin of the realm, they felt the need to rebut Dupnik right away:
Phone calls poured in to stations across the dial to denounce Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik of Pima County, who said at a news conference over the weekend that Arizona had become “the mecca for prejudice and bigotry” and that local TV and radio hosts should do some “soul-searching.”
The radio hosts struck a defensive, even embattled tone at times on Monday. They said Saturday’s shooting had nothing to do with either their broadcasts or the state’s tense political environment; they read e-mails over the air that were critical of their political stances, and some spoke about death threats they had received.
All agreed that Sheriff Dupnik had embarrassed Arizona and unfairly denigrated talk radio by linking it with the shooting.
This sounds like one of those polls on the Ed Schultz show that miraculously gets 98% of the vote. Of course the radio hosts and call-in guests agreed. They’d have to reassess themselves and their career choices if they didn’t.
To Read the Rest of the Commentary
Friday, April 30, 2010
Matthew C. Nisbet: Climate Change & Human Health
Earth Day's Untold Story: Climate Change & Human Health
by Matthew C. Nisbet
Framing Science
A Federal inter-agency report released today reviews eleven key categories of diseases and other health consequences that are occurring or will occur due to climate change. The report, A Human Health Perspective on Climate Change, provides a starting point for coordination of federal research to better understand climate's impact on human health. The recommendations of the working group include research to identify who will be most vulnerable, and what efforts will be most beneficial.
Not only does this report call attention to objectively serious risks of climate change, but on Earth Day, it also represents an important re-framing of climate change away from being defined as an environmental problem to one that extends to human health. As I noted last year at the journal Environment, reframing climate change as a public health problem potentially makes the complex issue more personally relevant by drawing connections to already familiar problems such as asthma, allergies, and infectious disease, while shifting the visualization of the issue away from remote arctic regions, peoples, and animals to more socially proximate neighbors and places such as suburbs and cities. In the process, the new focus is inclusive of the need for not just mitigation but also adaptation actions, while also bringing additional trusted communication partners into the fold on climate change, notably public health officials and leaders from minority and low-income communities who are the most at risk and the most vulnerable.
To Read the Rest of the Report and Access More Resources
by Matthew C. Nisbet
Framing Science
A Federal inter-agency report released today reviews eleven key categories of diseases and other health consequences that are occurring or will occur due to climate change. The report, A Human Health Perspective on Climate Change, provides a starting point for coordination of federal research to better understand climate's impact on human health. The recommendations of the working group include research to identify who will be most vulnerable, and what efforts will be most beneficial.
Not only does this report call attention to objectively serious risks of climate change, but on Earth Day, it also represents an important re-framing of climate change away from being defined as an environmental problem to one that extends to human health. As I noted last year at the journal Environment, reframing climate change as a public health problem potentially makes the complex issue more personally relevant by drawing connections to already familiar problems such as asthma, allergies, and infectious disease, while shifting the visualization of the issue away from remote arctic regions, peoples, and animals to more socially proximate neighbors and places such as suburbs and cities. In the process, the new focus is inclusive of the need for not just mitigation but also adaptation actions, while also bringing additional trusted communication partners into the fold on climate change, notably public health officials and leaders from minority and low-income communities who are the most at risk and the most vulnerable.
To Read the Rest of the Report and Access More Resources
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Matt Taibi: Flat N All That -- Thomas Friedman’s greenish ways
(Matt Taibi won the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies award for best rant with this devastating takedown of New York Time's columnist Thomas Friedman's hypocritical turn to environmentalism, absurd writing style and just plain idiotic statements.)
Flat N All That: Thomas Friedman’s greenish ways.
By Matt Taibbi
New York Press
When some time ago a friend of mine told me that Thomas Friedman’s new book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, was going to be a kind of environmentalist clarion call against American consumerism, I almost died laughing.
Beautiful, I thought. Just when you begin to lose faith in America’s ability to fall for absolutely anything—just when you begin to think we Americans as a race might finally outgrow the lovable credulousness that leads us to fork over our credit card numbers to every half-baked TV pitchman hawking a magic dick-enlarging pill, or a way to make millions on the Internet while sitting at home and pounding doughnuts— along comes Thomas Friedman, porn-stached resident of a positively obscene 114,000 11,400 square foot suburban Maryland mega-monstro-mansion and husband to the heir of one of the largest shopping-mall chains in the world, reinventing himself as an oracle of anti-consumerist conservationism.
Where does a man who needs his own offshore drilling platform just to keep the east wing of his house heated get the balls to write a book chiding America for driving energy inefficient automobiles? Where does a guy whose family bulldozed 2.1 million square feet of pristine Hawaiian wilderness to put a Gap, an Old Navy, a Sears, an Abercrombie and even a motherfucking Foot Locker in paradise get off preaching to the rest of us about the need for a “Green Revolution”? Well, he’ll explain it all to you in 438 crisply written pages for just $27.95, $30.95 if you have the misfortune to be Canadian.
