The propaganda model is a theory advanced by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky that alleges systemic biases in the mass media and seeks to explain them in terms of structural economic causes. Theory has a number of distinct meanings in different fields of knowledge, depending on the context and their methodologies. ... Edward S. Herman is an economist and media analyst with a specialty in corporate and regulatory issues as well as political economy and the media. ... Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (b. ... For Wikipedias policy on avoiding bias, see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. ... Mass media is a term used to denote, as a class, that section of the media specifically conceived and designed to reach a very large audience (typically at least as large as the whole population of a nation state). ... Economics (deriving from the Greek words οίκω [okos], house, and νέμω [nemo], rules hence household management) is the social science that studies the allocation of scarce resources to satisfy unlimited wants. ...

Overview

First presented in their 1988 book Manufacturing Consent: the Political Economy of the Mass Media, the propaganda model views the private media as businesses selling a product — readers and audiences (rather than news) — to other businesses (advertisers). The theory postulates five general classes of "filters" that determine the type of news that is presented in news media. These five are: Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media is a book by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, first published in 1988. ...

1. Ownership of the medium
2. Medium's funding sources
3. Sourcing
4. Flak
5. Anti-communist ideology

The first three (ownership, funding, and sourcing) are generally regarded by the authors as being the most important. Ownership is the state or fact of exclusive possession or control of property, which may be an object, land/real estate, intellectual property or some other kind of property. ... Funding or financing is to provide capital (funds), which means money for a project, a person, a business or any other private or public institution. ... Source is a term used in journalism to refer to any individual from whom information about a story has been received. ... The word flak can mean:- Anti-aircraft gunfire, derived from the German Flugabwehrkanone, for aircraft defense cannon, during World War II. See also 88 mm gun criticism, as a metaphorical extension of the previous, e. ... Anti-communism is an ideology of opposition to communist organization, government and ideology. ... An ideology is an organized collection of ideas. ...

Although the model was based mainly on the characterization of United States media, Chomsky and Herman believe the theory is equally applicable to any country that shares the basic economic structure and organizing principles which the model postulates as the cause of media biases.[1]

The filters

Ownership

Herman and Chomsky argue that all mainstream media outlets are embodied in large corporations, which are themselves often part of much larger conglomerates (e.g. Westinghouse or General Electric). Such conglomerates frequently extend beyond traditional media fields, and thus have extensive financial interests that may be endangered when certain information is widely publicized. Thus, according to this reasoning, news items that most endanger the corporate financial interests that own the media will face the most bias and censorship. A corporation is a legal person which, while being composed of natural persons, exists completely separately from them. ... A conglomerate is a large company that consists of divisions of often seemingly unrelated businesses. ... Westinghouse logo (designed by Paul Rand) The Westinghouse Electric Company, headquartered in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, is an organization founded by George Westinghouse in 1886. ... GE redirects here; for other uses, see GE (disambiguation). ...

The authors claim that the importance of ownership filter is the fact that corporations are subject to shareholder control in the context of a profit-oriented market economy. The theory then argues that maximizing profit means sacrificing news objectivity, and news sources that ultimately survive must have been fundamentally biased, with regard to news in which they have a conflict of interest. A shareholder or stockholder is an individual or company (including a corporation) that legally owns one or more shares of stock in a joint stock company. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... A market economy (aka free market economy and free enterprise economy) is an economic system in which the production and distribution of goods and services takes place through the mechanism of free markets guided by a free price system rather than by the state in a planned economy. ...

Funding

Since the mainstream media depends heavily on advertising revenues to survive, the model suggests that the interests of advertisers come before reporting the news. Chomsky and Herman argue that a newspaper, like any other company, has a product which it offers to its audience (or customer base). In this case, however, the product is composed of the affluent readers who buy the newspaper — who also comprise the educated decision-making sector of the population — while the audience includes the businesses that pay to advertise their goods. According to this "filter", the news itself is nothing more than "filler" to get privileged readers to see the advertisements which makes up the real content, and will thus take whatever form is most conducive to attracting educated decision-makers. Stories that conflict with their "buying mood", it is argued, will tend to be marginalized or excluded, as will information that presents a picture of the world that collides with advertisers' interests. The theory argues that the people buying the newspaper are themselves the product which is sold to the businesses that buy advertising space; the newspaper itself has only a marginal role as the product. Advertising, generally speaking, is the promotion of goods, services, companies and ideas, usually performed by an identified sponsor. ...

