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Noam Chomsky and Media Ownership
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Noam Chomsky’s article entitled “A Propaganda Model” introduces several issues and ideas about media bias, ownership and reporting for discussion. This paper will present two of the main arguments made in Chomsky’s article and will then present a personal critique and counter-arguments made in an article from another academic source. Finally, at the end of this paper, a new question will be raised for the purpose of inciting more interest and discussion on the controversial topic of bias and propaganda in the media. The way in which Chomsky’s article is structured has made it conducive to presenting the five filters through which he believes every media story passes before being relayed to the consumer. While all filters equally affect the way in which consumers receive news coverage, the two filters that embodied the most general complaints were the first and the third filters that stressed media ownership and sources of information as the main culprits of media bias. Chomsky’s first argument with regards to the problem of media ownership and concentration stress the rising cost of owning and operating newspapers as the biggest problem. He says that the requisite large investment involved in running the newspaper limits ownership to corporate elites who focus intensely on profitability of the newspaper, thereby compromising journalistic integrity. The second major argument made in the article discusses the sources of information used by the media and why they are not conducive to change. Chomsky explains that journalists require a steady flow of reliable and credible information and seeing as papers don’t have enough money to send reporters to the sites of every major story, they seek out avenues whereby they can get as much information at once as possible and invariably end up collecting most of their information from government and corporate press conferences. Another reason for which the media favor these press conferences as their sources of information is that by collecting information from government sources, the media have people to blame if the details of the stories are found to be untrue.
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