I’ve been unhealthily obsessed with Thomas Friedman for more than a decade now. For most of that time, I just thought he was funny. And admittedly, what I thought was funniest about him was the kind of stuff that only another writer would really care about—in particular his tortured use of the English language. Like George W. Bush with his Bushisms, Friedman came up with lines so hilarious you couldn’t make them up even if you were trying—and when you tried to actually picture the “illustrative” figures of speech he offered to explain himself, what you often ended up with was pure physical comedy of the Buster Keaton/Three Stooges school, with whole nations and peoples slipping and falling on the misplaced banana peels of his literary endeavors.
Remember Friedman’s take on Bush’s Iraq policy? “It’s OK to throw out your steering wheel,” he wrote, “as long as you remember you’re driving without one.” Picture that for a minute. Or how about Friedman’s analysis of America’s foreign policy outlook last May:
First of all, how can any single person be in three holes at once? Secondly, what the fuck is he talking about? If you’re supposed to stop digging when you’re in one hole, why should you dig more in three? How does that even begin to make sense? It’s stuff like this that makes me wonder if the editors over at the New York Times editorial page spend their afternoons dropping acid or drinking rubbing alcohol. Sending a line like that into print is the journalism equivalent of a security guard at a nuke plant waving a pair of mullahs in explosive vests through the front gate. It should never, ever happen.
To Read the Rest of the Essay
Flat N All That: Thomas Friedman’s greenish ways.
By Matt Taibbi
New York Press
When some time ago a friend of mine told me that Thomas Friedman’s new book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, was going to be a kind of environmentalist clarion call against American consumerism, I almost died laughing.
Beautiful, I thought. Just when you begin to lose faith in America’s ability to fall for absolutely anything—just when you begin to think we Americans as a race might finally outgrow the lovable credulousness that leads us to fork over our credit card numbers to every half-baked TV pitchman hawking a magic dick-enlarging pill, or a way to make millions on the Internet while sitting at home and pounding doughnuts— along comes Thomas Friedman, porn-stached resident of a positively obscene 114,000 11,400 square foot suburban Maryland mega-monstro-mansion and husband to the heir of one of the largest shopping-mall chains in the world, reinventing himself as an oracle of anti-consumerist conservationism.
Where does a man who needs his own offshore drilling platform just to keep the east wing of his house heated get the balls to write a book chiding America for driving energy inefficient automobiles? Where does a guy whose family bulldozed 2.1 million square feet of pristine Hawaiian wilderness to put a Gap, an Old Navy, a Sears, an Abercrombie and even a motherfucking Foot Locker in paradise get off preaching to the rest of us about the need for a “Green Revolution”? Well, he’ll explain it all to you in 438 crisply written pages for just $27.95, $30.95 if you have the misfortune to be Canadian.
I’ve been unhealthily obsessed with Thomas Friedman for more than a decade now. For most of that time, I just thought he was funny. And admittedly, what I thought was funniest about him was the kind of stuff that only another writer would really care about—in particular his tortured use of the English language. Like George W. Bush with his Bushisms, Friedman came up with lines so hilarious you couldn’t make them up even if you were trying—and when you tried to actually picture the “illustrative” figures of speech he offered to explain himself, what you often ended up with was pure physical comedy of the Buster Keaton/Three Stooges school, with whole nations and peoples slipping and falling on the misplaced banana peels of his literary endeavors.
Remember Friedman’s take on Bush’s Iraq policy? “It’s OK to throw out your steering wheel,” he wrote, “as long as you remember you’re driving without one.” Picture that for a minute. Or how about Friedman’s analysis of America’s foreign policy outlook last May:
The first rule of holes is when you’re in one, stop digging.When you’re in three, bring a lot of shovels.
First of all, how can any single person be in three holes at once? Secondly, what the fuck is he talking about? If you’re supposed to stop digging when you’re in one hole, why should you dig more in three? How does that even begin to make sense? It’s stuff like this that makes me wonder if the editors over at the New York Times editorial page spend their afternoons dropping acid or drinking rubbing alcohol. Sending a line like that into print is the journalism equivalent of a security guard at a nuke plant waving a pair of mullahs in explosive vests through the front gate. It should never, ever happen.
To Read the Rest of the Essay
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Noam Chomsky: Propaganda in a Democracy; The Threat of the Public Beast; Welfare State for the Rich; National Interest vs Special Interests
It’s not the case, as the naïve might think, that indoctrination is inconsistent with democracy. … The point is that in a military State or a feudal State or what we would nowadays call a totalitarian State, it doesn’t much matter what people think because you’ve got a bludgeon over their head and you can control what they do. But when the state loses the bludgeon, when you can’t control people by force and when the voice of the people can be heard, you have this problem. It may make people so curious and so arrogant that they don’t have the humility to submit to a civil rule and therefore you have to control what people think. And the standard way to do this is to resort to what in more honest days used to be called propaganda. Manufacture of consent. Creation of necessary illusions. Various ways of either marginalizing the general public or reducing them to apathy in some fashion.
(Speech at American University quoted in) Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media. ed. Mark Achbar. Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1994: 43.
