Been off for a while...

Hi everyone...

it's been a while, actually quite a long time, since I put up my last post here. I've been quite busy with my study and other works.

Well, as the saying goes, it's better late than never. Let me add that I'm, right now, reading a book by the great intellectual, Noam Chomsky. This book is called "Manufacturing Consent - The political economy of mass media."

A great book I must say. It's always a pleasure to read Chomsky's books and articles. The last book that I read before the current one was tilted "Hegemony or Survival - America's quest for global power"; another amazing and compelling analysis of the US policies, especially foreign policies, by the genius!

The book that I'm reading these days has been co-authored by Edward S. Herman. I'll come up with a review or a kind of summary of the book once I finish it.

Right now, I'll just give you a brief idea of what this is book about. It's about how the popular mass media (mainstream media) in US help in obfuscating or manipulating facts and what compel or motivate them to do so.

Authors gave a model they call "Propaganda Model", which they first described and then applied to various news that were covered by the media in the past.

Let me leave you with the 5 "ingredients" of the Propaganda Model they made. These 5 "ingredients" have been called as "filters" through which the raw news have to pass through. What remains after "filtration" is deemed fit to print.

The 5 filters are (just the headings):-

(1) the size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth, and profit orientation of the mass media;

(2) advertising as the primary income source of the mass media;

(3) the reliance of the media on information provided by government, businesses, and "experts" funded and approved by these primary sources and agents of power;

(4) "flak" as a means of disciplining the media; and

(5) "anticommunism" (in the period this book was written, these days it's "anti-terrorism") as a national religion and control mechanism.

I think this may be enough for you to get an idea and probably even excitement of what this book might contain!

(the same model can also be applied to the mainstream media in our country and analysed since the media here follows the same pattern of organizing their structure).