Ravenwood

Notes on Media Ecology, Disinformation & Propaganda, Pt. III: State, Media and Nationalism

States – and their respective regimes/govts – obviously use and rely on both domestic/internal and transnational/external propaganda. A lot of their actions can be simply defined/explained through a so-called “realist” viewpoint on both levels: in a word, it’s about defending and reinforcing one state/country and/or regime’s own power, interests and resources, “sphere of influence”, reputation/image, and so on… It’s merely the inherent way political actors act both internally and internationally/externally, in a system based on only one principle and form of rationality: the competition/quest for power – to a large extent as an end in itself – and state + geopolitical power being the specific form it usually takes.

Some notorious examples of state propaganda – both internal and international – obviously include WWI, the Nazis, Soviets, and anticommunism, but many other cases could be mentioned. For instance, for decades South Africa’s white supremacist Apartheid regime spent millions on propaganda campaigns in the US (including in black communities!). More recently in the UK, the death of the Queen provoked weeks of apologetic media coverage both in the UK and internationally, celebrating a fundamentally reactionary, nationalist, oligarchic and colonialist institution (the British monarchy).

Example of Apartheid South Africa propaganda, i.e. anticommunism and white supremacy hand in hand.

For a detailed typology of the various forms of state media, see the ‘State Media Matrix’ classification developed by Marius Dragomir and Astrid Söderström, ‘according to three key factors that affect the independence of the state media: funding, ownership/governance, and editorial autonomy’:

Funding influences to a large extent the performance of a state media outlet. State media outlets usually rely on various forms of public funding, but some of them also draw on commercial financing (i.e. advertising or sponsorship).

There are two categories of public funding that are most common in state media. One is direct state support: these are either government subsidies awarded to media upon approval by authorities, or state advertising, a form of state financing where public cash is used to commission services from media outlets (normally to buy ad space). The second is indirect state support: these are revenues generated from various forms of taxation or contributions by the public (i.e. levies on commercial media, taxes or license fees).

The first form of public funding creates a tight dependency between the government and the media outlet. Experience also shows that the amount of direct state support can help cement this dependency: the higher the share of the state subsidies in the budget of a state media outlet is, the less independent that outlet is.

As a result, the funding-related factor in our Matrix (“predominantly state-funded”) defines a situation where media outlets receive direct state support amounting to at least 50% of their annual budget.

The type of ownership and governance also plays a key role in how a state media outlet performs editorially. Most state media are owned by the government via government bodies (ministries, agencies, state institutions). In some cases, they are controlled by state-owned companies. There are also cases of state media that, in fact, do not have any form of actual ownership, being run as a part of a state institution (for example, as a department in the ministry of communication). In countries where the government tries to cut the ownership dependency between the government and state media, various forms of public ownership (foundations, trusts) have been introduced.

When it comes to the governing structures of the state media, the composition of these governing bodies, including the mechanisms of appointment of their members, plays a crucial role in how the editorial autonomy of those media is protected (or not). The state bodies that own the media usually tend to have control over their governing boards by retaining the right to appoint the members of those bodies. The politicization of the process of appointment of the state media governing structures is a powerful instrument of control of those media’s editorial agenda. In contrast, in countries where the supervisory bodies of the state media are appointed by a more diverse group of institutions and people (state bodies with a more diverse participation of political actors, civil society organizations, academia, professional organizations, individual experts, etc.), the state control is less pronounced.

In conclusion, the control of governing structures and ownership factor in our Matrix is defined as the situation where at least one of the two is true: the state media is majority owned by a government body or the majority of its governing body members are appointed by government or government-controlled institutions mostly on political grounds.

Finally, editorial control, a key determinant of state media independence, is defined as the situation where the journalists of a state media outlet are not in a position to make editorial decisions independently, a result of direct or indirect control exerted by authorities or allied entities over the outlet’s editorial decision-making process.

The State Media Monitor (from which the above was taken) has produced yearly reports on ‘the state of state media’ globally, which show the omnipresence of state ownership or control, and the lack of editorial independence in much of the world [2021 report, 2022 report].

Some of the most influential state-based campaigns are the various government-run international media operations, who occupy a major position within the global information/media ecosystem. Here are some of the most noteworthy/influential ones:

Some of those played a big role and/or were created during the Cold War (VoA, BBC, RFE/RL, CRI which used to be called Radio Peking, RFI…), while other major outlets/operations of that era like Radio Moscow, Radio Tirana (Albania) were closed or aren’t as relevant anymore (apartheid South Africa’s Radio RSA was renamed by the post-apartheid government as Channel Africa).

