Skip to main content

New evidence for the surprisingly significant propaganda role of the CIA and the DOD in the screen entertainment industry

This article reassesses the relationships of the Central Intelligence Agency and Department of Defense with the American entertainment industry. Both governmental institutions present their relationships as modest in scale, benign in nature, passive, and concerned with historical and technical accuracy rather than politics. The limited extant commentary reflects this reassuring assessment. However, we build on a patchy reassessment begun at the turn of the 21st century, using a significant new set of documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act. We identify three key facets of the state-entertainment relationship that are under-emphasized or absent from the existing commentary and historical record: 1. The withholding of available data from the public; 2. The scale of the work; and 3. The level of politicization. As such, the article emphasizes a need to pay closer attention to the deliberate propaganda role played by state agencies in promoting the US national security state through entertainment media in western societies.

Part 7 - Conclusions

The existing literature on the operations of the DOD and CIA ELOs is inadequate because it fails to account for the enormous scale of the phenomenon and its politicized, secretive and proactive nature.

When we first looked at the relationship between the national security services and motion pictures around the turn of the 21st century, we accepted the consensus opinion that state propaganda in the entertainment industry consisted of little more than a small office at the Pentagon, which had assisted the production of around 200 films throughout the history of modern media. This was flat out wrong.

A recent CIA Office of Inspector General (OIG) report into the Agency’s engagement with the entertainment industry highlights the difficulties that academics and journalists face when trying to research this subject. The OIG’s review took place in the wake of the scandal over secret information being given to the filmmakers behind Zero Dark Thirty. The report studied eight projects that the ELO had worked on, out of 22 in total between 2006 and 2011, including Zero Dark Thirty, Argo, documentaries for the BBC and the History Channel, the spy drama Covert Affairs and an episode of Top Chef.

The OIG criticized the ELO for poor record-keeping – there were no records on three out of the eight projects and only limited records for the other five. They also objected to the ELO for not having conducted an assessment of the consistency or effectiveness of their policies on granting or denying assistance to projects. Perhaps most seriously, the OIG admonished the ELO for breaching security protocols designed to protect classified information. The report notes how some meetings between entertainment industry representatives and CIA officers took place outside of CIA facilities, sometimes with the officers under cover, sometimes without any guidance from the Office of Public Affairs (OPA) before the meetings, and often without anyone from the OPA being present. This quasi-deniable relationship between the CIA and the entertainment industry means that even its own OIG cannot conduct a proper review of their operations, let alone researchers or the press. The lack of accountability is profoundly undemocratic. The number of 22 projects between January 2006 and April 2012 shows that after Chase Brandon’s departure the CIA’s operations in the entertainment industry continued on a similar scale.

The Pentagon has often intervened in the political and social dimensions of private-sector movies and entertainment products featuring military hardware or dramatizations of war and ‘national security’ matters. This has taken place especially in the preproduction phase, including in scripts, when withdrawal of military assistance may lead to cancellation of the movie project. While the CIA has far fewer cinematic assets and therefore less leverage over creative decisions, they have also demonstrated the ability to make substantial and politically-motivated changes to major movies.

Indeed, it appears the DOD have taken a leaf out of the CIA’s playbook as it has recently sought to become involved in entertainment productions from the earliest stages of the creative process. From 2010 to 2012 the Pentagon’s ELOs met with agents from William Morris Endeavor, one of the largest talent agencies in Hollywood, the heads of production for the ‘Group of 8’, and senior executives at Warner Bros and Columbia Pictures. The ELO reports state that the purpose of these meetings was for the DOD to find out how to better ‘enter studio projects early in the development stages when characters and storylines are most easily shaped to the Army’s benefit’ and so they could, ‘get involved early in the production timeline on potential projects and programs so we can help shape the topics before they are finalized by the studio executives’ (US Army, 2015). The most recently released documents show that the Air Force are inviting Hollywood executives on extended tours of military facilities to generate contacts and provide opportunities to ‘discuss Air Force storylines that [Air Force Public Affairs] is interested in highlighting’ (USAF, 2017). This more proactive approach is identical to the Chase Brandon era when, according to CIA chief of public affairs Bill Harlow, Brandon spent ‘many hours’ on the phone pitching ideas to writers (Jenkins and Alford, 2012). As such, while the CIA’s involvement in Hollywood is on a smaller scale than the DOD, the modus operandi of the two agencies is increasingly similar.

