Gwatter06, Herman and Chomsky

The excerpt, “A Propaganda Model,” by Herman and Chomsky is a bit different from anything else that we have covered in class. It was very straightforward and fairly comprehendible and provides the reader with a very detailed summary on mass media in which is quite compelling. Right off the bat that authors pretty much say it all, “The mass media serve as a system for communicating messages…it is their function to amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will integrate them in the institutional structures of the larger society” (257). Hebdige would concur this concept of mass media and propaganda to his concept of conformity of culture through ideology. This also directly relates to Horkhemier and Adorno’s notion of “sameness,” in the sense that mass media and propaganda agents in relinquishing cultural indifferences and creating “sameness.” Another interesting concept that the author’s cover in their piece is the concept that, “the mass media are drawn into a symbiotic relationship with powerful sources of information by economic necessity and reciprocity of interest” (270). What I believe the are stating here is that mass media consistently produce information on what appeals to the onlooker and what cost the least in the production of the information. The problem with this is that we might not be getting the most important news, or the most reliable new for that matter. This is where propaganda is at its strongest, where it utilizes only beneficial information to their organization to keep the populous in its place while remaining in control. This profoundly relates to Althusser’s concept of Repressive State Apparati, in this sense it is where the administration manipulates the populous through mass media’s propaganda. Lastly, the concept that stood out the most to me was the concept of anti-Communism as a control mechanism. The author’s explain how anti-Communist powers “exercise a profound influence on the mass media” to create a “dichotomized world of Communist and anti-Communist powers, with gains and losses allocated to contesting sides, and rooting for ‘our side’ considered an entirely legitimate news practice” (279). This concept just exemplifies just how potent mass media and ideologies can be when combined nonetheless on their own.