They all attempt to influence the global agenda, although it wouldn’t be fair to say they are all equally state-controlled or propagandistic; still, it’s better to just be rigorous and vigilant with everything, and consider potential deceit or agendas at all times. For example, China has for decades attempted to sway public opinion and its international reputation within Africa by portraying China-Africa relations (which is just another form of imperialism) in an uncritical and exclusively positive light. Al-Jazeera is a slightly more ambivalent case insofar as it’s somewhat less blatantly and overwhelmingly (geo)politically-driven than Chinese, Iranian or Russian media. It has published some reporting critical of Qatar (for example, on sexism within Qatar Airways, the treatment of migrant construction workers building facilities for the 2022 World Cup and the horrendous kafala system), but at the same time its editorial independence has been questioned (and plainly disproven) numerous times (see the reporting by The Guardian here (Wikileaks cables) and here).

It’s also important to keep in mind that states/govts/regimes are never monolithic, in the sense that there are conflicts, tensions, power struggles or even secret/violent plots happening within them, even when the president or dictator has succeeded in centralizing and consolidating his power… Likewise, sometimes propaganda isn’t done by a state or government per se, but by specific political actors from the country that want to influence opinion and/or electoral/political/etc… outcomes for their own benefit. They might even be part of the opposition to the current regime or government, but think that such disinfo and/or propaganda campaigns might give them an advantage to gain some power or achieve whatever else they’re aiming for… It’s important to understand the actual reach that govts/states have, because even in authoritarian contexts like Putin’s regime it’s not by any means as simple as “Russian media/reporters/etc = Putin’s puppets.” Bellingcat/OSINT veteran Aric Toler offers a basic typology of the types of media actors with varying degrees of autonomy relative to the state. In his piece he’s talking about Russia, but I think this can give a general idea of what’s going for other states/major international actors as well :

  • State media: outlets that are directly and explicitly owned by one government. (e.g. RT and the Rossiya Segodnya media group, which includes RIA Novosti and  Sputnik)
  • Functionnally state media: a number of entities that are not directly owned by the state, but are owned by firms in which the state holds a majority stake. (e.g. Perviy Kanal/Channel One)
  • Independent, pro-government media: outlets that are not owned by the state or state-controlled entities, but are nonetheless favorable to the state in most circumstances. (e.g. Gazeta.ru)
  • Independent media not always favorable to the state: opposition-friendly outlets in the center and left, along with independent and business-focused outlets without a strong anti-government or pro-opposition bend. (e.g. Novaya Gazeta)
  • Fringe pro-government, [Russia] outlets: often produce disinformation that is incorrectly ascribed as part of a Kremlin-coordinated campaign – because they’re technically independent (though the level of independence can be hard to determine, because many have ties to the Kremlin). (e.g. Crimea-based NewsFront)
  • Fringe non-[Russian], pro-[Russian] outlets: places that have no direct (but perhaps indirect) institutional ties to Russia, but are nonetheless generally favorable to the Kremlin. These outlets include websites legally registered all over the world, such as The Duran, GlobalResearch.ca, and Infowars.

Liberal commentators won’t go as far saying this, but the simple fact is that any and all forms of state media are inherently flawed, for the obvious reason that they don’t “serve the public” – although obviously some are better than others – but ultimately, especially for the most sensitive and critical topics, defend and prioritize the interests and reputation/image/PR of specific states and governments. Like all media and technologies, they reflect and reproduce existing social relations, such as patriarchy, capital, colonialism, and racism.

For example, the BBC which had historically gained a very positive reputation for quality and reliability not only in the UK but internationally, has been increasingly criticized in the past few years. Sometimes it can go beyond merely defending the interests of the state per se, with for example their problematic denier-legitimizing coverage of climate change. Like most other mainstream media, it has also promoted the views of reactionary and conspiracist views and the far right’s moral panics. They’ve sometimes contributed to platforming the far right, allowing them, as Michael Richmond noted, to “affirm their own narrative of themselves”. In May 2023, the BBC unveiled BBC Verifiy, a new team and brand supposed focused on “fack-checking”, “verification” and “countering disinformation” to “build trust with audiences by transparently showing how BBC journalists know the information they are reporting”. On its very first day (23), they “both spoke to a committed anti-trans conspiracist as an expert in unbiased news, and uncritically accepted a police report that was immediately proven false” (source). So state/public media like the BBC are responsible for both specifically promoting/defending the govt’s and social elites’ interests, and contributing to general disinformation and the normalization of reactionary or dangerous elements. No need to pretend that the BBC is “just as bad” as RT to acknowledge that it has deep flaws in certain contexts/aspects.