Sourcing

The third filter concerns the mass media's need for a continuous flow of information to fill their demand for daily news. In an industrialized economy where consumers demand information on numerous worldwide events unfolding simultaneously, they argue that this task can only be filled by major business and government sectors that have the necessary material resources. This includes mainly The Pentagon and other governmental bodies. Chomsky and Herman then argue that a "symbiotic relationship" arises between the media and parts of government which is sustained by economic necessity and reciprocity of interest. On the one hand, government and news-promoters strive to make it easier for news organizations to buy their services; according to the authors (p. 22), they Mass media is a term used to denote, as a class, that section of the media specifically conceived and designed to reach a very large audience (typically at least as large as the whole population of a nation state). ... The World in Plate Carrée Projection In English, world is rooted in a compound of the obsolete words were, man, and eld, age; thus, its oldest meaning is Age of Man. ... A pre-9/11 view of The Pentagon, looking east with the Potomac River and Washington Monument in the distance. ...

• provide them with facilities in which to gather
• give journalists advance copies of speeches and forthcoming reports
• schedule press conferences at hours well-geared to news deadlines
• write press releases in usable language
• carefully organize their press conferences and "photo opportunity" sessions

On the other hand, the media becomes reluctant to run articles that will harm corporate interests that provide them with the resources that the media depends upon.

This theoretical relationship also gives rise to a "moral division of labor", in which "officials have and give the facts," and "reporters merely get them". Journalists are then supposed to adopt an uncritical attitude that makes it possible for them to accept corporate values without experiencing cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is the perception of incompatibility between two cognitions, which can be defined as any element of knowledge, attitude, emotion, belief or value, or a goal, plan, or interest. ...

Flak

Chomsky and Herman claim that "flak" refers to negative responses to a media statement or program. The term "flak" has been used to describe what Chomsky and Herman see as targeted efforts to discredit organizations or individuals who disagree with or cast doubt on the prevailing assumptions which Chomsky and Herman view as favorable to established power (e.g., "The Establishment"). Unlike the first three "filtering" mechanisms — which are derived from analysis of market mechanisms — flak is characterized by concerted and intentional efforts to manage public information. The Establishment is a pejorative slang term to refer to the traditional and usually conservative ruling class elite and the structures of society which they control. ...

Flak from the powerful can be either direct or indirect. The direct could include the following hypothetical scenarios:

• Letters or phone calls from the White House to Dan Rather or William Paley
• Inquiries from the FCC to major television networks requesting documents used to plan and assemble a program
• Messages from irate executives representing advertising agencies or corporate sponsors to media officials threatening retaliation if not granted on-air reply time.

The powerful can also work on the media indirectly by: The southern side of the White House The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of the United States of America. ... Dan Rather, from a telecast in October 2004. ... William Paley William Paley (July, 1743 - May 25, 1805), English divine, Christian apologist and philosopher, was born at Peterborough, Northamptonshire. ... The abbreviation FCC can refer to: Face-centered cubic (usually fcc), a crystallographic structure Federal Communications Commission, a US government organization Farm Credit Corporation/Farm Credit Canada, a Canadian government organization Families with Children from China, an adoption support organization Florida Christian College, a college in central Florida Fresno City... Advertising, generally speaking, is the promotion of goods, services, companies and ideas, usually performed by an identified sponsor. ... Sponsors in the 12 step tradition help the addict to recover by bringing a personal experience of recovery on a one to one basis. ...

• Complaints delivered en masse to their own constituencies (e.g., stockholders, employees) about media bias,
• Generation of mass advertising that does the same,
• By funding watchdog groups or think tanks engineered to expose and attack deviations in media coverage that endanger vital elite interests.
• By funding political campaigns that elect politicians who will be more willing to curb any such media deviations.

A shareholder or stockholder is an individual or company (including a corporation), that legally owns one or more shares of stock in a joint stock company. ... Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. ... A watchdog originally referred to a dogs job, but now has been used in additional contexts with the same implication of watching or safeguarding: For the dogs job, see guard dog. ... This article is about the institution. ... Look up elite, élite in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ...

Anti-Ideologies; substitutes for anti-communism

A final filter is anti-ideology. Anti-ideologies exploit public fear and hatred of groups that pose a potential threat, either real or imagined. Communism once posed the primary threat according to the model. Communism and socialism were portrayed by their detractors as endangering freedoms of speech, movement, press, etc. They argue that such a portrayal was often used as a means to silence voices critical of elite interests. communist party article. ... Socialism refers to a broad array of doctrines or political movements that envisage a socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to social control. ...