In the presidential address to the American Political Science Association in 1934, William Shepard argued that government should be in the hands of "an aristocracy of intellect and power," while the "ignorant, the uninformed and the anti-social elements" must not be permitted to control elections, as he mistakenly believed they had done in the past. One of the founders of modern political science, Harold Lasswell, one of the founders of the field of communications, in fact, wrote in the Encyclopedia of Social Sciences in 1933 or 1934 that modern techniques of propaganda, which had been impressively refined by Wilsonian liberals, provided the way to keep the public in line. Lasswell described Wilson as "the great generalissimo on the propaganda front." Wilson's World War I achievements in propaganda impressed others, including Adolph Hitler. You can read about it in Mein Kampf. But crucially they impressed the American business community. That led to a huge expansion of the public relations industry which was dedicated to controlling the public mind, as advocates used to put it in more honest days, just as writing in the Encyclopedia of Social Sciences in 1934, Laswell described what he was talking about as propaganda. We don't use that term. We're more sophisticated. As a political scientist, Laswell advocated more sophisticated use of this new technique of control of the general public ... [to] enable the intelligent men of the community, the natural rulers, to overcome the threat of the great beast who may undermine order because of, in Laswell's terms, the ignorance and superstition of the masses. We should not submit to "democratic dogmatisms about men being the best judges of their own interests." The best judges are the elites, who must be ensured the means to impose their will for the common good.
---. "Democracy and Education." Mellon Lectures given at Loyola University, 1994.
So the Reaganite statist reactionaries thought that the public, the beast, shouldn't even have the spectator role. That explains their fascination with clandestine terror operations, which were not secret to anybody except the American public, certainly not to their victims. Clandestine terror operations were designed to leave the domestic population ignorant. They also advocated absolutely unprecedented measures of censorship and and agitprop and other measures to ensure that the powerful and interventionist state that they fostered would serve as a welfare state for the rich and not troubled by the rabble. The huge increase in business propaganda in recent years, the recent assault on the universities by right-wing foundations, and other tendencies of the current period are other manifestations of the same concerns. These concerns [of Reaganite statist reactionaries] were awakened by what liberal elites had called the "crisis of democracy," that developed in the 1960s, when previously marginalized and apathetic sectors of the population, like women and young people and old people and working people and so on, sought to enter the public arena, where they have no right to be, as all right-thinking aristocrats understand.
---. "Democracy and Education." Mellon Lectures given at Loyola University, 1994.
The term "national interest" is commonly used as if it's something good for us, and the people of the country are supposed to understand that. So if a political leader says that "I'm doing this in the national interest," you're supposed to feel good because that's for me. However, if you look closely, it turns out that the national interest is not defined as what's in the interests of small, dominant elites who happen to be able to command the resources that enable them to control the state--basically, corporate-based elites. That's what's called the "national interest." And, correspondingly, the term "special interests" is used in a very interesting related way to refer to the population. The population are called the "special interests" the corporation elite are called the "national interests"; so you're supposed to be in favour of the national interests and against the special interests.
---. Language and Politics. edited by C.P. Otero. Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1988: 662.
(Speech at American University quoted in) Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media. ed. Mark Achbar. Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1994: 43.
In the presidential address to the American Political Science Association in 1934, William Shepard argued that government should be in the hands of "an aristocracy of intellect and power," while the "ignorant, the uninformed and the anti-social elements" must not be permitted to control elections, as he mistakenly believed they had done in the past. One of the founders of modern political science, Harold Lasswell, one of the founders of the field of communications, in fact, wrote in the Encyclopedia of Social Sciences in 1933 or 1934 that modern techniques of propaganda, which had been impressively refined by Wilsonian liberals, provided the way to keep the public in line. Lasswell described Wilson as "the great generalissimo on the propaganda front." Wilson's World War I achievements in propaganda impressed others, including Adolph Hitler. You can read about it in Mein Kampf. But crucially they impressed the American business community. That led to a huge expansion of the public relations industry which was dedicated to controlling the public mind, as advocates used to put it in more honest days, just as writing in the Encyclopedia of Social Sciences in 1934, Laswell described what he was talking about as propaganda. We don't use that term. We're more sophisticated. As a political scientist, Laswell advocated more sophisticated use of this new technique of control of the general public ... [to] enable the intelligent men of the community, the natural rulers, to overcome the threat of the great beast who may undermine order because of, in Laswell's terms, the ignorance and superstition of the masses. We should not submit to "democratic dogmatisms about men being the best judges of their own interests." The best judges are the elites, who must be ensured the means to impose their will for the common good.
---. "Democracy and Education." Mellon Lectures given at Loyola University, 1994.
So the Reaganite statist reactionaries thought that the public, the beast, shouldn't even have the spectator role. That explains their fascination with clandestine terror operations, which were not secret to anybody except the American public, certainly not to their victims. Clandestine terror operations were designed to leave the domestic population ignorant. They also advocated absolutely unprecedented measures of censorship and and agitprop and other measures to ensure that the powerful and interventionist state that they fostered would serve as a welfare state for the rich and not troubled by the rabble. The huge increase in business propaganda in recent years, the recent assault on the universities by right-wing foundations, and other tendencies of the current period are other manifestations of the same concerns. These concerns [of Reaganite statist reactionaries] were awakened by what liberal elites had called the "crisis of democracy," that developed in the 1960s, when previously marginalized and apathetic sectors of the population, like women and young people and old people and working people and so on, sought to enter the public arena, where they have no right to be, as all right-thinking aristocrats understand.
