A discussion of the Chomsky / Herman propaganda model, it's application to the modern cable news environment, and the role the The Daily Show plays within it.

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Theories about propaganda and its evolution simultaneously fascinate and disturb me. I think I'm motivated to study propaganda by the belief that understanding how you're being manipulated makes that manipulation less effective. Over the years the term propaganda has been defined in many ways by many people. Often, defining this word is itself an act of propaganda. I use the term in a manner very similar to political scientist Michael Parenti, who defines it as the mobilization of information and ideas for the purpose of persuading a mass audience. He uses a rather broad definition, but in the US the term usually has a negative connotation and implies some kind of deception or manipulation.

Propaganda can take many forms, but in the US a few noticeable features stand out. Firstly, there is no leftwing / rightwing propaganda disparity. One side is not truth and the other propaganda. The media personas of both the left and right are manipulative to a similar extent. Both use similar techniques such as manipulating the semantic framing of messages; selectively and manipulatively editing audio/video clips; hosting faux debates with straw-man opponents; disseminating the messages of interest groups, unchallenged when the groups are friendly, interrupted and prevented from making a point when they're opposed. It's not what they say, but how manipulatively they say it that qualifies the corporate media's messages as propaganda.

Certain perspectives and world views have little to no voice in the news media. I'm not talking about the left's perspective, or the right's perspective. Both sides (as defined in the media) are represented evenly enough. However, the media's definition of left and right bears little resemblance to reality; the dividing line has been gerrymandered more than most urban congressional districts. Whether most people recognize it or not, the real division in our society is where it has always been, around class. Severing this class-consciousness from the public zeitgeist is the core purpose of the corporate propaganda system.

It is increasingly common for television news channels to take ideological or partisan stands on issues that the ruling class have significant policy disagreements over (in this context by ruling class I'm generally referring to the political and economic elite who own and control various media corporations along with most of the rest of the public and private economy). These issues are what define the left right divide; they are what the media focuses most of its attention on, in spite of the interests of their audience and of the population in general.

There are often fervent debates with much yelling and screaming when these elitist controversies are discussed. This qualifies their coverage as balanced since an argument by definition must have two sides to it (the ruse is the implication that there are only those two sides out there). This kind of vigorous debate is nearly absent in their coverage of issues that the ruling class is in general agreement about. On these consensus issues, across US media outlets there tend to be strikingly uniform messages in support of their common position. This message uniformity is especially evident in the perspectives not represented by any of the mainstream media outlets. The media's omission of information is a very effective form of mass manipulation and a telling characteristic of many propaganda systems.

The modern news media in the US reveal their manipulativeness in a number of ways. For instance, across multiple news channels there is frequently a common (seemingly coordinated) use of semantic framing (semantic framing can at its simplest be thought of as the implied connotations of the words, and especially of the metaphors, used in the construction of a message). On most news programs, regardless of whether the presenter self identifies to the audience as a liberal or a conservative, their use of framing is nearly always biased in favor of corporate and ruling class interests. On Comedy Central's The Daily Show, Jon Stewart often highlights this seeming coordination. He will show a series of clips, from a number of different major news programs' coverage of a story, and each of the different anchors or hosts will use the exact same talking point (often the exact same wording) to make the exact same point.

Stewart often seems like the only voice on television that contradicts the corporate media's nearly uniform messaging about certain issues, but I should clarify the kinds of issues I'm talking about. It's not that Stewart is liberal, while I think the "liberal media" is a figment of a few conservative talk show hosts' imaginations, there are outlets like MSNBC that represent the mainstream liberal perspective. Stewart goes beyond the mainstream liberal position; he challenges his guests on their manipulative statements; he touches on issues that seem taboo even on outlets like MSNBC. His most important critiques are those of the news media itself. Critiques that mainstream news outlets seem unwilling to make. However indirectly, he shines a bit of light on the nature of the propaganda we're inundated with.