With the Soviet Union's collapse, proponents of the propaganda model have argued that the functionality and credibility of anti-communism has been fundamentally compromised. Proponents state that new, more functional anathemas have arisen to take its place. Chomsky and Herman argue that one possible replacement for anti-communism seems to have emerged in the form of "anti-terrorism". Anathema (Greek Word -Ανάθεμα-: meaning originally something lifted up as an offering to the gods; later, with evolving meanings, it came to mean 1. ... The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ...

Empirical support

Following the theoretical exposition of the propaganda model, Manufacturing Consent contains a large section where the authors seek to test their hypotheses. If the propaganda model is right and the filters do influence media content, a particular form of bias would be expected — one that systematically favors corporate interests.

They also looked at what they perceived as naturally-occurring "historical control groups" where two events, similar in their relevant properties but differing in the expected media attitude towards them, are contrasted using objective measures such as coverage of key events (measured in column inches) or editorials favoring a particular issue (measured in number). From Latin ex- + -periri (akin to periculum attempt). ...

Finally, the authors examine what points of view they believe are expressed in the media. In one case, the authors examined over fifty of Stephen Kinzer's articles about Nicaragua in the New York Times. They criticize Kinzer for failing to quote a single person in Nicaragua who is pro-Sandinista and contrast this with polls that Chomsky and Herman cite as reporting a 9% support for all the opposition parties taken together. Based on this example and select others, the authors conclude that such a persistent bias can only be explained by a model like the one they advocate. Stephen Kinzer is an American author and newspaper reporter. ... Sandinista! is also the name of a popular music album by The Clash. ...

Applications

Since the publication of Manufacturing Consent, both Herman and Chomsky have adopted the theory and have given it a prominent role in their writings, lectures, and theoretical frameworks. Chomsky, in particular, has made extensive use of its explanative power to lend support to his own interpretations of mainstream media attitudes towards a wide array of events, including the following:

• Gulf War (1990)
• Panama invasion (1989)
• Iraq invasion (2003).

Herman, seeking to build upon a more institutionalized framework to analyze mainstream media functioning, joined the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), which has as its goal the critique, documentation, and statistical analysis of what it alleges is media bias and censorship since 1986. Combatants U.S.-led coalition Iraq Commanders George H. W. Bush Norman Schwarzkopf Colin Powell Saddam Hussein Ali Hassan al-Majid Hussein Kamel Strength 660,000 545,000 Casualties 345 dead, 1,000 wounded 25,000 - 100,000 dead, 100,000 - 300,000 wounded The 1991 Gulf War (also called... This article is about the year. ... Combatants United States Panama Commanders General Carl W. Stiner Manuel Noriega Strength 27,684+ 3,000+ Casualties 23 Dead, 324 Wounded 450 Military, 200-4,000 Civilian U.S. Army Rangers prepare to take La Comandancia in the El Chorrillo neighborhood of Panama City, December 1989. ... 1989 (MCMLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Combatants Coalition Forces (United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Poland) Iraq Commanders Tommy Franks Saddam Hussein Strength 263,000 375,000 The 2003 invasion of Iraq, termed Operation Iraqi Freedom by the US administration, began on March 20. ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), founded in 1986, is an American organization that works against and documents bias in the media, censorship, and erroneous reporting. ... 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

With the emergence of the World Wide Web as a cheap and potentially wide-ranging means of communication, a number of independent websites have surfaced which adopt the propaganda model to subject media to close scrutiny. Several examples of these are MediaLens, a British-based site authored by David Edwards and David Cromwell. The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is a global, read-write information space. ... MediaLens is a media analysis website based in the United Kingdom. ... David Edwards (born 1962) is a British political writer who specializes in the analysis of corporate media. ... David Cromwell is an oceanographer and writer. ...