The CIA and DOD’s ability to alter the politics of our entertainment, without having to acknowledge publicly that they are doing so, raises fundamental ethical, legal, democratic and even epistemological concerns. In Alford’s own earlier work, building on Ed Herman and Noam Chomsky’s propaganda model, an inherent assumption is that the media industry filters out material that challenges powerful interests in a typically passive manner. What this latest research shows is that we cannot be complacent. The state is substantially more involved in the active manufacture of consent through entertainment than has been previously demonstrated.

***

Source, links, references:


[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

Read also:

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Zuckerberg changes camp in the capitalist civil war, joins the Musk-led oligarchy

globinfo freexchange   It was Mark Zuckerberg this time that decided to change camp in the capitalist civil war, in order to join the Musk-led oligarchy under the oncoming presidency of oligarchy's puppet.   The move by Meta to end its third-party fact-checking program and move to a so-called community notes model, has been justifiably widely interpreted as an attempt by Zuckerberg to ingratiate himself with the incoming Trump administration, which has long denounced the moderation policy as censorship with a left-wing bias.   From the first moments in his interview with Joe Rogan, Zuckerberg attempted to justify his previous policy regarding censorship practices in Facebook, claiming that he was receiving high pressure from the Democratic party to do so! The ex-liberal billionaire oligarch made an impressive 180 degrees turn, claiming that he knew that there was something wrong with the specific policy and that he tried to fight back against the pressure to imple...

Tech CEOs admit they want AI monopoly: US plans to block China's competition & 'steal' engineers

Geopolitical Economy Report   Big Tech oligarchs in Silicon Valley fear competition from Chinese AI companies like DeepSeek, so they're working with the US government to cut off competitors. Billionaire Donald Trump backer Peter Thiel admits they want monopolies, arguing "competition is for losers". Ben Norton explains. 

We asked DeepSeek if China will fully decouple from US dollar - Here is the answer we got in 19 secs

globinfo freexchange     The exact question was: Will China fully decouple from US dollar? The analysis we got in just 19 seconds is pretty impressive:   The question of whether China will "fully decouple" from the U.S. dollar is complex and hinges on geopolitical, economic, and strategic factors. While China has been actively diversifying its financial systems and reducing reliance on the dollar, a complete decoupling in the near term appears unlikely. Here's a balanced analysis: 1. Trends Toward Reduced Dollar Dependence De-dollarization Efforts : China has promoted the use of its currency, the  renminbi (RMB) , in international trade and finance. Initiatives like bilateral currency swaps (e.g., with Russia, Argentina, and others), the  Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) , and the digital yuan (e-CNY) aim to reduce dollar dependency. Commodity Trade : China increasingly settles energy and commodity trades (e.g., with Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Russia) ...

Trump BETRAYS MAGA & “America First” Over Gaza!

The Jimmy Dore Show  

In France, Ordinary Consumers Fund Tax Breaks for the Wealthy

Emmanuel Macron’s government gave tax breaks for France’s wealthiest while counting on purchase taxes paid by ordinary consumers. Now saying it has a budget hole to fill, his administration is again expecting working-class people to pick up the bill.   by Marlon Ettinger Part 1 President Emmanuel Macron picked François Bayrou as France’s new prime minister earlier this month, despite his lack of any parliamentary majority. Bayrou’s appointment on December 13 came just over a week after his predecessor Michel Barnier’s government was felled by a no-confidence vote proposed by the Left and joined by the far right, after Barnier tried to force through his budget without having the numbers in the National Assembly.  The most likely outcome now is that Bayrou, who comes from a party called the Democratic Movement, will reimpose last year’s budget by decree. The National Assembly has already assented to continuing last year’s budget by an emergency vote. France’s in many ways undemo...

