THE PROPAGANDA MODEL: A RETROSPECTIVE

Political economist, Edward Hermann, who co-wrote Manufacturing Consent with Noam Chomsky, revisits for the new millenium their propaganda model of news media behavior:

The dramatic changes in the economy, the communications industries, and politics over the past dozen years have tended on balance to enhance the applicability of the propaganda model. The first two filters--ownership and advertising--have become ever more important. The decline of public broadcasting, the increase in corporate power and global reach, and the mergers and centralization of the media, have made bottom-line considerations more influential both in the United States and abroad. The competition for advertisers has become more intense and the boundaries between editorial and advertising departments have weakened further. Newsrooms have been more thoroughly incorporated into transnational corporate empires, with budget cuts and even less management enthusiasm for investigative journalism that would challenge the structure of power (Herman and McChesney, 1997). In short, the professional autonomy of journalists has been reduced.

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Thanks to J. Orlin Grabbe for the link.

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