Sunday, November 3, 2013

Noam Chomsky and the Media



Mainstream political commentators tend either to pretend Chomsky doesn't exist, or to dismiss him as a lunatic. I think this is probably because to even enter into debate with him requires one to abandon the narrative conventions, described by the parentheses of "liberal" and "conservative", that determine what is an acceptable thought.



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



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