Ο εκσυγχρονιστής της διαφθοράς: Όλη η αλήθεια για το βρόμικο σύστημα Σημίτη που συνεχίζει να καταστρέφει τη χώρα μέσα από το καθεστώς Μητσοτάκη

* Κείμενο και podcast από τον Κώστα Βαξεβάνη Τον Κώστα Σημίτη, αναμφίβολα θα τον κρίνει η Ιστορία, όπως λέγεται μάλλον εκ του πονηρού αυτές τις μέρες, αλλά τον πρώτο λόγο έχουν αυτοί τους οποίους εξαπάτησε. Το προφίλ του Δωρικού πανεπιστημιακού και σοβαρού πολιτικού που φιλοτεχνείται στη μετά θάνατο αποτίμηση της προσωπικότητάς του, είναι μια ακόμη απόδειξη ότι στάθηκε στη σωστή (για τη διαπλοκή) πλευρά της Ιστορίας. Φυσικά, για τον πρώην πρωθυπουργό έχει κάθε δικαίωμα να πενθεί, ο Κυριάκος Μητσοτάκης, ο οποίος όχι μόνο έκανε την καριέρα του ως «ρουσφέτι Σημίτη στην Εθνική Τράπεζα», αλλά τον αντέγραψε στα βασικά στοιχεία της πολιτικής του. Ο Μητσοτακισμός δεν είναι τίποτα άλλο από τον Σημιτισμό με άλλα, πιο ακραία μέσα. Ένα κοινό στοιχείο που επίσης εντοπίζεται σε Σημίτη και Μητσοτάκη, είναι ότι και οι δύο, κατάφεραν να αποκρύψουν σοβαρά ελλείμματα στην κοινωνική και πολιτική τους συμπεριφορά, επιστρατεύοντας μισθοφορικούς στρατούς από δημοσιογράφους και δημοσκόπους. Ο Κώστας Σημίτης δ...

Hamas Intends to Uphold Agreement, Senior Official Tells Drop Site in 30-Minute Interview

In an exclusive interview with Drop Site News , a senior Hamas official said that the group intends to uphold its side of the “ceasefire” deal—despite claims by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he received assurances from both President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump that Israel can resume its war against Gaza after the first phase of the agreement. “We are committed to this deal. We will exert the maximum efforts to give this deal a chance to succeed. We are looking for how to prevent the war again, how to protect our people. We will do the best to protect this deal,” said Dr. Basem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau. “What kind of side deals they have done, this is their business. But what I can say here: the American administration led by Biden, we consider complicit—directly complicit—in the genocide.”   [...]   Naim said that Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, as well as other resistance groups, are prepared to resume fighting if Is...

Did a Trump executive order just cripple the global US regime change network?

With federal funding paused to USAID, pro-Western media outlets from Ukraine to Nicaragua are panhandling for donations, and a multi-billion dollar regime change apparatus is in panic mode.   Part 1   Among the flurry of executive orders issued by President Donald Trump in the first days of his administration, perhaps the most consequential to date is one titled, “reevaluating and realigning US foreign aid.” Under this order, a 90-day pause was instantly enforced on all US foreign development assistance across the globe – excepting, of course, the largest recipients of US aid in Israel and Egypt. For now, the order forbids the disbursement of federal funding for any “non-governmental organizations, international organizations, and contractors” charged with delivering US “aid” programs overseas.  Within days, hundreds of “internal contractors” at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) were placed on unpaid leave or outright fired, as a direct result of the Exe...

Seeking Justice: Tracking IDF War Criminals Around The World

Glenn Greenwald  

Raffi Berg: BBC Middle East Editor Exposed as CIA, Mossad Collaborator

A senior BBC editor at the center of an ongoing scandal into the network’s systematic pro-Israel bias is, in fact, a former member of a CIA propaganda outfit, MintPress News can reveal. Raffi Berg, an Englishman who heads the BBC’s Middle East desk, formerly worked for the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Broadcast Information Service, a unit that, by his own admission, was a CIA front group. Berg is currently the subject of considerable scrutiny after thirteen BBC employees spoke out, claiming, among other things, that his “entire job is to water down everything that’s too critical of Israel” and that he holds “wild” amounts of power at the British state broadcaster, that there exists a culture of “extreme fear” at the BBC about publishing anything critical of Israel, and that Berg himself plays a key role in turning its coverage into “systematic Israeli propaganda.” The BBC has disputed these claims.   by Alan Macleod    Part 5 - A Worldwide Network   Whatever the v...