I've long wondered how programs like The Daily Show fit into the corporate propaganda system. The corporate media produces them, yet they directly challenge that media's propaganda messages and highlight its manipulativeness. Damaging the corporate news media's credibility and breaking message uniformity seemingly violates core principals of traditional propaganda systems. It seems out of place that a major media corporation like Viacom would actively contradict the corporate media's propaganda. However, the Daily Show is a cash cow. Ratings and ad revenue can go a long way towards explaining why Viacom lets the show exist, but letting the Daily Show's message go out relatively unrestrained might also serve a deeper purpose in support of the propaganda system.

Understanding where The Daily Show fits in the propaganda system requires a basic understanding of how modern propaganda functions. When most people think of propaganda they think of posters from WW2, or state controlled radio and television in authoritarian countries. While these traditional systems of propaganda still exist in many places around the world, they have rarely been the favored approach in modern western democracies (mainly due to their ineffectiveness). I think the propaganda model proposed by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman in their book Manufacturing Consent most accurately describes the functioning of the propaganda system in the modern US. They argue that democratic countries, with privately (generally corporately) owned mass media systems, will have to use systems of propaganda that are more subtle, and that therefore function somewhat differently from propaganda systems in dictatorships. Instead of serving the government's interest they serve the interests of their corporate owners (note that most of these owners are not single individuals but groups of shareholders represented by a board of directors). Subtlety makes modern propaganda less detectable and therefore more effective, but the structure of such systems, especially their independent private ownership, makes them much less controllable (each corporation serves its own interest not the system's interest).

Even though democracies must generally be subtler with their propaganda than dictatorships, Chomsky and Herman argue that democratic countries are even more reliant on effective propaganda. In authoritarian countries with rigidly controlled propaganda systems most people are bombarded by official messages. From the media they may only ever hear the official line, but people know that line is not trustworthy and easily dismiss it. They tend to rely instead on information spread interpersonally and through local community level networks. The major advantage of the propaganda system in the US is that its messages are more believable. The population has (until recent years) seen the mainstream news media as relatively trustworthy. Since the goal of all propaganda is persuasion, believability and trustworthiness go a long way. Democratic regimes count on these advantages since they generally do not have a dictatorship's ability to use force and violence to keep their populations in line.

In recent years trust in the US news media as a whole has declined sharply. As news organizations increasingly adopt ideological perspectives, as their reporting grows increasingly biased by these perspectives, people increasingly identify with and rely on the particular news outlets that most closely match their personal ideologies. Polls indicate that people's trust in the US news media as a whole has been declining since the '90s, but their trust in the particular news sources they rely on has stayed relatively stable. This is the result of an intentional branding effort by the corporate media. It has created extremely polarized audiences.

Traditional propaganda is most effective when there is uniformity of message. When people hear the same message from most (or at least from multiple) sources they are given the impression that there is consensus about the veracity of the message. It makes the actual level of consensus among experts in the field the message pertains to less relevant. Conversely, when an audience hears messages that contradict a propaganda message it creates doubt about the truth of the propaganda message. This makes controlling access to information essential to the successful dissemination of propaganda.

Increasingly ideological US news organizations regularly disseminate torrents of contradictory information. This goes against the message uniformity that traditional propaganda systems rely on. It would seemingly make their propaganda less persuasive. However, increasingly polarized news audiences rarely hear the contradictory messages because the blatantly ideological bias of the opposing side's news outlets repulses them. This polarization is also at the heart of the widening "red vs. blue" ideological divide in the US. Within each bubble the propaganda is very consistent and therefore very effective. Because both the "red" and the "blue" media outlets are so clearly manipulative from the other side's perspective, when people do hear information that contradicts their own side's propaganda, they simply dismiss it as blatant deception by the other side. This gives the corporate media a way of discrediting alternative narratives; a valuable tool in the Internet age, where the corporate media's gatekeeper role has waned.

The divisions created in the US working class by this media posturing are deep and strategically located to promote and avoid threats to the ruling class's common corporate interests. These rifts are manufactured by ginning up controversy over social and cultural issues that stoke emotional reactions but which only marginally affect people's quality of life. They often discuss real social pathologies, but their roots in corporate policies and regulations (or lack thereof) are usually obscured and dismissed. The issues discussed by the news media tend to be the issues that our elections are decided over. By preventing issues that challenge corporate interests or power from entering the political discussion they prevent politicians from challenging their interests or power.

