DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
3/21/2011
Agnotology is a neologism on the study of culturally-induced ignorance or doubt, particularly as this relates to the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data. And since the press and media shape 70 percent of what’s known to be culture and knowledge today, it would be more accurate to also include media-induced ignorance through their selective information and news.
In the three literally burning issues of the day, many problems in people’s understanding of the truth are symptomatic of the agnotological conditions perpetrated by news media and the dominant information system hegemonies of the world. From the Fukushima crisis in Japan, to the Libyan struggle in North Africa, to the pro- and anti-nuclear as well as the pro- and anti-Merci impeachment debates in our own setting, the deliberate inducement of ignorance have all led to adverse consequences for people everywhere.
In the nuclear fall-out crisis stemming from the Fukushima reactors’ failures and radiation emissions, we find a culturally-induced ignorance of the Japanese people toward complacency with regard to their authorities’ abuses and unreliability. Japanese power plant officials, for one, kept everyone ignorant of very vital information.
In the first few days, no one was given an inkling as to the enormity of the problem. It was only when one nuclear reactor after another gave way that a clear admission that at least four of them were in really serious trouble came out. Despite this, the Japanese continued to be very trusting of their nuclear authorities, even after threatening radiation levels reached beyond the 20 to 30-mile radius.
What we’re witnessing here is a case of “structured ignorance.” It took criticism from cultures less trusting of authorities against Japan’s niggardly crisis updates to alert everyone of the mortal dangers in this unfolding crisis. Still, this hasn’t been the worst of the lot.
In the case of Libya , where media-induced ignorance through blatant misinformation and disinformation are being used to justify a foreign-backed coup d’etat and eventual Nato oil and land grab, so-called “Allied” fighter jets are now pounding on Tripoli as of posting time.
Al Jazeera was at the forefront of this disinformation and misinformation campaign, starting with its unsubstantiated reports (and later proven false by Russian satellite monitoring) of Gaddafi forces and war planes mowing down unarmed civilian demonstrators. In all video docus from Libya I have seen, the anti-Gaddafi forces were always heavily armed. While there are those who see Al Jazeera as an alternative to CNN and BBC, it actually plays a complementary role through its more subtle information subversion as it appears to be less pro-West than it actually is.
Al Jazeera, for instance, pumped up demonstration casualties to “thousands,” even when these later turned out to be only over a hundred. Such exaggeration was especially blatant considering the fact that even as the turmoil in Libya entered its third week, with a full scale battle in the city of Misrata, the real casualty figure there numbered only 25.
By and large, Al Jazeera’s interviews and panel discussions hardly ever feature the side of Gaddafi or the voices of pro-Gaddafi people on the ground. And as the Gaddafi counter-offensive gained ground, it became clear, too, that the alleged “total loss of popular support” for the Libyan strongman was completely false. Yet, Al Jazeera’s on-site reporters kept on annotating their news with a blatant anti-Gaddafi virulence.
One of the most obvious lies Western media and the anti-Gaddafi forces tried to foist on the world in the first week of the conflict was that the Libyan opposition movement abhors foreign intervention even to support its cause. But not long after Gaddafi’s counter-offensive successes and before the UN “No Fly Zone” resolution, the anti-Gaddafis in Benghazi were literally begging for it and jubilated when Nato promised to start arming them and bombing pro-Gaddafi Libyans for a grand bloodbath of Arab blood.
With Nato and monarchist anti-Gaddafi forces collaborating, an oil and land grab that will “Balkanize” Libya isn’t too far in the horizon. But more devastation will follow, just as what invading forces did to Iraq.
As the world continues to be kept ignorant of the systematic destruction of the cultural heritage and infrastructure of Iraq by its occupying forces, this is the crux of what Felicity Arbuthnot wrote in a recent article about Libya: The bombing of Libya will begin on or nearly to the day of the 18th anniversary of the beginning of the destruction of Iraq, 19th March (in Europe). Libya, too, will be destroyed — its schools, education system, water, infrastructure, hospitals, and municipal buildings. There will be numerous “tragic mistakes” and “collateral damage,” involving mothers, fathers, children, babies, grandparents, the blind and the deaf, and so on. And like the wonders of past empire’s remains, as with these nations’ rich histories (Iraq and Afghanistan), Libya’s, too, will be gone… forever.