Criticism

Critics of Chomsky and Herman's mass media analysis, including author and historian Victor Davis Hanson of the Hoover Institution severely disagree with Chomsky and Herman's theories. They see the idea of "Manufacturing Consent" as nothing more than a recycling of the Marxist idea of "false consciousness", (as in Herbert Marcuse's One-Dimensional Man), where the masses have been so manipulated that they have neither the perspective or intellect to see beyond the propaganda and require "superior intellects" like Chomsky's to point out to them the real truth. They also focus on the idea that Chomsky and Herman are so far out of the mainstream political spectrum that they seek to explain their marginalization as a “conspiracy of the elite” to suppress their criticisms, instead of the idea that their philosophy is unacceptable in the mainstream, and therefore ignored by the mainstream population. American Historian Victor Davis Hanson on C-SPAN Victor Davis Hanson (born September 5, 1953 in Fowler, California) is an American military historian and political essayist of Swedish descent, best known as a scholar of ancient warfare as well as a commentator on modern warfare. ... Hoover Tower The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace is a conservative/libertarian public policy think tank and library founded by Herbert Hoover at Stanford University, his alma mater. ... False consciousness is the Engelsist hypothesis that material and institutional processes in capitalist society mislead the proletariat — and perhaps the other classes — over the nature of capitalism. ... Herbert Marcuse (July 19, 1898 – July 29, 1979) was a prominent German-American philosopher and sociologist of Jewish descent, member of the Frankfurt School. ... One-Dimensional Man is a work by Herbert Marcuse, first published in 1964. ...

Arch Puddington, also of the Hoover Institution, claims he sees virtually no empirical evidence in media coverage, specifically regarding the mass media's treatment of Cambodia and East Timor, to back the claims made in Manufacturing Consent. Stephen J. Morris, a critic of Chomsky's position on Cambodia, evaluates Herman and Chomsky's propaganda model by reviewing their analysis of media coverage during the rule of the Khmer Rouge. Chomsky and Herman argue that the "flood of rage and anger directed against the Khmer Rouge" peaking in early 1977, was a concrete example of their "propaganda model" in action. They argued that the media was singling out Cambodia, an enemy of the United States, while under-reporting human rights abuses by American allies such as South Korea and Chile. A study performed by Jamie Frederic Metzl (Responses to Human Rights Abuses in Cambodia, 1975–80) analyzes major media reporting on Cambodia and concludes that media coverage on Cambodia was more intense when there were events with an international angle, but had largely disappeared by 1977. Metzl also challenges Chomsky and Herman by claiming that of all the articles published regarding Cambodia, less than one in twenty dealt with the political violence being perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge.

Bruce Sharp [2], and Sophal Ear [3] argue that Chomsky has shown little respect to Karl Popper's criterion of induction: that scientific theories must be falsifiable. So Sharp argues that Chomsky and Herman prematurely assume their theory is true and seek only evidence to support it rather than looking at other theories, or for evidence that contradicts the theory. For example, it is undeniable that the media spent more time covering the Khmer Rouge atrocities in Cambodia than those in East Timor, but it is possible that this was (at least partly) because journalists were already in the region of Cambodia (i.e. Vietnam) and found it easy to interview refugees from the Khmer Rouge, whereas it was more difficult to access East Timor. Sharp points out that Chomsky and Herman sideline the fact that fatalities in Cambodia were far higher (in the millions) than in East Timor (estimated at 200,000), which might provide another explanation for the differences in media coverage. Sir Karl Raimund Popper, CH, KT, MA, Ph. ...

Related organizations

• Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
• MediaLens
• Free Press
• Independent Media Center
• Media Matters for America[4]

Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), founded in 1986, is an American organization that works against and documents bias in the media, censorship, and erroneous reporting. ... MediaLens is a media analysis website based in the United Kingdom. ... In the modern age, the free press has taken on multiple meanings. ... Indymedia Logo The Independent Media Center (aka Indymedia or IMC) is a global network of independent journalists and alternative media. ... Screenshot from Media Matters for America (Jan 6, 2006) Media Matters for America is a non-profit organization founded by former journalist David Brock. ...

References

1. Chomsky, Noam. Understanding Power: the Indispensable Chomsky. New York: the New Press, 2002.
2. Herman, ..... and Chomsky, Noam. Manufacturing Consent: the Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books, 1988.
3. The myth of the liberal media, Documentary, 1997. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8782509076175388309
4. Herman, Edward S. 'The Propaganda Model: A Retrospective,' Against All Reason, December 9, 2003.
5. Klaehn, Jeffery (ed.) Filtering the News: Essays on Herman and Chomsky's Propaganda Model. Edinburgh: Black Rose, 2005.
6. ----. 'A Critical Review and Assessment of Herman and Chomsky's Propaganda Model, European Journal of Communication, Volume 17(2)
7. Sharp, Bruce 'Averaging Wrong Answers: Noam Chomsky and the Cambodia Controversy
8. ^a  Patrick Le Lay quote about selling the brains of viewers
9. ^b  http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/38/9671