On the question of online state-directed propaganda campaigns, Toler explained here that there are indeed paid propaganda trolls as well as bots, but it’s not ‘black vs white’ and it’s easy to misunderstand what’s going on. There are many paid trolls, but most are harmless, and according to Toler “The most important accounts are state-sponsored accounts that appear to be independent analysts, grassroots organizations, and so on – and it isn’t easy to find these with the naked eye”. There are indeed countries (like Russia, Israel, China or Indonesia) that use bots, but Toler warns against making bot accusations unless you can point to specific evidence. Toler: “Ben Nimmo’s botspot guide is the most concise guide out there for identifying a bot, but in short: a Russian bot is an automated account that is working on behalf of a Russian entity or individual. A human person who disagrees with you is not a Russian bot, but rather (at worst) a jerk or troll. “

Outside of states per se, individual political actors also sometimes rely on sophisticated forms of propaganda and manipulation to (try to) reach their goals/gain power. There is a whole industry specialized in offering disinfo/manipulation/propaganda services/tools for these actors: through data mining and other methods, they provide ‘weapons’ to specific individual or state actors for their campaigns within modern political warfare. A prominent example of this are of course Cambridge Analytica (see here, here and here) and its rebranded offsprings (Auspex International, Emerdata, Data Propria, Emic…). More recently, the investigative consortium Forbidden Stories researched this “disinformation-for-hire industry”further in their project Story Killers. One of their main investigations shed light on the secretive cyber manipulation group calling itself Team Jorge, a “team of Israeli contractors who claim to have manipulated more than 30 elections around the world using hacking, sabotage and automated disinformation on social media” (see the reporting in/by the OCCRP, Der Spiegel and the Guardian). For one concrete example: they sell a piece of software called ‘Aims’ (Advanced Impact Media Solutions) that controls more than 30,000 fake profiles/avatars on sites like Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, Instagram, Amazon and Airbnb, and can therefore be used to spread disinformation very quickly on a large scale.

“Things don’t necessarily have to be true, as long as they are believed” is a quote that could be attributed to many philosophers, but instead originates from a man named Alexander Nix. If his name is unfamiliar, the company he ran is not: Cambridge Analytica.

In 2018, the eponymous scandal revealed how the British company acquired the personal data of nearly 87 million Facebook users to influence voters on “an industrial scale.” The company, which sold its services in some 60 states—from the Iranian regime to the Malaysian national oil company—is accused of manipulating numerous elections; it contributed to Donald Trump’s 2016 victory in the US and the Brexit vote in England. When the affair made headlines, the name Cambridge Analytica became synonymous with disinformation worldwide.

However, not everything about this scandal has been revealed. Some of the most feared culprits inside this world have managed to hide in the shadows, among them mysterious Israeli hacking experts. Brittany Kaiser, the company’s former development director and one of the now-famous whistleblowers in the scandal, described the hackers as a team in charge of “opposition research.” In anonymous testimonies published in the British press in 2018, former employees describe “Israeli hackers” barging into the company’s offices with USB drives loaded with what appeared to contain hacked private emails of politicians. “People panicked, they wanted nothing to do with it,” a former employee told the Guardian at the time. According to the Guardian’s reporting, these “hackers offered personal data about future Nigerian president and future PM of St Kitts and Nevis.”

The Cambridge Analytica scandal revealed the existence and methods of these mysterious hackers. But until now, the press has been unable to pierce the anonymity of these shady “opposition researchers” or attribute them to a company. When he refers to “Israeli black ops” in an internal e-mail, Nix mentions neither an identity nor a company name. Instead, he designates an alias for the boss of this ultra-secret entity: “Jorge.”

Cécile Andrzejewski – “Team Jorge”: In the Heart of a Global Disinformation Machine.

As always, we should however add that not everything done by such firms is known to have the intended effects: like everything coming out of capitalist commodity production, the actual effectiveness and outcomes matter less than being able to sell them and make money. But that doesn’t change the fact that we know that it does impact public and political processes in some ways and to varying (not always measurable/observable) degrees, without having to see it as the sole factor determining elections and other things like referenda. For example, it would be problematic to omit the reactionary/chauvinist and racist political and ideological and social elements determining these far right electoral or ‘democratic’ successes. The point remains, nonetheless, that specific parts of capital – including certain specific capitalist individuals such as Peter Thiel (a, b, c, d) and Robert Mercer (who funded Cambridge Analytica; see a, b, c; there’s also his daughter Rebekah Mercer who co-founded the Parler app) – support and fund far right propaganda and political campaigns.