---. "Democracy and Education." Mellon Lectures given at Loyola University, 1994.
The term "national interest" is commonly used as if it's something good for us, and the people of the country are supposed to understand that. So if a political leader says that "I'm doing this in the national interest," you're supposed to feel good because that's for me. However, if you look closely, it turns out that the national interest is not defined as what's in the interests of small, dominant elites who happen to be able to command the resources that enable them to control the state--basically, corporate-based elites. That's what's called the "national interest." And, correspondingly, the term "special interests" is used in a very interesting related way to refer to the population. The population are called the "special interests" the corporation elite are called the "national interests"; so you're supposed to be in favour of the national interests and against the special interests.
---. Language and Politics. edited by C.P. Otero. Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1988: 662.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Mikhail Bakhtin: Speech Genres and Other Late Essays
(Notes)
Bakhtin, Mikhail. Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Trans. V.W. McGee. Austin: U of Texas P, 1986.
{MB—from Introduction by Vern W. McGee ix-xxiii}
In Bakhtin’s thought the place from which we speak plays an important role in determining what we say (x).
Working as always with a specular subject (a self derived from the other), he makes it clear that speakers always shape an utterance not only according to the object of discourse (what they are talking about) and their immediate addressee (whom they are speaking to), but also according to the particular image in which they model the belief they will be understood {MB—Bakhtin understands this image to be a higher power, an abstract concept, a discipline or body of knowledge, a political institution, humanity in general, etc…}, , a belief that is the a priori of all speech. (xviii)
A common theme running throughout is the need to exceed boundaries, while still recognizing that only through awareness of the very real restraints at work in mental and social life can we do so. (xix)
A note of caution is in order here: Bakhtin’s call to liberation is everywhere informed by a stern awareness of necessity’s central place in the biological limits of our perception, the structure of language, and the laws of society. Our very status as the subjects of our own lives depends on the necessary presence of other subjects. Thus, when Bakhtin says “we are suffocating in the captivity of narrow and homogeneous interpretations,” he is not suggesting there is some freedom beyond interpretation. All understanding is constrained by borders: freedom consists in knowing insofar as possible—for our ability to know is controlled by contextual factors larger then mere individual intention—what those borders are, so that they may be substituted by, translated into different borders. Speech genres provide a good example of this relative degree of freedom: the better we know possible variants of the genres that are appropriate to a given situation, the more choice we have among them. Up to a point we may play with speech genres, but we cannot avoid being generic. There is no pure spontaneity, for breaking frames depends on the existence of frames. (xix)
Bakhtin is arguing here that art is only one (if a fundamentally important) sphere of the larger activity of aesthetics, which encompasses as well most other aspects of life as lived by men and women who manifest their humanity by authoring utterances. Just as in the logosphere that is our home there are genres at work in all our speech, not just in art speech, so is there “everyday ritual,” ritual not confined merely to political or religious life (xx). {MB—end of introductory comments}
There exists a very strong, but one-sided and thus untrustworthy, idea that in order better to understand a foreign culture, one must enter into it, forgetting one’s own, and view the world through the eyes of this foreign culture. This idea, as I said, is one-sided. Of course, a certain entry as a living being into a foreign culture, the possibility of seeing through its eyes, is a necessary part of the process of understanding it; but if this were the only aspect of this understanding, it would merely be duplication and would not entail anything new or enriching. Creative understanding does not renounce itself, its own place in time, its own culture; and it forgets nothing. In order to understand, it is immensely important for the person who understands to be located outside the object of his or her creative understanding—in time, in space, in culture. For one cannot even really see one’s own exterior and comprehend it as a whole, and no mirrors or photographs can help; our real exterior can be seen and understood only by other people, because they are located outside us in space and because they are others. (Bakhtin: 6-7)
In the realm of culture, outsideness is a most powerful factor in understanding. It is only in the eyes of another culture that foreign culture reveals itself fully and profoundly (but not maximally fully), because there will be cultures that see and understand even more). A meaning only reveals its depths once it has encountered and come into contact with another, foreign meaning: they engage in a kind of dialogue, which surmounts the closedness and one-sideness of these particular meanings, these cultures. We raise new questions for a foreign culture, ones that it did not raise itself; we seek answers to our own questions in it; and the foreign culture responds to us by revealing to us its new aspects and new semantic depths. Without one’s own questions one cannot creatively understand anything other or foreign (but, of course, the questions must be serious and sincere). Such a dialogic encounter of two cultures does not result in merging or mixing. Each retains its own unity and open totality, but they are mutually enriched. (Bakhtin: 7)
{MB--Dialogical speakers} do not expect passive understanding that, so to speak, only duplicates his own idea in someone else’s mind. Rather, he expects response, agreement, sympathy, objection, execution, and so forth. (69)
Each rejoinder, regardless of how brief and abrupt, has a specific quality of completion that expresses a particular position of the speaker, to which one may respond or may assume, with respect to it, a responsive position. (72) {MB says—Bakhtin reminding us that all “utterances” are socially situated; see Holloway/Kneale 1999, 77}
Understanding is always dialogic to some degree. (Bakhtin, “The Problem of the Text”: 111)
No natural phenomenon has “meaning,” only signs (including words) have meaning. (Bakhtin, 113) {MB—Thus, if Nature has meaning, it is as a sign/symbol we have constructed/recognized, not as nature itself.)
