The Propaganda Apparatus of Venezuela’s Media Tycoons: An Echo Chamber that Would Make Goebbels Proud
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Imagine a society where almost all private media, in accordance with the interests of the dominant class that owns and controls them, have made a conscious decision to subordinate their advertising, political "reporting" and publication of "polls" to the goal of overthrowing a democratically elected government. Venezuelans have no difficulty imagining this; most of the country’s private media are completely devoted to the overthrow of a government that they consider insufficiently subservient to their interests.
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Venezuela's private media have essentially become a vast echo chamber, where debate is limited to tactical questions of how best to extinguish the threat to dominant class interests. Unfortunately, the de-pluralization of political discourse within private media tends to have highly degenerative effects on the rational faculties of those sectors of society that either belong to the economic elite or come under the mesmerizing influence of its propaganda apparatus. As one can easily see, the de-pluralization of discourse leads to increasing intolerance of dissenting views, thereby exacerbating authoritarian tendencies among both elites and the technocratic sectors to which they are aligned. This is especially the case during historical junctures when dissenting views come to hold greater sway among the general population and thus directly compromise dominant class interests.
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Imagine a society where almost all private media, in accordance with the interests of the dominant class that owns and controls them, have made a conscious decision to subordinate their advertising, political "reporting" and publication of "polls" to the goal of overthrowing a democratically elected government. Venezuelans have no difficulty imagining this; most of the country’s private media are completely devoted to the overthrow of a government that they consider insufficiently subservient to their interests.
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Venezuela's private media have essentially become a vast echo chamber, where debate is limited to tactical questions of how best to extinguish the threat to dominant class interests. Unfortunately, the de-pluralization of political discourse within private media tends to have highly degenerative effects on the rational faculties of those sectors of society that either belong to the economic elite or come under the mesmerizing influence of its propaganda apparatus. As one can easily see, the de-pluralization of discourse leads to increasing intolerance of dissenting views, thereby exacerbating authoritarian tendencies among both elites and the technocratic sectors to which they are aligned. This is especially the case during historical junctures when dissenting views come to hold greater sway among the general population and thus directly compromise dominant class interests.
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