Ron Burgundy, Herman and Chomsky

For Thursday’s class we are looking at Herman and Chomsky’s piece “A Propaganda Model”. Their work discusses the propaganda model which “focuses on this inequality of wealth and power and its multi-level effects on mass-media interests and choices” (257). As soon as I began this work I immediately thought of a project I am working on for my other course, The Political Economy of the Media, where I am looking at the media policies behind a foreign country, Italy. The concept of the political economy is extremely comparative to the propaganda model as the political economy of a nation determines their media policy and shapes their propaganda model. In Italy,a single man, Silvio Berlusconi , is the determining factor of the propaganda model as seen in the political economy of the nation. Silvio Berlusconi, the current prime minister of Italy, is the biggest media tycoon of the nation as well as the owner the largest ,monopolistic public media power Mediaset. The single regulator of the Italian media, the Media Regulatory Authority, has a board which is determined by the prime minister of Italy, conveniently being Berlusconi. In this way he is able to shape media policy to fit his best interests both economically speaking and politically speaking. He has been safeguarded by Italian law that he cannot be prosecuted for any violations he may commit because this may interfere with his role as Prime Minister. In all ways he has complete power to exercise complete control over the media industry in Italy and has done so promoting his candidacy and his company at the same time. This type of “monopolistic control over the media” that Berlusconi currently holds is exactly the concerns of Herman and Chomsky as they assess the dangers of such as system where "the media serve the ends of a dominant elite" (257).