Issues that do threaten corporate interests require a more dependable technique. The most reliable propaganda tool is still omission. If there is some controversial issue that a government or a private organization wants to prevent an audience from being roused by, this is more easily accomplished by keeping the audience from knowing about the issue all together than it would be by trying to convince an audience that already knows about the issue that it isn't something to be concerned about. The most effective tool of modern propaganda is to simply ignore anything that challenges the interests of the ruling class. This ignoring can become quite sophisticated.

The propaganda model that Chomsky and Herman describe does not rely on any kind of centralized control. They do not propose any mass conspiracy to deceive the public. Instead they describe a system in which a corporate media, as a result of their intrinsic interests, incentives, and world views, filter their messages in support of the interests of their primary stakeholders (i.e. owners, advertisers, sources "). Because corporate conglomerates with holdings in banking, investment, industry, and transnational trade own most media organizations, their messages also get filtered to support these wider corporate interests. Michael Parenti put it well, saying that they promote their class interest as the public interest.

There is no single organization directing the dissemination of propaganda in the US. The system, as a result of its structure, serves the interests of the ruling class without direction. Yet it's important not to confuse undirected with accidental. The systemic structure responsible for corporate propaganda is the result of incremental changes to the rules the media must abide by (especially rules about media ownership and consolidation); changes resulting from decisions made by people. Each change is small, but due to a consistent and steady pressure, the changes have gone steadily in the direction of ruling class's interests over most of a century (until the last couple decades when the slide greatly accelerated). Because the corporate propaganda system requires no direction it is easy for those whose interests it serves to claim ignorance and thereby innocence. For some this may be a legitimate claim, but the overwhelming resistance by the ruling class to changes in the media system that might make it less manipulative and self serving show their awareness of and complicity in the status quo.

The interests of various corporate media organizations are all very similar if not identical. Because propaganda is most effective when there is uniformity of message, and the message's content is filtered in support of the interests of the messenger, the most effective propaganda will arise out of issues where there is consensus among most of the messengers. The result is that as a system, with a remarkable degree of uniformity, media corporations shape their messages to generate support for their common corporate interests. Media owners shaping the messages they disseminate in support of their own interests is one of the primary filters described by Chomsky and Herman's model, but several other filters are also quite important.

Advertisers are the customers of most media organizations. They are the entity that must ultimately be pleased; therefore, messages that might hurt the interest of major advertisers are heavily filtered. As far as news media are concerned sources become another important filter. Most news media rely on corporate and government spokespeople, these sources play a major role in shaping the content of the news. When media organizations propagate a message that opposes the interests of a large or powerful group they (and their sponsors) often receive a great deal of flak (negative feedback). Flak filters media messages in the direction of the uncontroversial. The last major filter identified by Chomsky and Herman is ideology. The ideology filter shapes media messages in that those messages not fitting the ideology of the people in charge will generally be discarded as untrue.

Filtered is an interesting term. I use it primarily because it is the term used by Chomsky and Herman in Manufacturing Consent. It implies a kind of censorship. Sometimes this takes the form of direct censorship by reporters, writers, editors, or even owners. More often this kind of direct censorship is not necessary. Surveys of reporters have shown mixed opinions about the prevalence of censorship in corporate news rooms. Most reporters say there is very little direct censorship, but some say that they must constantly censor themselves in order to keep their jobs; the difference lies in what each reporter wants to write. Michael Parenti makes this a key point. There is very little need for direct censorship if you hire people, who of their own volition, write from the perspective that is desired. The real censorship happens in human resource offices long before a pen ever touches a reporter's notebook.

Censorship, in one form or another, is often the method by which the news media omits information opposing their interests. It is the most common and effective form of propaganda used by the corporate media. Others become necessary when continuing to ignore an issue or directly lying about it could end up casting doubt on the integrity of the news media as a whole (or on that of a particular brand). In the internet age, where breaking news often spreads faster than wild fire, the viral spread of information that contradicts propaganda messages increasingly threatens their effectiveness. To diffuse this, corporate news media will often jump quickly on a story as it gathers momentum in the alternative media. This steals attention and support away from the alternative journalists and media outlets. At the same time it allows the corporate media to reframe the issue in the least damaging way possible.

