Herman
and Chomsky's 'propaganda model' argues that there
are five classes of 'filters' in society which
determine what is news; in other words, what gets
printed in newspapers or broadcast by radio and
television. They are: ownership (is the story in line
with the media owners interests); advertising (is the
story in line with the advertisers interests);
sourcing (does the story come from government
departments and/or other powerful players); flack (if
the story is aired, can the subjects of it pose a
real threat, like the government, big advertisers and
other organized groups); and ideology (does the story
justify political maneuvering and defend corporate
interests around the world). Whether a news item is
going to be used by the media, or not, is going to
depend on whether it can pass through these filters.
Filtering
the News begins with a critical
review, and assessment, of the propaganda model, then
applies Herman and Chomsky's model to a range of
ongoing news events including: Bush's war propaganda
machine and the American mainstream media; Israeli
propaganda; El Salvador and the question of
intellectual responsibility; news coverage of
near-genocide in occupied East Timor; the media on
the environment; and Dan Rather and the problem with
patriotism, American journalism, post-9/11. In the
final chapters, Herman and Chomsky's propaganda model
is revisited, and several common criticisms of the
model are reflected upon and scrutinized.
"By
itself, the chapter on the pretentious Dan Rather is
worth twice the price of the book. Rather's attempts
to conflate patriotism with journalistic integrity
are demolished, along with the conventional idea of
patriotism, and, there's a hint of a dark aspect to
the CBS tainted documents incident of late 2004.
Extremely timely."
--Barrie Zwicker, journalist, media critic, and host
of The Great Conspiracy
"Filtering
The News explores the continuing critical relevance
of Herman and Chomsky's influential propaganda model
for the analysis of media reporting of the
environment, the war against Iraq, journalism post
9/11, media reporting of the Israel/Palestine
conflict and other case studies. Jeffery Klaehn is to
be congratulated for bringing together this
significant collection of essays by leading scholars
in the field of media and communication studies which
the general public, students, and scholars alike will
find invaluable."
--Bob Franklin, Editor of Journalism Studies,
Professor of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies,
Cardiff University
"We
all know we cannot believe everything in the
mainstream press. Filtering the News tells us, in
disturbing detail, just how true this is and
describes the extraordinary lengths to which the
media will go in order to reinforce the dominant
ideology of the Washington Consensus. Needed: more
honest analysis like the essays in this provocative
book."
--Maude Barlow, activist, writer, and policy critic;
chairperson of the Council of Canadians; on the Board
of Directors of the International Forum on
Globalization; best-selling author
Contributors
include: Valerie Scatamburlo-D'Annibale, Bob Everton,
Peter Eglin, Robert Jensen, Jeffery Klaehn, James
Winter, and Robert Babe.
Apart
from being published in a range of scholarly
journals, Jeffery Klaehn is the editor of Bound
by Power: Intended Consequences and of the
forthcoming Comic Books and
Comic Book Culture: Studies
in Popular Culture.
224
pages, 6x9, references, bibliography, index
Paperback ISBN: 1-55164-260-3 $24.99
Hardcover ISBN: 1-55164-261-1 $53.99
Table of Contents
Cultural Studies/Media
May
2005