Finally, let’s apply this agnotology to the Philippine setting: The debates between pro- and anti-nuclear power advocates, same with pro- and anti-Merci Gutierrez impeachment proponents simply reveal that both sides are wrong. In the former instance, all of them are all deliberately leaving out geothermal power in their discussions. This, despite a 2010 report by the World Geothermal Congress that total potential of the world for geothermal energy “…is equivalent to 40,000 GW while the total world energy demand (today) is equivalent to 15,000 GW.”
Both the pro- and anti-nuclear power lobbies are definitely creating ignorance of the only true alternative — geothermal energy, of which the Philippine has limitless potential.
Meantime, in the Merci impeachment moro-moro, the nation is being kept ignorant of the fact that both sides are similarly corrupted and will never work to sustain the “Rule of Law” when they all threw this away and resorted to the “Rule of Force” in the case of President Joseph Estrada.
Truly, the facts are there for all to see; and only an agnotological media will continue to befuddle the issues to the people’s detriment.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM dwAD; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “Energy Futures;” visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus select radio and GNN shows)
Monday, March 21, 2011
Agnotology in Philippine journalism
CRITIC'S CRITIC
Mentong Laurel
3/21-27/2011
While the earthquake and tsunami of Sendai continue to reshape the Japanese Islands as well as world views about tectonic shifts and nuclear energy, a term I came across the past few weeks could be of the same import in our understanding of media and information in society--“Agnotology.” It is indeed timely considering OpinYon’s last cover story (“Muzzling the Press”), where it highlighted the entry of Big Business into media.
San Miguel Corp. and the Manny Pangilinan juggernaut are into all forms of media acquisitions these days, breaking down whatever barriers there are against corporate monopolies of multimedia as a devastating tsunami would against any coastal town along its path.
Pangilinan has taken over ABC Channel 5 and has his sights on two dailies, increasingly co-opting media and controlling news interpretation. The same happened with the Lopez-controlled ABS-CBN and Meralco, which allowed the latter, in cahoots with the Asian Development Bank (ADB), to buy the 2001 passage of the EPIRA law without the people realizing that it would cause the Philippines to suffer the highest power rates in Asia .
Agnotology is the term for the study of culturally-induced ignorance or doubt, where media shapes 70 percent of culture. It’s a neologism coined by Robert N. Proctor of Stanford University , rooted in the Greek agnosis or “not knowing.” Proctor also coined terms to describe new information conditions such as “structured apathy,” “victims of disinterest,” “the social construction of ignorance,” etc. In 2003, he described agnotology as the “study of ignorance.”
Agnotology differs from “propaganda” in that the latter can be prima facie false while the former uses other strategies than outright falsehood. An example is the American tobacco industry’s campaign of raising other health hazards to induce doubt that tobacco use causes cancer. Bush’s use of the “Weapons of Mass Destruction” (WMD) canard to start the Iraq War is another agnotological stratagem.
In the Philippines, a good example is Meralco and sister company ABS-CBN’s cover-up of the sordid details of the EPIRA law through a 2001 TV ad that featured a couple with a new electric fan saying EPIRA will bring power costs down.
Everyday in Philippine newspapers, agnotological journalism is at work. Over the past week, this vital information came up only in inside sections of newspapers: The P690-billion debt service of the country--almost equivalent to half of the national budget--on its $67-billion foreign debt, which is of “tsunamic” proportions.
Compare this to the estimated damage of the Sendai magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami at $100 billion and you can easily deduce that the Philippines has been living in a continuing tsunami all this time--one that is financial and economic, and in epic proportions. Yet such an issue almost never makes it to the front pages nor does it ever become a serious subject for debate among the 50 or so major columnists in this country.
It’s so bad that another “victim” to this “structured ignorance” has been the idle P1.2-trillion Special Deposit Account (SDA) held by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. No one seems to care to bring up this interest-earning SDA even as the country scrounges for “foreign investors” who make us swallow onerous terms for BOT investments that make us even poorer.
Peter Wallace, whom the corporate powers with their advertising and PR clout compel local media to cite as an economic “authority,” pushes for foreigners to be allowed to own media in the country. He writes in Manila Standard Today: “In the 1986 discussions of the Constitutional Convention, it was decided that foreigners should not be allowed to influence the Filipino public so foreign media was banned from operating in the Philippines … But this is meaningless in 2011. I can tune in to CNN anytime… Today it’s in your living room at the flick of a switch (sorry “push of a programmed button”). CNN can dominate you without trying. So why not let them have an office here?”