Even if they can't ignore an entire issue they are usually still able to ignore the most damaging pieces of it. By leaving out essential elements of an argument that opposes the corporate media's interests they can make the alternative perspective seem illogical. This has the effect of delegitimizing not only the issue at hand, it has the much more important effect of delegitimizing the promoters and supporters of the issue (primarily the alternative media source the story originated in). They end up looking like fools for believing the argument presented in the corporate media (similar to a straw man tactic). If during the hype someone does start voicing too disruptive of an argument, in a media setting where it can't be edited out entirely (live on the air for instance), the normal tactic is to interrupt, and if necessary shout over the trouble maker.

Their rule of thumb seems to be to downplay the sensational and sensationalize the insubstantial and trivial. Then after overhyping the non-important elements of the issue and playing it out till everyone in the country is sick of hearing about it, they can drop it in favor of

some tabloid drama, before ignoring the issue all together again. An interesting bit of propaganda itself was the movie Wag The Dog from the late '90s, which flipped this notion. Its presidential protagonist started a war to distract from a sex scandal, where the more common practice is to use a sex scandal to distract from a bad turn in a war.

For an interesting exercise try keeping an eye out for a news cycle when every channel all of a sudden starts hyping some trivial story dealing with a movie star breakup or a political sex scandal or the like. Then look in the alternative or international press for a serious revelation that poses real threats to the interests of the ruling class or a member thereof. It's only anecdotal evidence, but in nearly every case I find one. When I didn't have as much time to invest in regularly reading alternative news sources, I'd keep an eye out for this behavior. That kind of tabloid news blitz makes a good burglar alarm to warn that something worth paying more serious attention to must be happening. Another seeming rule of thumb of the corporate media; if you can't ignore the issue, and it's too cut and dry to muddy the waters much, then drown it out and distract with something more juicy.

Recognizing what is, and especially what is not being said in a story is essential to recognizing attempts at manipulation, but it is equally important to recognize how what is said gets phrased and presented. This is where message framing comes into play. A discussion of message framing could easily fill an article all on its own, so I'll defer readers to author George Lakoff for a more in depth analysis. Message framing stems out of research in cognitive science dealing with how the brain processes, stores, and recalls information; especially in the processes of making decisions. Essentially, it deals with crafting messages that attempt to persuade by taking advantage of subconscious brain functions. A message's frame can be thought of as the interaction between how a message is constructed (i.e. word choice, connotation, denotation, tone, authority), and how, given that construction, a particular audience will take it in (i.e. experience, interpret, understand, remember). Some messengers deliberately manipulate elements of a message's frame to craft a more persuasive message; many more elements are not consciously manipulated, but still influence an audience's perception of a message.

When political strategists or public relations specialists are framing messages metaphors are one of their most important considerations. These can be explicit or implicit metaphors. In explicit metaphors the messenger directly compares one thing to another. During the recent health care debate The Daily Show highlighted a memorable string of such explicit metaphor usage by right wing pundits who all complained of having Obama cram the healthcare bill down their throats. This is a not very subtle metaphor eliciting the image or rape by a black man. The resonance of this message among the Republican Party's core constituency should not be underestimated; especially in southern states, where the theme of the black man as a rapist has a long and ugly history. Understanding the effects of a message's frame requires an intimate understanding of the culture and history of a particular audience. Metaphorically comparing something that evokes an emotional reaction from an audience, to a different thing, has the effect of imprinting the emotions and concepts associated with the first thing onto the second. Keep this in mind and pay attention for a few weeks to how often the news media use metaphors related to rape; also pay attention to which ideas these are compared to. It's somewhat disturbing, but telling at the same time.

The emotional link between the object and subject of a metaphor is a result of the way our brain treats metaphors and stores information. It can be a very powerful form of subtle manipulation, especially when the audience is not paying attention to it. Before a person has perceived a metaphorical connection, the brain stores each component of the metaphor separately. Each already has many connections to all the emotions and other concepts that they were previously associated with. When the two components are metaphorically compared our brains form a link between the areas that store each one. All of each component's preexisting connections to other emotions and concepts in the brain then become connected to the other component of the metaphor. The more that comparison is made (or heard and accepted) the more that link is reinforced. The stronger the link becomes between the metaphor's components, the more strongly associated all of the preexisting connections of each one become with the other.