Can languages and dialects (territorial, social jargons), language (functional) styles (say, familiar daily speech and scientific language and so forth), enter into these relationships, that is, can they speak with one another and so forth? Only if a nonlinguistic approach is taken toward them, that is, if they are transformed into a “world view” (or some language or speech sense of the world), into a “viewpoint,” into “social voices,” and so forth. (Bakhtin, “The Problem of the Text”: 119)
With such transformations the language acquires a unique “author,” a speaking subject, a collective bearer of speech (people, nation, occupation, social group, and so forth). (Bakhtin, “The Problem of the Text”: 119)
Bakhtin, Mikhail. Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Trans. V.W. McGee. Austin: U of Texas P, 1986.
{MB—from Introduction by Vern W. McGee ix-xxiii}
In Bakhtin’s thought the place from which we speak plays an important role in determining what we say (x).
Working as always with a specular subject (a self derived from the other), he makes it clear that speakers always shape an utterance not only according to the object of discourse (what they are talking about) and their immediate addressee (whom they are speaking to), but also according to the particular image in which they model the belief they will be understood {MB—Bakhtin understands this image to be a higher power, an abstract concept, a discipline or body of knowledge, a political institution, humanity in general, etc…}, , a belief that is the a priori of all speech. (xviii)
A common theme running throughout is the need to exceed boundaries, while still recognizing that only through awareness of the very real restraints at work in mental and social life can we do so. (xix)
A note of caution is in order here: Bakhtin’s call to liberation is everywhere informed by a stern awareness of necessity’s central place in the biological limits of our perception, the structure of language, and the laws of society. Our very status as the subjects of our own lives depends on the necessary presence of other subjects. Thus, when Bakhtin says “we are suffocating in the captivity of narrow and homogeneous interpretations,” he is not suggesting there is some freedom beyond interpretation. All understanding is constrained by borders: freedom consists in knowing insofar as possible—for our ability to know is controlled by contextual factors larger then mere individual intention—what those borders are, so that they may be substituted by, translated into different borders. Speech genres provide a good example of this relative degree of freedom: the better we know possible variants of the genres that are appropriate to a given situation, the more choice we have among them. Up to a point we may play with speech genres, but we cannot avoid being generic. There is no pure spontaneity, for breaking frames depends on the existence of frames. (xix)
Bakhtin is arguing here that art is only one (if a fundamentally important) sphere of the larger activity of aesthetics, which encompasses as well most other aspects of life as lived by men and women who manifest their humanity by authoring utterances. Just as in the logosphere that is our home there are genres at work in all our speech, not just in art speech, so is there “everyday ritual,” ritual not confined merely to political or religious life (xx). {MB—end of introductory comments}
There exists a very strong, but one-sided and thus untrustworthy, idea that in order better to understand a foreign culture, one must enter into it, forgetting one’s own, and view the world through the eyes of this foreign culture. This idea, as I said, is one-sided. Of course, a certain entry as a living being into a foreign culture, the possibility of seeing through its eyes, is a necessary part of the process of understanding it; but if this were the only aspect of this understanding, it would merely be duplication and would not entail anything new or enriching. Creative understanding does not renounce itself, its own place in time, its own culture; and it forgets nothing. In order to understand, it is immensely important for the person who understands to be located outside the object of his or her creative understanding—in time, in space, in culture. For one cannot even really see one’s own exterior and comprehend it as a whole, and no mirrors or photographs can help; our real exterior can be seen and understood only by other people, because they are located outside us in space and because they are others. (Bakhtin: 6-7)
In the realm of culture, outsideness is a most powerful factor in understanding. It is only in the eyes of another culture that foreign culture reveals itself fully and profoundly (but not maximally fully), because there will be cultures that see and understand even more). A meaning only reveals its depths once it has encountered and come into contact with another, foreign meaning: they engage in a kind of dialogue, which surmounts the closedness and one-sideness of these particular meanings, these cultures. We raise new questions for a foreign culture, ones that it did not raise itself; we seek answers to our own questions in it; and the foreign culture responds to us by revealing to us its new aspects and new semantic depths. Without one’s own questions one cannot creatively understand anything other or foreign (but, of course, the questions must be serious and sincere). Such a dialogic encounter of two cultures does not result in merging or mixing. Each retains its own unity and open totality, but they are mutually enriched. (Bakhtin: 7)
{MB--Dialogical speakers} do not expect passive understanding that, so to speak, only duplicates his own idea in someone else’s mind. Rather, he expects response, agreement, sympathy, objection, execution, and so forth. (69)
Each rejoinder, regardless of how brief and abrupt, has a specific quality of completion that expresses a particular position of the speaker, to which one may respond or may assume, with respect to it, a responsive position. (72) {MB says—Bakhtin reminding us that all “utterances” are socially situated; see Holloway/Kneale 1999, 77}
Understanding is always dialogic to some degree. (Bakhtin, “The Problem of the Text”: 111)
No natural phenomenon has “meaning,” only signs (including words) have meaning. (Bakhtin, 113) {MB—Thus, if Nature has meaning, it is as a sign/symbol we have constructed/recognized, not as nature itself.)
