media

ICS 2001 – Essay #1 – The Propaganda Model

Length: 5 pages double spaced, Font Times New Roman, Size 12

Due: Tuesday, February 27th, 11:30AM 
 Format: Electronic. Dropbox. *You may work in groups of 2 or 3 for this assignment.

Requirements: APA Format, Minimum of 3 Academic Sources (journal articles, library books, etc).

Introduction.

Chomsky argues that the information we receive from traditional broadcast media is heavily influenced by an elite class that have a vested interest in how we see the world. He terms this the propaganda model and listed below are the five associated filters:

Ownership. Size, ownership, and profit orientation: News items that most endanger the corporate financial interests of those who own the media will face the greatest bias and censorship.

Advertising. The people buying/consuming the content (audience) are the product which is sold to the businesses that buy advertising space. (TV, Paper, etc)

Sourcing. Mass media are drawn into a symbiotic relationship with powerful sources of information by economic necessity and reciprocity of interest.

Flak. Any message that deviates too far from the norm may face flak (pushback). It may take the form of letters, telegrams, phone calls, petitions, lawsuits, speeches and other modes of complaint, threat and punitive action.

Anti-communism and fear (now the War on Terror). Exploit public fear and hatred of groups that pose a potential threat, either real, exaggerated or imagined.

The promise of new media (Web 2.0, Blogs, Facebook, YouTube) is that ordinary citizens can now create, distribute, connect, and collaborate on global basis. Given that new media provides citizens with this potential power, the question I want you to address is:

Is new media able to able to resist these propaganda model filters or does new media succumb to these same pressures?

A couple of questions/points you could think about while working through this essay:

Consider the recent controversy at the Baron. Can you identify a role that the filters identified by Chomsky played in this situation?

Can you post anything you want on FaceBook (or any type of social media) or are there limits? Which of Chomsky’s filters might this example refer to?

Bloggers, independent journalists, and video bloggers may act independently to report on important news events. How do they access information or decide on what news events to report? Do they still depend on what Chomsky would call the ‘agenda setting media? Does this relate to the ‘sourcing’ filter in the propaganda model?

What role does advertising play in new media? Does this influence the content of independent journalists and bloggers?

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