Herman, Edward S. and Noam Chomsky. 1988. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books.
Source: Person in black jacket in selective focus photography, Philipp Wüthrich, Unsplash
Herman and Chomsky
Summary
Claim: a 'propaganda model' of the mass media: "the media serve, and propagandize on behalf of, the powerful societal interests that control and finance them" (xi)
Keywords: media, propaganda, US, soviet
In conversation with:
Aim:
Method: comparing leading US media to Pravda in the Soviet Union to prove the out the following key features:
- news is produced by a relatively concentrated industry of several dozen profit-making corporations
- the industry is dependent on advertising for its profits
- it is dependent on government officials for its sources
- it is intimidated by right-wing pressure groups
- it is imbued with anti-communist ideology.
also has media of other countries as case studies (Guatemala)
Why important
To academics: as a different angle for media analysis
To general public: promotes better understanding of how media work in general
Relevance to my research: might give some insights for my thinking about ideology
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Notes:
Herman and Chomsky deny ideological contestation. "What institutional mechanisms or cultural traditions or contradictions of power provide room for debate and revision? The political economy perspective typically does not say" (Schudson, 1989: 270)
"what journalists do, what they see as newsworthy, and what they take for granted as premises of their work are frequently well explained by the incentives, pressures, and constraints incorporated into such a structural analysis" (xi)