Most of these initial connections are formed during early childhood (part of why children are so vulnerable to marketers who make metaphorical connections between their product and the natural desires of children). As we live our lives, as we experience new things and grow aware of similarities between them, we constantly form and reinforce the neural connections between the concepts. These networks of connected concepts are known as semantic networks, most adults have thousands of them, interconnected intricately on all different scales. They play an important role in how we understand the meaning of words and the messages they convey.

Implicit metaphors are a little more complicated than explicit metaphors. Like explicit metaphors, when an implicit metaphor is understood and accepted there is a connection made between the compared concepts in the brain. However, implicit metaphors don't directly compare the two things in the text of the message. They often use connotation and implication to make metaphorical connections. The meaning of many words can vary to differing degrees depending on the context they're used in. However, the semantic networks formed in our brain don't only link the concepts specifically connected in the context the metaphor was used. The network, once linked, contains all the words associated with each component of the metaphor. Words that have strong emotional connotations in other contexts can subtly but powerfully influence how an audience interprets and accepts a message.

An example used frequently by George Lakoff in his description of implicit metaphorical framing is the carefully crafted term "Tax Relief." In this case "relief" is the loaded word. Tax relief was crafted in an effort to rebrand corporate "tax breaks." In other contexts the word breaks has bad connotations for a case supporting lower corporate taxes. Breaks are most often associated with work. Most people don't like seeing someone else get a break when they have to keep working, and by association don't like seeing others get a tax break that they don't get. The term relief has very different connotations. Relief implies that there is some affliction to be relieved from. When most people witness someone suffering from an affliction the normal reaction is to desire that affliction to be relieved; even if the witness is not personally affected by the affliction.

The use of implicit metaphors in message framing can get very subtle. Often it can be difficult to tell what is purposely manipulative and what is coincidental or subconscious. Purposeful or not, the long term effect of this kind of framing can be very powerful. Its power lies in its subtlety. Subtle manipulation is more likely to go unnoticed, and that which goes unnoticed usually goes unchallenged. This allows for high levels of repetition (which reinforces the semantic networks) without evoking suspicion. They could come right out and say "Taxes are an affliction to our businesses"" but then you are aware that someone is trying to make you think that taxes are an affliction. You could then look at where the information is coming from and what their motives are. You have the ability to analyze and challenge the idea. If over a period of years they can get you to talk and think about taxes as something to get relief from, then they have built a metaphorical connection between afflictions and taxes and the negative emotions and concepts associated with afflictions then become subconsciously associated with taxes.

Even when a messenger gives no consideration to the framing of his message the message still has a frame determined by the subconscious nature and tendencies of the messenger, the environment the message is delivered in, the nature of its audience, and plenty of random chaotic factors that are difficult to account for. This is important because much of the framing that takes place in the main stream news media is not done consciously as such. It is a product of the world views of the individual producers of the news; their ideology, their natural assumptions, their instinctive reactions, and the basic truths that the rest of their paradigms stem out of. Of course these world views are as divergent as the individuals that hold them, but there are commonalities.

The more homogeneous a population is in life experiences, the more commonalities there will be in world view. Common world views around certain issues in a population will result in most of that population framing messages about those issues in similar ways. The similar framing of messages across media outlets has always been a powerful tool of propaganda. Chomsky and Herman identify this as the ideology filter. They use systemic mechanisms such as this to explain some of the coordinated messaging that takes place in the news.

The similar world views of the owners and producers of the news can explain many of the more subtle similarities in messages across news outlets, but when the Daily Show rolls a series of clips showing half a dozen pundits and anchors all saying the exact same carefully framed phrase, that isn't coincidentally caused by similarities in ideology. Those clips are usually the product of what Chomsky and Herman would call the source filter. The corporate news media are generally motivated to get the information they base their stories on as cheaply as possible. Investigative journalism is expensive and time consuming; as a result most organizations tend to rely on statements from public officials and corporate representatives for their news. These are often doled out in press releases or at press conferences. They tend to contain carefully framed messages, crafted by public relations specialists for the express purpose of manipulating their audience (often by deceiving them).