Can languages and dialects (territorial, social jargons), language (functional) styles (say, familiar daily speech and scientific language and so forth), enter into these relationships, that is, can they speak with one another and so forth? Only if a nonlinguistic approach is taken toward them, that is, if they are transformed into a “world view” (or some language or speech sense of the world), into a “viewpoint,” into “social voices,” and so forth. (Bakhtin, “The Problem of the Text”: 119)
With such transformations the language acquires a unique “author,” a speaking subject, a collective bearer of speech (people, nation, occupation, social group, and so forth). (Bakhtin, “The Problem of the Text”: 119)
Framing Reality: Language, Rhetoric, Images, Concepts
(Ongoing archive--comments/suggestions are appreciated)
Carlin, George. Remembering George Carlin (Retrospective archive of the comedian) Dialogic (2008)
Chomsky, Noam. "Propaganda in a Democracy; The Threat of the Public Beast; Welfare State for the Rich; National Interest vs Special Interests." (Notes posted on Dialogic: November 29, 2009)
---. The Noam Chomsky Website. [Analysis of political propaganda, media framing and contested histories.]
---. "On the Basic Role of (Non-Participatory) Sports." Excerpts from and commentary by Barsky, Robert F. The Chomsky Effect a Radical Works Beyond the Ivory Tower. (The MIT Press, 2009)
Christina, Greta. "101 Positions That Won't Spice Your Life Up." Blowfish (November 5, 2009)
---. Atheists and Anger. (October 15, 2007)
College Weekend Workshop. The College Casualty. Posted on Dialogic (November 21, 2009)
Dawkins, Richard. The Greatest Show On Earth. FORA TV (October 7, 2009)
Deluze, Gilles and Felix Guattari. Excerpts from Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia.. trans. Robert Hurley, et al. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1983.
Dick, Philip K. "If You Can Control the Meaning of Words, You Can Control the People Who Use the Words." How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later (1978: posted on Dialogic January 8, 2009)
Gans, Herbert J. "Violence and Poverty: Images and Realities of the 'Underclass'." 21st-C 1.2 (1995)
Goldberg, Michelle. "New Book Examines Christian Nationalism." Fresh Air. (NPR: May 11, 2006)
Greenwald, Robert. Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism (Documentary: 2004; revised edtion 2008) [This documentary is available in our library and also online]
Hedges, Chris. "The Truth Alone Will Not Set You Free." Truthdig (June 29, 2009)
Historical Figures/Events/Groups (Archive)
Johnson, Chalmers. "Our Managed Democracy." TruthDig (May 8, 2008)
Kuhn, Gabriel. "Statement on the Controversy at the Anarchist Congress in Berlin." Alpine Anarchist (2009)
Lakoff, George. "Framing 101: How to Take Back Public Discourse." AlterNet (September 8, 2004)
---. "The Republican Nights: Frame by Frame, Word for Word." Media Channel (2004)
Klein, Naomi. Shock Doctrine—The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. (Metropolitan Books, 2007)
---. Lecture on Shock Doctrine—The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. (Video: 2008)
The Language of the War on Terror, Pt. 3 (Archive posted on Dialogic: June 29, 2004)
Lemke, J.J. "Violence and Language: The Signs that Hurt". 21st-C 1.2 (1995)
May, Jon. Excerpt of “The View From the Streets: Geographies of Homelessness in the British Newspaper Press.” Cultural Geography in Practice. Ed. Alison Blunt, et al. Oxford UP, 2003: 23-36.
Media Czech. "Fun at the Creation Museum." Dialogic (May 14, 2008)
Montenegro, Maywa. "Is There a Better Word for Doom?: Six experts discuss the merits of framing climate change, the language that troubles them, and the inherent bias of any chosen word." Seed (May 21, 2009)
Nielsen, Greg M. "Framing Dialogue on Immigration in The New York Times." Aether: The Journal of Media Geography (Spring 2009)
Nisbet, Matthew. "Earth Day's Untold Story: Climate Change and Human Health." Framing Science (April 22, 2010)
---. "Food Inc: Will It Connect the Dots on Food System Problems? Framing Science (June 16, 2009)
---. "Framing and Science Debates." Framing Science (2007)
---. Framing Science. (Weblog: 2006 - Present).