Wallace leaves out one vital issue that the public is ignorant of: That, when allowed full rein, foreign media players will also be buying into local newspapers and similar media to take full control of editorial policy. So, it’s not as simple as allowing them an office here--which they in fact have, along with a number of correspondents. If anything, Wallace’s CNN argument shows that we do not need them to own local papers (to fortify their presence here) since we can get them on TV anyway.
Indeed, agnotological techniques are a most useful tool in political column writing. Bobi Tiglao in his “Outlook” on the “Frenzy against Merci,” in defense of the embattled and discredited Ombudsman in the “plea bargain” for Gen. Carlos Garcia, said: “…For starters, even if all Gutierrez did in the past five years was to win only this particular conviction, her performance would have been stellar. I am referring to the conviction of former President Joseph Estrada in 2007, which was during Gutierrez’s watch, the first time that a president was convicted of graft.”
Tiglao leaves out the fact that the court that tried Estrada was a political “kangaroo court;” that the decisions were clearly distorted; and that all the jurors were well-rewarded by the political authority then (Tiglao’s benefactor, Gloria Arroyo) with promotions to the Supreme Court or, like Merci, to the Ombudsman’s post. What this shows is that these Gloria Arroyo stooges, whether conscious or not, are foremost experts in agnotology, spreading themselves out as columnists in several newspapers sowing agnotological ignorance.
But then, they must have had ample time to practice since the anti-Marcos campaign that was initiated by the Yellows has long been another example of this agnotological “structured ignorance” done on a massive scale--in schools from the elementary to the university level; in church sermons; in Western media including the History Channel; as well as in local media--in a campaign that has lasted 25 years since 1986.
The nationalistic economic development program of Marcos, i.e. his successful car manufacturing, copper smelter, local fertilizer production achievements, etc., has been almost completely wiped out from all historical accounts of that period. Despite this, what the Yellow movement’s agnotological campaign has not been able to erase is the memory of the “rice exports” Marcos achieved, which goes to prove that historical facts and truth will still out so long as the faithful historical memory of ordinary citizens survive.
In this regard, we must point out that Imelda Marcos also continues to be a victim whenever her “3,000 pairs of shoes” are mentioned, since it is seldom explained that most of these were gifts from Marikina shoe makers who wanted Imelda to promote their products by wearing them--small comfort for an industry subsequently killed by the Yellows’ wholesale adoption of liberalization and globalization.
Thus, it is evident that the task of genuine journalism and its advocates, such as OpinYon’s writers, is to keep filling in the deliberate gaps that the mainstream agnotological media deliberately leave behind.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “Philippine Energy Alternatives;” visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and watch or listen to our select radio and GNN shows)
Mentong Laurel
3/21-27/2011
While the earthquake and tsunami of Sendai continue to reshape the Japanese Islands as well as world views about tectonic shifts and nuclear energy, a term I came across the past few weeks could be of the same import in our understanding of media and information in society--“Agnotology.” It is indeed timely considering OpinYon’s last cover story (“Muzzling the Press”), where it highlighted the entry of Big Business into media.
San Miguel Corp. and the Manny Pangilinan juggernaut are into all forms of media acquisitions these days, breaking down whatever barriers there are against corporate monopolies of multimedia as a devastating tsunami would against any coastal town along its path.
Pangilinan has taken over ABC Channel 5 and has his sights on two dailies, increasingly co-opting media and controlling news interpretation. The same happened with the Lopez-controlled ABS-CBN and Meralco, which allowed the latter, in cahoots with the Asian Development Bank (ADB), to buy the 2001 passage of the EPIRA law without the people realizing that it would cause the Philippines to suffer the highest power rates in Asia .
Agnotology is the term for the study of culturally-induced ignorance or doubt, where media shapes 70 percent of culture. It’s a neologism coined by Robert N. Proctor of Stanford University , rooted in the Greek agnosis or “not knowing.” Proctor also coined terms to describe new information conditions such as “structured apathy,” “victims of disinterest,” “the social construction of ignorance,” etc. In 2003, he described agnotology as the “study of ignorance.”
Agnotology differs from “propaganda” in that the latter can be prima facie false while the former uses other strategies than outright falsehood. An example is the American tobacco industry’s campaign of raising other health hazards to induce doubt that tobacco use causes cancer. Bush’s use of the “Weapons of Mass Destruction” (WMD) canard to start the Iraq War is another agnotological stratagem.
In the Philippines, a good example is Meralco and sister company ABS-CBN’s cover-up of the sordid details of the EPIRA law through a 2001 TV ad that featured a couple with a new electric fan saying EPIRA will bring power costs down.
