Even the reporting of news has to be understood not as propaganda for any particular ideology, liberal or conservative, but as propaganda for commodities — for the replacement of things by commodities, use values by exchange values, and events by images.
Interpretation
News reporting often serves as a vehicle for promoting consumer culture rather than providing unbiased information.
Christopher Lasch's quote highlights the transformation of news into a form of propaganda that prioritizes consumerism over objective reporting. He suggests that the way news is presented often favors commodities and their associated value over genuine understanding of events, turning news into mere images rather than informative narratives. This reflects a deeper concern about the impact of media on society, emphasizing how economic interests can shape the way we perceive reality.
In practice
In a discussion about the role of media in society during a public seminar.
Much of what is euphemistically known as the middle class, merely because it dresses up to go to work, is now reduced to proletarian conditions of existence. Many white-collar jobs require no more skill and pay even less than blue-collar jobs, conferring little status or security.
The reporting of news has to be understood as propaganda for commodities, and events by images.
It is advertising and the logic of consumerism that governs the depiction of reality in the mass media.
It is the logic of consumerism that undermines the values of loyalty and permanence and promotes a different set of values that is destructive of family life.
The question of the family now divides our society so deeply that the opposing sides cannot even agree on a definition of the institution they are arguing about.
Propaganda in the ordinary sense of the term plays a less important part in a consumer society, where people greet all official pronouncements with suspicion.
The Arab world needs a modern version of the old transnational media so citizens can be informed about global events. More important, we need to provide a platform for Arab voices.
Too many of our conversations in the media hinge on conflict delivered in three-second sound bites.
Newspaper people have a habit of putting you in the front pages to sell their papers, and then after they've sold their papers and got big circulations, they say, 'Look at what we've done for you
I think television's become a downright dangerous thing. It has no moral barometer whatsoever. If you want to talk about something that is all about money, just watch the television.
It's great to engage with the mainstream media to get messages out, but the most empowering tool is to create records of our lives, and our own images, which are not filtered through judgements, biases, or misunderstandings.
Television is simultaneously blamed, often by the same people, for worsening the world and for being powerless to change it.
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