---. "What is Framing?" Framing Science (2007)
"Persuasion Analysis." HUM 120: Introduction to Cultural Studies (Compiled by Michael Benton: April 13, 2009)
Pope, Rob. Excerpt from: "Communication." English Studies Book: An Introduction to Language, Literature, and Culture. 2nd ed. Routledge, 2002: 66-68.
Project Censored (Sonoma State University)
Proust, Marcel. "Art, Perspective and Reality." Dialogic (July 23, 2009)
Revkin, Andrew C. "A Climate (Communication) Crisis?" The New York Times (June 15, 2009)
Rosen, Jay, James Der Derian and Christopher Lydon. "The News About the News." Open Source (March 28, 2008)
Ross, Stephen S. "'Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics': The Seven Deadly Sins." 21st-C 3.3 (Fall 1998)
Shepard, Alicia. "Torturous Wording." On the Media (June 26, 2009)
Tallim, Jane. "Photographic Truth in the Digital Era." Media Awareness Network (2009)
Talvi, Silja J.A. "Race: Time to Give Up on the Four-Letter Word." LiP Magazine (September 4, 2001)
The Union: The Business Behind Getting High (Canada: Brett Harvey, 2007)
Virilio, Paul. "Weapons are tools not just of destruction but also of perception..." quote from War and Cinema (Posted on Dialogic: February 13, 2006)
We Want Everything. "Communiqué from an Absent Future." (September 24, 2009)
Wolin, Sheldon. "Myth in the Making." Democracy Incorporated. Princeton University Press, 2008: 4-16.
Wood, Elizabeth and Kiersten F. Latham. "Object Knowledge:Researching Objects in the Museum Experience." Reconstruction 9.1 (2009)
Wright, Dean. "Watching our language: Writing about the financial crisis." Full Disclosure (March 16, 2009)
Zappa, Frank. "On Censorship." Crossfire (CNN: 1986)
---. "Statement to Congress." From the HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION, UNITED STATES SENATE, NINETY-NINTH CONGRESS: FIRST SESSION ON CONTENTS OF MUSIC AND THE LYRICS OF RECORDS (September 19, 1985)
Zinn, Howard. The People's History of the United States. (Harper Perennial Modern Classics: 2005)
---. "War and Social Justice." Democracy Now (Text/Audio/Video: January 2, 2009)
Žižek, Slavoj. Excerpt from: “The Spectre of Ideology.” The Žižek Reader. ed. Elizabeth Wright and Edmond Wright. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1999: 65.
Ruth Shagoury Hubbard: The Truth About Helen Keller (selective framing of historical figures)
Thinking About Culture, Nationalism, War, Empire, Rhetoric and Media (archive)
Myths and Falsehoods About Oil Prices (Economic Framing)
David Brin: "Star Wars" despots vs. "Star Trek" populists (narrative framing)
Philip K. Dick: "If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who use the words" (Science Fiction Author Reflecting on the Framing of Reality)
Cormac Deane: The Embedded Screen and the State of Exception--Counterterrorist Narratives and the War on Terror (Framing in Entertainment Media)
Noam Chomsky and Robert Trivers: On Deceit , Groupthink, Maintaining Credibility, and Denial (Linguistics/Political Science/Evolutionary Biology)
Brent Cunningham: Rethinking Objective Journalism (Columbia Journalism Review)
Carlin, George. Remembering George Carlin (Retrospective archive of the comedian) Dialogic (2008)
Chomsky, Noam. "Propaganda in a Democracy; The Threat of the Public Beast; Welfare State for the Rich; National Interest vs Special Interests." (Notes posted on Dialogic: November 29, 2009)
---. The Noam Chomsky Website. [Analysis of political propaganda, media framing and contested histories.]
---. "On the Basic Role of (Non-Participatory) Sports." Excerpts from and commentary by Barsky, Robert F. The Chomsky Effect a Radical Works Beyond the Ivory Tower. (The MIT Press, 2009)
Christina, Greta. "101 Positions That Won't Spice Your Life Up." Blowfish (November 5, 2009)
---. Atheists and Anger. (October 15, 2007)
College Weekend Workshop. The College Casualty. Posted on Dialogic (November 21, 2009)
Dawkins, Richard. The Greatest Show On Earth. FORA TV (October 7, 2009)
Deluze, Gilles and Felix Guattari. Excerpts from Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia.. trans. Robert Hurley, et al. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1983.
