The Propaganda Model As A Mere Conspiracy Theory

Brian Keeley’s short essay, “Of Conspiracy Theories” discusses conspiracy theories and their value in an epistemological context. Keeley defines a conspiracy theory as “a proposed explanation of some historical event (or events) in terms of the significant causal agency of a relatively small group of persons-the conspirators-acting in secret (Keeley 1999, pg. 116).” Keeley seeks to answer the question of why conspiracy theories are unwarranted. His interest in the warrant of conspiracy theories focuses on ¬the unfalsifiability of conspiracy theories and how conspiracy theories are founded upon an extraordinarily large amount of skepticism. In section III, Keely discusses what a conspiracy theory is, and contends that there is no grounds for

It being the leading source of news since the printing press. We put our faith in the media to report accurate facts unbiasedly. Between 1983 and now the media industry has consolidated from 50 individual companies to 6. That means that though the impression given is that there are a multitude of sources to attain information, the messages being communicated are all one in the same. The limitation of media sources cause a ripple effect of limited information, allowing these companies to control the public’s perception on

Consequently, the political sphere is now being colonised by the media, and politics has begun re-orientating itself to satisfy the logic of media organisations (Meyer, 2002, p. 71). Therefore, the media are active participants in the policymaking process and the ability to stimulate change or maintain the status quo depends on their choice of subject or policy issue and how they frame it. Active investigative reporting attempts to shape policy outcomes, but this does not necessarily mean that it always represents the most successful approach for gaining policy changes (Spitzer, 1993, p. 7). In fact, sometimes passive, straight reporting can have a greater influence on policy choices. When this occurs, media independence is largely bypassed, as the news generated depends solely on the information released (as public relations material) from legitimate news sources. For example, in the United States, White House staff routinely make ‘leaks’ - expressively to influence policy decisions (Davis, 1992, p. 143; Robinson, 2001, p. 948). Robinson noted that journalists regard “leaks… as indispensable to their work” and that they are aware of their use by officials in return for scoops (2001, p. 949).

Propaganda is about power and persuasion, and is used for many reasons by the government. This essay will explore the overt means by which the government uses systematic propagation to control the citizens of the society and the subtle ways in which information, independent thought, and their freedoms are restricted through radio and television.

Both negative and positive, propaganda affects our lives daily sometimes without us even acknowledging that it exists. The main goal of propaganda is trying to sell your product or idea to other people, one major form of Propaganda occurs in the news. Propaganda is used for companies and trend setters who want to get their products and ideas out in the world so that they could potentially become popular. Smart propagandists discovered that to create the best propaganda, the viewer must not even realize that the product or idea is being sold to them. Propaganda creates an extremely large impact on us and is sometimes mistaken for being “just another advertisement” when they actually change the way we live our lives.

In the propaganda model media’s function is to inform the public with values and beliefs that will integrate them but if the power is in the hands of state, which means if the state controls the media. It is clear that the media serves the state and their dominant elite. The propaganda and Duncan’s analysis both agree that the journalists that covered the Marikana massacre had critiques and inequality in their reporting. Both Chomsky and Duncan focused on this inequality of power and civil servants. Clearly money and power are able to filter out news that is fit to go to print. This means that government and dominant private interests are able to get their messages across to the

The methodology Chomsky's used in studying Manufacture of Consent is called the ‘Propaganda Model’ and it is an institutional analysis of the major media. The major media he studied consisted of The New York Times, The Washington Post and major television channels. Chomsky evaluated them because he believes that ‘ by selection of topics, by distribution of concerns, by emphasis and framing of issues, by filtering of information, by bounding of debate within certain limits, they determine, they select, they shape, they control, they restrict -- in order to serve the interests of dominant, elite groups in the society.’(Chomsky, 1992) He also believes that by analysing the institutions it is very obvious they have a goal to make money and the way to make money with a newspaper is to sell

Until the 1980s, the control of the media was in the hands of the national government. From then, the control shifted to private outlets and by the 1990’s, there were more than fifty multinational companies who controlled it (“Mass Media”). Today, only about six major companies control the larger fraction of media in America (Williams, Par. 1). Norman Solomon wrote in the New Political Science Journal that most reporters and editors work for just a few huge companies. These journalists and editors are on the payroll for “mega-media institutions”, of which, only about six exist (Solomon 297). How much will the public learn if these companies generally control the output of information?

When people hear the word ‘propaganda’, a negative image automatically seems to pop up in their heads. Propaganda generally revolves around hiding the whole story with information often being provided in a biased or misleading fashion.

We live in a world of technological innovation where mass media is a major part of us today. People make assumptions on what they hear. They do not try to analyze the situation to see who is right and who is wrong, and mass media is the main source of manipulating one's mind. The concept of propaganda has changed over time. Propagandists create ideas stereotypically through the use of propaganda and use media to promote it and target people's minds to have influence on their views towards a certain group of people. These ideas create negative or positive images in the intended audience's minds. However, it is notable that the information is only the one that is exemplified through media and therefore, can be

As to my observations and reading I created an opinion in which I found that people often relate to propaganda as an extreme and horrible tool while at the same time it is a part of our daily life. Whether propaganda has a bad reputation or a good one, I do not believe our world is possible to live without this adaptive and evolving tool. “It is always a much easier task to educate uneducated people than to re-educate the miss-educated” ~ Herbert M. Shelton (Goodreads, 2014).

Propaganda is performed through print, audio, and visual mass media. It is used for the promotion of the public’s activities in their life such as purchasing goods through market propaganda, and it is also found in politics, foreign affairs, and in many other fields. Most importantly propaganda is depicted in the informercialization of the news, which is connected with subliminal advertising and commercialization of public events and individual promotion such in communication websites. However, there is great debate over propaganda and persuasion that is casted in the media, which I will be elaborating in this essay.

First and foremost, we must understand the concept of propaganda and mass media in contemporary world. According to Noam Chomsky, and Edward S. Herman on “Manufacturing Consent: The political Economy of the Mass Media” propaganda model was defined as

The propaganda model was developed by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky in 1988. The propaganda model was published in the book of Manufacturing Consent, sought to provide an analytical framework that attempts to explain the behavioral and performance of the mass media in the United States (Herman, 2000). Herman and Chomsky (2002) argued that the propaganda model contains five filters which determine what is ‘news’. The first filter is the size, ownership, and profit orientation of the media, which refers to the cooperation between the mainstream media and the large conglomerate. The second filter is advertising, which refers to the mass media using advertising as the central source of income. The third filter is sourcing, which refers to the mass media dependency of information from the government, business and experts. The fourth filter is “flak”, which refers to the negative response that discipline the media. The fifth filter is anti-communism, which refers to the control mechanism of the

Today’s propaganda is maybe subtler and less obvious, but with the internet and advanced technologies of these past few decades, information can spread