Dear Friend and Reader:
Alex Brocklehurst, one of our participants here, mentioned a “propaganda model” a few days ago in response to Fe Bongolan’s article on pig flu, the most recent Fe-911 — and I asked him for a clarification of what that model was.
It explains how we live in a corporate culture that actually represents just one dominant view rather than what it is sold as, a diversity of views in a free market of ideas. It will help explain what the corporate state is about.
Here is his reply, and here is the Wiki page on Noam Chomsky. He developed this with someone named Edward Herman. The Propaganda Model has its own Wiki page. His conslusion reminds me of something my friend and esoteric teacher Arthur Joseph Kushner would say: the shape of the shadows reveals the shape of what’s hidden.
Very curious as to your feedback. Alex, this is a fine summary; I can tell because (in part due to being exposed to the subversive Steve Bergstein’s ideas and reading list for the past 20 years), I recognize all of what you’re talking about.
Readers: please read the first sentence a few times. It’s all right in the first few words. — efc
Eric,
The Propaganda Model basically accounts forВ a system of control far tighter than any Orwellian-visioned one or even practised by totalitarian states. The control is largely invisible, because masquerading as aВ facet of unrestricted freedom, (namely market forces), the values underpinning which are internalised through pervasive advertising. Of course, the media are central in dissemination and are sponsored by powerful elites who manipulate subliminally to direct from broad strategy to minutiae of details by priming a system that replicates its values by creating ‘reality versions’.
Business friendly ‘reality versions’ get endorsed while problematic (awareness-fuelled) ones don’t. Herman and Chomsky propose five filters to strain out unwanted modalitiesВ within mainstream reporting 1) Media wealth & ownership and the pre-eminence of the corporate values underpinning the modus operandi 2) Advertising as a revenue stream. Publish business friendly stuff – or else (Chomsky himself had to get published through Pluto Press — mainstream would not touch him)В 3) News sourcing that for logistical purposes revolves around sources such as The White House, Pentagon, State Department, Business Corporations and Trade Groups. 4) Flak machines set up to attack unsupportive media. 5) What was anti-communism, designed to mobilise the collective imagination against a common enemy/threat (The War on Terror since the Berlin Wall collapse).