Dick, Philip K. "If You Can Control the Meaning of Words, You Can Control the People Who Use the Words." How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later (1978: posted on Dialogic January 8, 2009)
Gans, Herbert J. "Violence and Poverty: Images and Realities of the 'Underclass'." 21st-C 1.2 (1995)
Goldberg, Michelle. "New Book Examines Christian Nationalism." Fresh Air. (NPR: May 11, 2006)
Greenwald, Robert. Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism (Documentary: 2004; revised edtion 2008) [This documentary is available in our library and also online]
Hedges, Chris. "The Truth Alone Will Not Set You Free." Truthdig (June 29, 2009)
Historical Figures/Events/Groups (Archive)
Johnson, Chalmers. "Our Managed Democracy." TruthDig (May 8, 2008)
Kuhn, Gabriel. "Statement on the Controversy at the Anarchist Congress in Berlin." Alpine Anarchist (2009)
Lakoff, George. "Framing 101: How to Take Back Public Discourse." AlterNet (September 8, 2004)
---. "The Republican Nights: Frame by Frame, Word for Word." Media Channel (2004)
Klein, Naomi. Shock Doctrine—The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. (Metropolitan Books, 2007)
---. Lecture on Shock Doctrine—The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. (Video: 2008)
The Language of the War on Terror, Pt. 3 (Archive posted on Dialogic: June 29, 2004)
Lemke, J.J. "Violence and Language: The Signs that Hurt". 21st-C 1.2 (1995)
May, Jon. Excerpt of “The View From the Streets: Geographies of Homelessness in the British Newspaper Press.” Cultural Geography in Practice. Ed. Alison Blunt, et al. Oxford UP, 2003: 23-36.
Media Czech. "Fun at the Creation Museum." Dialogic (May 14, 2008)
Montenegro, Maywa. "Is There a Better Word for Doom?: Six experts discuss the merits of framing climate change, the language that troubles them, and the inherent bias of any chosen word." Seed (May 21, 2009)
Nielsen, Greg M. "Framing Dialogue on Immigration in The New York Times." Aether: The Journal of Media Geography (Spring 2009)
Nisbet, Matthew. "Earth Day's Untold Story: Climate Change and Human Health." Framing Science (April 22, 2010)
---. "Food Inc: Will It Connect the Dots on Food System Problems? Framing Science (June 16, 2009)
---. "Framing and Science Debates." Framing Science (2007)
---. Framing Science. (Weblog: 2006 - Present).
---. "What is Framing?" Framing Science (2007)
"Persuasion Analysis." HUM 120: Introduction to Cultural Studies (Compiled by Michael Benton: April 13, 2009)
Pope, Rob. Excerpt from: "Communication." English Studies Book: An Introduction to Language, Literature, and Culture. 2nd ed. Routledge, 2002: 66-68.
Project Censored (Sonoma State University)
Proust, Marcel. "Art, Perspective and Reality." Dialogic (July 23, 2009)
Revkin, Andrew C. "A Climate (Communication) Crisis?" The New York Times (June 15, 2009)
Rosen, Jay, James Der Derian and Christopher Lydon. "The News About the News." Open Source (March 28, 2008)
Ross, Stephen S. "'Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics': The Seven Deadly Sins." 21st-C 3.3 (Fall 1998)
Shepard, Alicia. "Torturous Wording." On the Media (June 26, 2009)
Tallim, Jane. "Photographic Truth in the Digital Era." Media Awareness Network (2009)
Talvi, Silja J.A. "Race: Time to Give Up on the Four-Letter Word." LiP Magazine (September 4, 2001)
The Union: The Business Behind Getting High (Canada: Brett Harvey, 2007)
Virilio, Paul. "Weapons are tools not just of destruction but also of perception..." quote from War and Cinema (Posted on Dialogic: February 13, 2006)
We Want Everything. "Communiqué from an Absent Future." (September 24, 2009)
Wolin, Sheldon. "Myth in the Making." Democracy Incorporated. Princeton University Press, 2008: 4-16.
Wood, Elizabeth and Kiersten F. Latham. "Object Knowledge:Researching Objects in the Museum Experience." Reconstruction 9.1 (2009)
Wright, Dean. "Watching our language: Writing about the financial crisis." Full Disclosure (March 16, 2009)
Zappa, Frank. "On Censorship." Crossfire (CNN: 1986)
---. "Statement to Congress." From the HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION, UNITED STATES SENATE, NINETY-NINTH CONGRESS: FIRST SESSION ON CONTENTS OF MUSIC AND THE LYRICS OF RECORDS (September 19, 1985)
Zinn, Howard. The People's History of the United States. (Harper Perennial Modern Classics: 2005)
---. "War and Social Justice." Democracy Now (Text/Audio/Video: January 2, 2009)
Žižek, Slavoj. Excerpt from: “The Spectre of Ideology.” The Žižek Reader. ed. Elizabeth Wright and Edmond Wright. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1999: 65.
Ruth Shagoury Hubbard: The Truth About Helen Keller (selective framing of historical figures)
Thinking About Culture, Nationalism, War, Empire, Rhetoric and Media (archive)
Myths and Falsehoods About Oil Prices (Economic Framing)
David Brin: "Star Wars" despots vs. "Star Trek" populists (narrative framing)
Philip K. Dick: "If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who use the words" (Science Fiction Author Reflecting on the Framing of Reality)
Cormac Deane: The Embedded Screen and the State of Exception--Counterterrorist Narratives and the War on Terror (Framing in Entertainment Media)
Noam Chomsky and Robert Trivers: On Deceit , Groupthink, Maintaining Credibility, and Denial (Linguistics/Political Science/Evolutionary Biology)
Brent Cunningham: Rethinking Objective Journalism (Columbia Journalism Review)
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