Pre-Class Blog 10/31/12

The propaganda model informed us on how we are forever consuming mass media which is perpetuated through a systematic filters of propaganda. Propaganda refers a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position. When I think of this, I immediately think about all the different types of war propaganda there has been and of which I have studied. This propaganda was used constantly during a time of great depression, but it made people adjust to abnormal conditions and this is turn helps them adapt to the conditions of the war. Ultimately we notice now that there was a ridiculous monopolistic control over the media, in order to provide the viewer which what they wanted them to see. This is what Herman & Chomsky talk about. But they elaborate more into the Propaganda model, a model with five filters. Herman and Chomsky argue that "the torture of political prisoners and the attack on trade unions in Turkey will be pressed on the media only by human- rights activists and groups that have little political leverage." (220) This quote jumped out at me and made me think about the current set of events that we are faced with in the past few days and that is Hurricane Sandy. My television screen, daily newspaper and social media news feeds have been heavily saturated with the devastating set of events that have swept the west coast. Although, whilst in a conversation with a native today I found out that in fact Haiti has taken yet another blow with approximately 52 deaths. This goes along with an array of different countries, but why is information about the East Coast so heavily pushed in my face and yet I had not heard much about anyone else affected. Herman and Chomsky discuss the fact that in these situations they would "elict flak from government" and the overarching negative to this is that they would "stand alone in focusing on victims that from the standpoint of dominant American interests were unworthy" (220). This is extremely interesting to me, but seems to be true and apart of this ethnocentric nation we live in.