{"id":136043,"date":"2019-07-01T12:00:25","date_gmt":"2019-07-01T11:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=136043"},"modified":"2019-06-24T12:29:09","modified_gmt":"2019-06-24T11:29:09","slug":"noam-chomsky-reveals-how-the-old-school-propaganda-model-still-works-to-manufacture-consent-in-the-information-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/07\/noam-chomsky-reveals-how-the-old-school-propaganda-model-still-works-to-manufacture-consent-in-the-information-age\/","title":{"rendered":"Noam Chomsky Reveals How the Old-School \u2018Propaganda Model\u2019 Still Works to Manufacture Consent in the Information Age"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Noam Chomsky – AlterNet<\/p><\/div>\n

20 Jun 2019 – <\/em>Noam Chomsky, now 90, has witnessed many technological changes over the years. The leftist academic started his career in the days of 78s and black-and-white films, and he is still keeping busy in an era of digital communications, Twitter, smartphones and YouTube. But the more things change, the more they stay the same \u2014 and Chomsky, in an interview for Alan MacLeod\u2019s book, \u201cPropaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent<\/a>,\u201d asserted that \u201cthe propaganda model\u201d is still alive and well in the digital age.<\/p>\n

Via Skype, MacLeod interviewed Chomsky for his book on March 13, 2018, and a lightly edited transcript of their conversation has been published on the website of the liberal\/progressive media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). The interview came 30 years after Chomsky\u2019s 1988 book, \u201cManufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media,\u201d which Chomsky co-wrote with Edward S. Herman. The book examined the ways in which mainstream media can serve as government propaganda agencies, and Chomsky asserted during his interview with MacLeod that digital technology hasn\u2019t ended the \u201cpropaganda model\u201d he described in 1988.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think the Internet and social media changes the propaganda model at all,\u201d Chomsky told MacLeod. \u201cThe propaganda model was about the major media institutions, and they remain \u2014 with all the social media and everything else \u2014 the primary source of news, information and commentary. The news that appears in social media is drawn from them. So, if you look at the news on\u00a0Facebook, it comes straight from the major media. They don\u2019t do their own investigations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chomsky went on to say that \u201cfundamentally,\u201d the mainstream media are as vulnerable to propaganda in the late 2010s as they were in the 1980s.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as the major media are concerned,\u201d the Philadelphia native told MacLeod, \u201cthere is no fundamental difference. In fact, in some ways, they are a little more independent than they were back in the 1980s, partly because of changes in the society \u2014 which have opened things up to an extent. But fundamentally, they are the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

One change in the digital age, Chomsky noted, is that Americans have an easier time staying in political \u201cbubbles.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople tend to go to things that just reinforce their own opinions,\u201d Chomsky explained. \u201cSo, you end up with bubbles. And it is all across the spectrum. The people on what is called the left see the left media, the people on the right see the right media. And the level of material is, of course, much more shallow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chomsky observed that in the late 2010s, the major dailies that were around in the 1980s still aren\u2019t offering a broad range of views.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you read the\u00a0New York Times \u2014 which, incidentally, young people did not read much in the 1980s, either \u2014 but if you read the\u00a0New York Times\u00a0or the\u00a0Washington Post, or even if you watch television news, you get a certain range of opinion: not very broad,\u201d Chomsky asserted. \u201cIt goes from center to far-right, but at least there is some discussion. And occasionally, you get a critical voice here and there.\u201d<\/p>\n

____________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, logician, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes described as “the father of modern linguistics,” Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy, and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He has spent more than half a century at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he is Institute Professor Emeritus, and is the author of over 100 books on topics such as linguistics, war, politics, mass media,<\/em> US foreign policy, social issues, Latin American and European history, and more.<\/em> noamchomsky@\u200bemail.arizona.edu<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 alternet.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

20 Jun 2019 – Noam Chomsky, now 90, has witnessed many technological changes over the years. The leftist academic started his career in the days of 78s and black-and-white films, and he is still keeping busy in an era of digital communications, Twitter, smartphones and YouTube. But the more things change, the more they stay the same \u2014 and Chomsky asserted that \u201cthe propaganda model\u201d is still alive and well in the digital age.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":136037,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[290,260,378,234,1203,109,287,985,172,75],"class_list":["post-136043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","tag-culture","tag-history","tag-journalism","tag-media","tag-noam-chomsky","tag-politics","tag-power","tag-social-justice","tag-west","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}