Everyday in Philippine newspapers, agnotological journalism is at work. Over the past week, this vital information came up only in inside sections of newspapers: The P690-billion debt service of the country--almost equivalent to half of the national budget--on its $67-billion foreign debt, which is of “tsunamic” proportions.
Compare this to the estimated damage of the Sendai magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami at $100 billion and you can easily deduce that the Philippines has been living in a continuing tsunami all this time--one that is financial and economic, and in epic proportions. Yet such an issue almost never makes it to the front pages nor does it ever become a serious subject for debate among the 50 or so major columnists in this country.
It’s so bad that another “victim” to this “structured ignorance” has been the idle P1.2-trillion Special Deposit Account (SDA) held by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. No one seems to care to bring up this interest-earning SDA even as the country scrounges for “foreign investors” who make us swallow onerous terms for BOT investments that make us even poorer.
Peter Wallace, whom the corporate powers with their advertising and PR clout compel local media to cite as an economic “authority,” pushes for foreigners to be allowed to own media in the country. He writes in Manila Standard Today: “In the 1986 discussions of the Constitutional Convention, it was decided that foreigners should not be allowed to influence the Filipino public so foreign media was banned from operating in the Philippines … But this is meaningless in 2011. I can tune in to CNN anytime… Today it’s in your living room at the flick of a switch (sorry “push of a programmed button”). CNN can dominate you without trying. So why not let them have an office here?”
Wallace leaves out one vital issue that the public is ignorant of: That, when allowed full rein, foreign media players will also be buying into local newspapers and similar media to take full control of editorial policy. So, it’s not as simple as allowing them an office here--which they in fact have, along with a number of correspondents. If anything, Wallace’s CNN argument shows that we do not need them to own local papers (to fortify their presence here) since we can get them on TV anyway.
Indeed, agnotological techniques are a most useful tool in political column writing. Bobi Tiglao in his “Outlook” on the “Frenzy against Merci,” in defense of the embattled and discredited Ombudsman in the “plea bargain” for Gen. Carlos Garcia, said: “…For starters, even if all Gutierrez did in the past five years was to win only this particular conviction, her performance would have been stellar. I am referring to the conviction of former President Joseph Estrada in 2007, which was during Gutierrez’s watch, the first time that a president was convicted of graft.”
Tiglao leaves out the fact that the court that tried Estrada was a political “kangaroo court;” that the decisions were clearly distorted; and that all the jurors were well-rewarded by the political authority then (Tiglao’s benefactor, Gloria Arroyo) with promotions to the Supreme Court or, like Merci, to the Ombudsman’s post. What this shows is that these Gloria Arroyo stooges, whether conscious or not, are foremost experts in agnotology, spreading themselves out as columnists in several newspapers sowing agnotological ignorance.
But then, they must have had ample time to practice since the anti-Marcos campaign that was initiated by the Yellows has long been another example of this agnotological “structured ignorance” done on a massive scale--in schools from the elementary to the university level; in church sermons; in Western media including the History Channel; as well as in local media--in a campaign that has lasted 25 years since 1986.
The nationalistic economic development program of Marcos, i.e. his successful car manufacturing, copper smelter, local fertilizer production achievements, etc., has been almost completely wiped out from all historical accounts of that period. Despite this, what the Yellow movement’s agnotological campaign has not been able to erase is the memory of the “rice exports” Marcos achieved, which goes to prove that historical facts and truth will still out so long as the faithful historical memory of ordinary citizens survive.
In this regard, we must point out that Imelda Marcos also continues to be a victim whenever her “3,000 pairs of shoes” are mentioned, since it is seldom explained that most of these were gifts from Marikina shoe makers who wanted Imelda to promote their products by wearing them--small comfort for an industry subsequently killed by the Yellows’ wholesale adoption of liberalization and globalization.
Thus, it is evident that the task of genuine journalism and its advocates, such as OpinYon’s writers, is to keep filling in the deliberate gaps that the mainstream agnotological media deliberately leave behind.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “Philippine Energy Alternatives;” visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and watch or listen to our select radio and GNN shows)
Talk News TV with Herman Tiu Laurel
TOPIC: Cuba, Venezuela on Libya
Guests: Ambassadors Manuel Perez Iturbe of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and Juan Carlos Arencible Corrales of the Republic of Cuba
[PART 1]
[PART 2]
Guests: Ambassadors Manuel Perez Iturbe of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and Juan Carlos Arencible Corrales of the Republic of Cuba
[PART 1]
[PART 2]
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