Chomsky and his theory of The Five Filters –

(1) Ownership; Big corporations constructed through horizontal and vertical integration and mergers control and own a lot of the media – their main goal is to make money as Hesmondhalgh describes it as a “risky business”. “Critical journalism takes second place to the needs and interests of the corporation.” – 5 filters of the mass media machine.

(2) Advertising; Financial disparity is made up by income from advertisers. The real product sold by the newspaper companies are the audience.

(3) Links with ‘The Establishment’: People in power can control who writes stories about things, and this often leads to fake recounts or propaganda, as reporters can be influenced heavily.

(4) Flack: Hard to get the full, true picture with all the opinions around nowadays.

(5) Uniting against a “common enemy”: Unified enemies are created to rally public opinion against – this helps the media to control people.

The author discusses the applicability of Herman’s and Chomsky’s propaganda model today. He demonstrates the validity of the propaganda model by concentrating on the bombing of Serbia in 1999.

AGENDA SETTING

FRAMING

MYTH MAKING

CONDITIONS OF CONSUMPTION