The Myth of the Liberal Media: The Propaganda Model of News (2002; must-see)

Dandelion Salad

Please turn off your TV. Forever. ~ DS

Image by niiicedave via Flickr

Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky demolish one of the central tenets of our political culture, the idea of the “liberal media.” Instead, utilizing a systematic model based on massive empirical research, they reveal the manner in which the news media are so subordinated to corporate and conservative interests that their function can only be described as that of “elite propaganda.”

“If you want to understand the way a system works, you look at its institutional structure. How it is organized, how it is controlled, how it is funded.” -Noam Chomsky

“The Mainstream media really represent elite interests, and what the propaganda model tries to do is stipulate a set of institutional variables, reflecting this elite power, that very powerfully influence the media.” -Edward Herman

Sections: The Propaganda Model & Agenda Setting | The Ownership Filter | The Advertising Filter | The Newsmakers Filter | The News Shapers Filter | The Flak Filter | The Attack on the Welfare State | The Attack on Social Security | The Attack on Health Care | Labor & Business | Anti-Communism & The Free Market | Anti-Communism & The Free Market: Russia | Anti-Communism & The Free Market: Cuba | Dictators & Democracy | Dictators & Democracy: Saddam Hussein | Dictators & Democracy: Suharto

Filmmaker Info
Producer, Director: Sut Jhally
Line Producer, Editor: Katherine Sender
Assistant Editor: Sanjay Talreja
Camera: Robert Massey, David Rabinovitz & Mark Tebo
Sound: John Hawkes
Animation: Sanjay Talreja
Graphics: Kim Neumann & Matthew Soar

no longer available

Clip:

ChallengingMedia on Oct 4, 2006

Herman and Chomsky’s Propaganda Model, Pt. 1: An In-Depth Explanation

University Quick Course on Aug 23, 2019

This video is Part 1 of a basic explanation of Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s Propaganda Model. In their 1988 book, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, they outline 5 filters that critique “the political economy of the mass media”, namely that the mass media give the illusion that they are a neutral and democratic enterprise but, in reality, their primary function is to mobilize support for special interests that dominate government and the private sector.

Part 2

From the archives:

Manufacturing Consent (1992)

Sources in a World of Information by Sean Fenley

Once Again, War is Prime Time and Journalism’s Role is Taboo by John Pilger

Hail to the True Victors of Rupert’s Revolution by John Pilger