plus unifying resistance to concentrated political power & other updates

Professor Greg Philo has passed away. His funeral was held in Glasgow on the 13th of June. Philo was a sociologist and founder of the Glasgow University Media Group (GUMG) and his work on communications and media served to consolidate a body of genuinely critical research within academia. Their early ground-breaking analyses of mainstream media bias, including Bad News (1976), More Bad News (1980) and War and Peace News (1984), documented the systemic bias of the BBC when covering political issues such as the industrial unrest of the 1970s, the 1984-95 Miner’s Strike, and the 1982 Falklands conflict.

Many today, of course, have woken up to the fact that all corporate and mainstream media function to toe the official line and ‘manufacture consent’ for power elites. In the UK, and following the Covid-19 event, there is now a vast swathe of the population who have woken up to these realities, many of whom come from the ‘right’ of the political spectrum but who have little idea that scholarly critique of media power has been around for a very long time. Philo’s Glasgow University Media Group predates work such as Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent (1988), Daniel Hallin’s Uncensored War (1986) and Michael Parenti’s Inventing Reality (1993).

Although predictably sidelined, albeit not entirely, by mainstream scholarship, they succeeded in helping to bolster the strain of critical research providing empirically grounded critiques and analyses of media output. No quarter was given to the postmodernist pivot toward de-emphasising the power and influence of media. This particular intellectual black hole suggested that media had little to no ability to influence audiences one way or another, because of their (the audiences) ability to interpret and reinterpret messages. The GUMG’s Getting the Message: News, Truth and Power served as an important corrective to this empirically and conceptually flawed postmodern construct. Similarly, their research acted as counter-balance to the propensity of postmodernism, and its bedfellow poststructuralism, to catapult analyses into purely discursive realms, detached from engagement with material circumstances, events and political realities. The publication output (see here) of the GUMG demonstrates their commitment to academic research that engages with the real world and also tries to make a difference. They were also frequently attacked, of course, as is the case whenever one steps on the toes of vested interests and concentrated power. Philo and co, especially in the early days, had the courage to speak truth to power, whatever the consequences.

My colleague

, whose start in academic life was courtesy of Professor Philo, has written this obituary, published in .

And in the spirit of challenging power more effectively, the International Center for 9/11 Justice, in conjunction with UK Column, recently hosted the symposium ‘From “National Security” to “Biosecurity”: Global Power Dynamics and the Erosion of freedom in the 21st Century’. The event included talks from Professor Niels Harrit,

MD, MD, as well as myself, David Chandler, Ted Walter and Marilyn Langlois from IC9/11.

All of the presentations are available to view, either individually or complete as live-streamed on Youtube (see here). The primary objective of the symposium was to make the link between the the 9/11 and COVID-19 events. Both are primarily large scale political deceptions, or ‘structural deep events’, and both have led to large numbers of people waking up to the fact that we have a big problem with concentrated power, corrupt political elites, and their willingness to commit major crimes against us. Helping people to understand the parallels between these events is one way of enabling people to deepen their understanding of the power structures we are living within, whilst laying the groundwork for unifying the COVID-19 resistance with those who have been working for over 20 years now to expose the 9/11 crimes. All of the talks are worth watching but, in particular, I recommend

’s talk on the challenges facing freedom movements.

Continuing with the theme of knowledge, power and resistance,

and I joined Dr Aaron Good on his podcast American Exception in order to discuss our 2024 article ‘Understanding Power Dynamics and Moving Forward Beyond Divisions: COVID-19 through to Ukraine and Israel/Palestine’. There is a persistent tendency for formations of resistance to fragment, especially when new issues emerge and whilst power elites simultaneously work to exacerbate and exploit divisions; the familiar ‘divide and rule’ tactic. For example, the COVID-19 resistance has, to an extent, become divide over the Ukraine war and the genocide in Palestine with some elements either falling silent on, or otherwise promoting, official narratives and propaganda regarding these wars. At the same time, many retain a blindspot with respect to the realities of the COVID-19 event. At the heart of this, in empirical terms, are relatively opaque power elite networks that have likely been behind the instigation of the 9/11 and Covid-19 structural deep events.

We discuss these issues along with the need to develop a more accurate description and understanding of existing global power elites and how they are interfacing with geopolitical realities. A key take away point that we all agreed on is that resistance movements need to avoid falling into the trap of dismissing or otherwise downplaying one set of issues, e.g. Ukraine, Israel/Gaza, whilst simultaneously fixating on their own preferred analysis of what is going on in the world.

I am continuing work – research and writing – on the comparisons between Covid-19 and 9/11 and will also develop a detailed (academic) paper based on ‘Understanding Power’ and which maps more systematically the blind spots that have emerged across those studying and commenting on the international system and the recent Covid-19 event.

Many of these matters come up in recent interviews and I joined Professor Glen Diesen and Andrew Eborn on TNT Radio in order to discuss the current geopolitical situation as well as the need to place it in the context of 9/11 and the ensuing wars fought under the banner of a ‘global war on terror’:

I also spoke with James Freeman and Pelle Neroth Taylor recently on matters of propaganda and the Syria chemical weapons deception.

Finally, although I appreciate these things tend to be behind paywalls – ones that I have no control over – my latest academic publication is a chapter co-authored with Professor Tim Hayward and published in the Routledge volume Media Dissidence and the War in Ukraine. Here is a screenshot that includes the abstract.

By the way, my full list of academic publications, some of which are available online for free, can be found on google scholar which includes links to most of them:

Returning to the sad news this week, the work of Professor Philo had a big impact on my research and writing and he inspired many. The struggle against power and the pursuit of truth and justice remain front and centre, and the need for unity is greater than ever. Our fight continues.