Myth of the Liberal Media

Edward Herman & Noam Chomsky

Propaganda Model

“So I don’t call this a ‘theory’ or anything like that – it is virtually just an observation.  What Ed Herman and I call the ‘Propaganda Model’ . . . is really just a kind of truism – it just says that you’d expect institutions to work in their own interests, because if they didn’t they wouldn’t be able to function for very long.  So I think that the ‘Propaganda Model’ is primarily useful just as a tool to help us think about the media – it’s really not much deeper than that.”

           Chomsky, Understanding Power, pp. 14-15.

 

•Traces the routes by which money and power are able to

–filter out the news fit to print,

–marginalize dissent, and

–allow the government and dominant private interests to get their messages across to the public

•The essential ingredients of the propaganda model are a set of news “filters”

 

News Filters

•Ownership

•Advertising

•News Makers

•News Shapers

•Flak

 

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Determinants of News Construction

In constructing the news story, journalists and editors choose what to include and exclude in accordance with select values and viewpoints

1.Profitability ( = purpose of the news)

2.News Filters (re: Chomsky and Herman) 

3.Individual values (insofar as not in conflict w/ 1 & 2)