Herman & Chomsky—Propaganda Aaron

Last Year I took a course on media manipulation, and propaganda was a large part of that course. We didn’t however look at the 5 filters ‘news’ passes through to be printed or broadcasted. Our media is instituted by the elite to keep the masses at bay, all media is meant to persuade the general population to buy things, whether it is products, ideas, dreams or identities. Propaganda systems and campaigns lead to the domination of the many by the few. The first filter provides the limitation on ownership. “Even small-newspaper publishing is big business… [and] is no longer a trade one takes up lightly even if he has substantial cash – or takes up at all if he doesn’t.” dominant media firms are large businesses that is controlled by extremely wealthy people, because of how closely interlocked these people are with other businesses, banks and the government our ‘news’ is affected by this. News then passes through the next four filters; Funding, Sources, Flak and Anti-Communism. The readings also present many examples of propaganda and media’s bias. “The recent propaganda disinformation attacks on Nicaragua have been needed to avert eyes from the savagery of the war in El Salvador and to justify the escalation U.S. investment in counterrevolution in Central America.” When discussing wartime media Propaganda is easily found, we see it from the government [obviously? Uncle Sam] but because the of the interlockedness of the government and media we also see it in [subconsciously in our media text Cap] While reading articles about propaganda and “Big News” I came across an interesting film called the Behind the Big News: Propaganda and the CFR. While reading an article about the movie I read a quote that gives more insight to this subject. “The executives, the editors in print media, the senior producers, executive producers in the visual media – these are the people who have the ideological bias and what’s probably almost as important – their personal friendships. They go to the same country clubs, they go to the same dinners, and they socialize with a lot of the people that they cover.” –Roger Charles, former Correspondent at ABC News