This is not too dissimilar from what comes to mind when most people hear the word propaganda; manipulative statements from the government or corporations propagated by a complicit media system. The primary difference between propaganda in a country like the Soviet Union and the system in the United States is that in the USSR a state owned media disseminated government messages in the "interest" of the state, whereas in the US an ever consolidating multitude of media outlets disseminate the government's statements in their own private interest. When the Daily Show rolls a series of the same manipulative statement repeated verbatim by half a dozen pundits, that is usually a result of the writers for all those different shows each copying the same talking point from a press release or a press conference into that day's teleprompter script.

When the Daily Show highlights clips like this it exposes some of the manipulativeness of the news media. Damaging the trustworthiness of the news media in this way seems to go against their interests, which seems to not fit the propaganda model very well. However, the Chomsky Herman propaganda model could explain the Daily Show's existence as a function of the advertiser filter. Advertisers are the real customers of most media corporations, audiences are their products. Advertisers are the stakeholders that must ultimately be pleased, and what pleases them are large audiences of very specific demographics. The Daily Show delivers this with a consistency that advertisers usually only dream about.

The audience the Daily Show delivers is one that is more disengaged from traditional media (especially television and TV news) and that is harder for marketers to reach. The Daily Show delivers this audience so consistently to advertisers in large part because it makes critiques that resonate with that audience; messages which are usually underrepresented, distorted, or outright ignored in most of the news media. Pressure from advertisers to maintain this valuable commodity prevents Comedy Central and Viacom from taking actions that might damage Jon Stewart's credibility with his audience, or that might make him seem to have sold out.

It is also important to recognize that the media is not one entity that makes uniform decisions. Viacom is a huge media company, but it doesn't have any news holdings of its own. Therefore, its own reputation and trustworthiness are not so directly challenged by the Daily Show's critiques. Other media companies, who might be hurt by them, have little ability to affect the actions taken by Viacom. Still, Jon Stewart's messages don't go out entirely unrestricted. They may not be filtered in the interest of the news media, but they are still filtered in the interest of the corporate media (and of the corporate oligarchy in general).

For instance, when Stewart interviews a major political figure about a serious issue, the parts that most contradict the mainstream narrative usually get edited out. In fairness, this is because they are more in depth and go over the available time slot. Still, in effect they are only made available to the more dedicated (and more likely to already be aware) online audience. Other times, when the Daily Show runs a series of identical sound bite clips, Jon Stewart is rarely explicit about why it's significant. Stewart is well aware of the significance. He's readily discussed propaganda and how it works in interviews outside of the context of his show, but the Daily Show is a comedy. On the show it's all a big joke - often a sad joke that makes you think our media is terrible - but its messages are delivered in a " "ha ha, look at these clowns that call themselves reporters," kind of tone. To recognize it as a characteristic of a propaganda system requires a preexisting familiarity with the workings of that kind of system. This is not knowledge people gain in many formal educational settings. The audience Stewart reaches already tends to be more savvy about such things, but because comedy doesn't allow for much direct explanation, his critiques of the media more confirm his audience's preexisting assumptions than give them new insights into the workings of the media system.

The critiques The Daily Show makes do not usually originate with Jon Stewart. Even when generally ignored by the corporate news media they are usually circulating in the alternative media, online, and through interpersonal communication. While it's probably fair to say that many of the people who follow progressive alternative media watch or at least like the Daily Show, much of the audience of the Daily Show probably does not regularly follow alternative news media. For them the Daily Show is often the only place they hear a particular message. This is significant from a message framing perspective because the Daily Show is branded as a comedy show.

I don't mean to imply that the Daily Show's audience uniformly buys into the idea that it is just comedy. The effectiveness of propaganda always varies with each individual member of the audience. However, effectiveness aside, the branding is deliberate. In contexts outside of his show Stewart makes this clear by insisting that he's just a comedian and that comedy isn't something that's supposed to be taken too seriously. For most people, when presented with two opposing narratives, one posed by a news program and one posed by a comedy program, the logical assumption would be to trust more in the news program's narrative. By association this has the affect of discrediting the same critique when heard from a more credible source. For instance, since many people will only hear a particular message on the Daily Show, when one person hears that critique presented by a second person who learned it from a more credible alternative source, the first person is likely to assume the second also just heard it on the Daily Show.

