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Credulity In The Media

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The Struggle between the Media and the Truth

In today’s society, the freedom of the press seems to be continually challenged. One of

the greatest obstacles to an enlightened public is propaganda and credulity. According to

dictionary.com, propaganda is defined as “the organized dissemination of information,

allegations, etc., to assist or damage the cause of a government, movement, etc.,” and credulity is

defined as “willingness to believe or trust too readily, especially without proper or adequate

evidence; gullibility.” Together these two can become a very dangerous combination and very

easily impede the public’s ability to be correctly informed.

“Americans who get most of their news from cable news outlets’ such as Fox News …show more content…

These filters include “concentrated ownership,

advertising as a primary source of income, reliance on information provided by ‘expert’ and

official sources, flak as a means of disciplining media, and an external enemy or threat,” and this

is known as the propaganda model (Chomsky and Herman). The propaganda model

demonstrates how the public mainly gets highly funded new, no matter how relevant or true it is.

Due to the increased use, mass media has a huge impact on the news that is made public.

With the government funded TV and radio programs, the propaganda model, and credulity, the

public may believe something to be true when it is actually an extreme distortion of what really

happened. The precedents set in place to protect the freedom of the press only protect the press

from being prevented to publicize news, there is nothing anyone can do about the use of

propaganda to distort the news that actually comes from the press. With that being said, credulity

also seems to be a problem rather than solution. Propaganda along without gathering a sufficient

amount of proof before deciding which news is true, or relevant for that matter, will be the

greatest obstacle to an enlightened

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