Mainstream media’s pretension/rhetoric of “objectivity”/”neutrality” includes the normative exclusion of non-performative and non-legible politicizations; it rejects any way of reporting on and discussing current info/news/events/issues that:

a) Includes emotional and ethical considerations/appeals/forms of expression/discourse

b) Is defined by an antagonistic standpoint regarding society/politics, i.e. refusing to submit to the premise of bourgeois politics and nationalism, namely that all social and political groups are supposed to be willing to overlook their (often inherently) incompatible/conflicting interests/aspirations and sit at the table of bourgeos/modern normality to preserve the existing social order and uphold the (non-existing) “general interest”

c) Rejects or simply doesn’t fit the statist and bourgeois legibility/disciplinary power/prevailing social forms and categorizations

d) Doesn’t rely on specific/single spokespersons (e.g. of a social/protest movement) that can be held up as the formal “representative” of a given group

This is particularly evident in the way non-statist/parliamentary/electoralist politicizations and movements – contentious/disruptive protests, riots, strikes, community/radical/anti-colonial self-defense and resistance (e.g. antifa, Indigenous resistance to land dispossesion),  strategic or symbolic occupations and looting/property destruction, informal assemblies and forums, etc – are covered in the media (and likewise, how they’re treated by authorities as well as existing politicians/political parties/etc). First of all, traditional/mainstream media only report a ridiculously small amount of protests, on average only about 5-10% according to Fillieule & Jobard (2020). And that is without even considering the disparities in terms of international reporting, as can be constantly observed in the almost total silence on both the protest/resistance/emancipatory movements and the atrocities/tyranny that people are facing in countries like Haiti, in West Papua, in the Congo, and so on. Even a context as internationally notorious as Palestine only gets mentioned when untold atrocities or warlike events occur (with huge bombings, rocket launches, and genocidal Israeli barbarism), rather than demonstrating the constant daily reality/oppression Palestinians face.

This implies specific selectivity on what is deemed “newsworthy”: some disruptive/contentious (or even quasi-revolutionary) mobilizations/events reach such a scale that no media can ignore it (e.g. Black Lives Matter and anti-police, anti-racist movements, feminist/women’s large strikes and protests across the world, and whenever a mass uprising against a tyrannical regime or imperialist invasion/acts occur), but countless forms of action and politicization (incl. some mentioned above, but also things like local, small-scale mutual aid or solidarity projects/networks) get filtered out of news reporting. And even if/when mobilizations/actions are reported, the media – as well as, and usually cojointly with, official/political/policing authorities – apply or create specific ideological/rhetorical framings about what happened, the groups and elements involved, the content and validity/respectability of their actions/messages/aspirations, and so on. One way to do this is to look for a fitting (real or pretended) spokesperson/representative of the movement to ask/expect them to reduce the movement to a set of formal ideas, demands, etc and a homogenous, simplistic depiction of the movement (rather than, for instance, a complex soup of oppressed groups, activists with compatible but different backgrounds/approaches, mixed tactics and arguments, etc).

This is particularly problematic when it comes to large-scale disruptive/confrontational movements that don’t rely on a formal structure/leadership (or if there are formal leadership figures or respresentatives, it by no means constitutes the totality of the movement), which mainstream media and authorities simply cannot accept/fathom. They need a simple depiction, a way to reframe it in the terms of bourgeois (statist, capitalist, electoral, oligarchic, party) politics and the social order’s existing categories/norms (nationalism, borders/citizenship, formal employment and legal statuses, policing, security/law and order, the “economy” as capitalist ideology/fetishism, electoral/parliamentary competition as the only legible and legitimate politicization, patriarchal gender/family/sexual norms). A recent example emerged in the context of the 2022 uprising in Iran, a huge leaderless movement initiated in Kurdish regions after the torture and murder of Jîna Amini by the Gašt-e Eršâd, i.e. the IRI’s religious “morality” police. Amidst this rebellion, American and anglophone media notably relied on New York-based celebrity activist Masih Alinejad, who “has allied herself with right-wing movements [including the Trump administration] that repress women in the US and supported sanctions that impoverish Iranians and undermine their grassroots movements”.

Jîna Amini, 21/09/99-16/09/22. RIP❤️❤️

ژینا گیان تۆ نامری. ناوت ئەبێتە ڕەمز

Beloved Jîna, you will not die. Your name will become a symbol.

[The inscription on Jîna’s tombstone, in Kurdish]

And like all politicians, states and authorities, the mainstream/dominant media reinforce and reproduce the nationalist separation/partinioning/segregation of humanity/human and social life, by continuously reaffirming nation-states, borders, xenophobia/nationalist chauvinism, and repressive (state/policing/bourgeois) categories such as “migrants”/“refugees” vs “citizens”/”civilians”…

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