The Daily Show serves the propaganda system primarily by branding alternative news narratives as comedy. At the same time it gives the general media system additional credibility by showing that they don't censor alternative ideas. They can essentially say "If we were propagandizing you, why would we let these ideas get out at all?" Most modern propaganda systems use this technique. Allowing people to get a small amount of contradictory information (from easily discreditable sources of course) gives the system as a whole more credibility. On the rightwing side figures like Glen Beck serve a similar purpose, except instead of being branded as a comedian he's branded as crazy. Too uniform a message arouses people's suspicions, this is why propaganda in many totalitarian states is so ineffective. Allowing a debate to take place, but carefully restricting its parameters, prevents damaging messages from entering the marketplace of ideas, without raising these suspicions.

Creating the idea of a political spectrum, with a left, a center, and a right (it's interesting from a message framing perspective which side is right), is an old and still vital tool for setting the range of the debate. Which issues delineate the spectrum shifts with the times, but they are usually set around issues that will divide the working class and prevent any coalition that might challenge the ruling class's power. The corporate news media play an important role in setting this range by staking out ideological positions along the spectrum and then using identity marketing to attract a certain demographic to that ideological position (see Naomi Klein's No Logo for an in-depth discussion of new marketing and branding techniques). So we have CNN that stakes out the "neutral" middle position; MSNBC stakes out a position on the left (but not far enough left to challenge ruling class interests too much); while FOX stakes out the position on the right (far enough right to definitively serve ruling class interests).

FOX and MSNBC essentially set the range of how far it's legitimate to go either left or right on the political spectrum. Then comedy programs like the Daily Show, Colbert, or Maher, set the range of the illegitimate left (real left wing radicals are off the scale entirely). On the other side, racist, fascist talk show hosts set the range of what's too far to the right (so that the non-offensive mainstream conservatism becomes the center). The different stations then use identity marketing techniques (things like speaking mannerisms, accents, body language, clothing and hair styles, etc.) to make certain demographics more comfortable with a particular media outlet, and thereby try to make them accepting of that outlet's ideological position. Identity marketing has pretty much taken over advertising, and its application in politics (identity politics) is increasing with each election cycle. The Daily Show plays an important role in identifying progressive politics with a Comedy Central audience kind of demographic.

I don't want this to come off as a hit piece on the Daily Show or as an attack against Jon Stewart. My criticism is not directed at them but at the system they exist within. I love the Daily Show; it's one of the few television shows I watch regularly. I think Jon Stewart and his staff deserve a great deal of respect. I do think it's better for the perspective he represents to be presented by a comedian than not be presented at all. My point is to shed light on the significance behind a system that only represents that perspective as comedy.

Jon Stewart is an unabashed progressive. His jests and critiques certainly represent that bias. This has the unfortunate effect of turning off people with opposing views. Unfortunate, since some of his critiques transgress the level of partisan pettiness to highlight social problems that should concern all who value democracy, liberty, and justice. He gets away with this because he's a comedian. Would he be allowed to repeatedly make the critiques he makes about the media and about our political system if he were in the role of a legitimate journalist? More realistically, holding his views, would he ever have made it on the air as a journalist at all?

I'm not arguing that anyone designed the Daily Show with a bunch of subtle manipulative factors in mind, or that Jon Stewart is secretly trying to manipulate his audience. The Daily Show is designed to be funny. The more subtle effects of branding the perspectives presented by the Daily Show as comedy may or may not have been considered by some producer or other stakeholder in the corporate media system. Still, whether explicitly considered or not, they do affect the perceptions of audiences. I hope that an awareness and an understanding of these effects will help my audience see through them.

Authors Bio:
I'm an author and a life long student student. I'm focused on advancing progressive ideas through writing, networking and activism. I write about wide ranging topics but am especially interested in public policy concerning the mass media, economics, labor struggles, and foreign relations.

I am also interested in science, philosophy, dance, music, and art. When not writing I enjoy practicing martial arts and meditation, dancing, producing music and videos, and cooking good food.