Avram Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American cognitive scientist, a linguist, historian, political activist, and a social critic. Having being born in December 1928 to a middle-class Jewish immigrant family in Philadelphia, he went through his studies at the University of Pennsylvania with interest in linguistics, philosophy, and mathematics. Upon completion of his studies, Chomsky became an appointee to the Harvard University Society of Fellows where his first development was acknowledged and awarded a doctorate in by 1955. He later became a National Science Foundation member at the Institute for Advanced Study. Chomsky has lived to write over 100 books in linguistics, war and conflict, political culture, and mass media which to some point earned him the title of "The Father of Modern Linguistics." Chomsky played an important role in the creation of the universal and generative grammar theories, Chomsky hierarchy, and the minimalist program. He is also a critic behaviorism theory.
Chomsky's Analysis of the News Media
Chomsky analyzed the news media and concluded that the US media was a powerful institution with the ability to conduct system-supportive propaganda based on self-censorship, market forces, and individual assumptions. He asserts that there is an intrinsic conflict of interest acting as propaganda for troops which are undemocratic, created by the news structure. According to Chomsky, the news media are interested in making sales to their advertisers instead of providing quality news (Dahlgren, 2013). The argument is that the news media requires no control as they have integral warfare class actors fully absorbed to the institutional framework of the society, their activities correspond with other media sectors such as the academy, establishing and reinforcing hegemony.
The Propaganda Model
Government influences to the mass media are through the propaganda model which focuses on power and wealth inequality and how it influences the interests and the choices made by the mass media (Herman & Chomsky, 1988). It examines the effect of money and power in filtering the news fit printing, allowing the government and dominating groups have their opinions aired to the public. The ingredients to the propaganda include ownership, size, wealth. Profit-oriented firms of the mass media cover; advertisements as the revenue source to the mass media; relying on businesses, governments and those who fund mass-media as the source of news; using "flak" to discipline the press and anti-communism which is a social control mechanism (Herman & Chomsky, 1988). Upon filtering the report, the best have priority.
Mass-Media Domination
Mass-media domination and the filtration of the news occurs so naturally that the working class press thinks that the news is objective and within the professional boundaries. The constraints of the filter possess so much power and fundamentally rooted in the system that other sources of news are unimaginable (Dahlgren, 2013). The media is unable to see the biases intrinsic in the priority given to the supplied raw materials from the government, the likelihood of the manipulation of the news by the government, having its agenda reported and deliberate diversion of public attention from other materials.
The Five Filters
The following are the five filters applied by the news reporters in mass media: The first one is size, profit orientation, and ownership; the mass-media are big companies whose operations are profit-oriented, catering wealth to its owners who are investors and corporations. Media company size is consequential of the investment capital that the mass-communication technology requires capturing a broad audience of listeners, viewers, and readers (Dahlgren, 2013). Secondly, advertising license to operate a business; Advertisements give media outlets more revenue, acquired through "de facto licensing authority." Media outlets gain their commercial viability through advertisements, hence the political preconceptions and economic wishes of their advertisers are guaranteed, resulting in the weakening of the working class press. Thirdly, mass media news sourcing; Chomsky argues that the increased bureaucracies of the powerful, fund the mass communications media such that they get access to the news through contributing to the acquisition and the production cost of the news (Dahlgren, 2013). Institutions that provide such support are privileged to become a news source.
Fourth, enforcers and the flak; when a media program or statement gets negative comments from the audience, we call it "Flak." Flaks are costly to the media as it may lose revenue from advertisements, the high cost of legal defense and the defense of media reputation (Barsamian & Chomsky, 2001). Flaks can be organized by a private group to prevent specific facts from being aired to the public. Finally, anti-communism: Chomsky in his arguments says that the "War on Terror," the dominant mechanism for social control, replaced anti-communism marked by the end of the Cold War.
Criticism of Chomsky's Analysis
Noam Chomsky is biased in his analysis of the mass media because he made a generalization on the mass media as a monolithic organization, and yet some papers disagree with his ideology; an example is the New York Times. Since the media reports and exposes corporate corruption, it is wrong to say that it has organizational biases. Chomsky's claims that the media is not against the legal empowerment of private interests by the society but stands firm to fight against corruption ignores the effects of the media on the public, which might not shape the public opinion effectively.
Conclusion
In my opinion, Chomsky may have been unbiased in his analysis of the mass media because different media platforms are under control of different corporate cultures which they are required to conform. However, the book exposes precisely what most media platforms do, most of them are government dominated and work for the self-interests of individuals and corporations. The less influential people in society still struggle to access mass media, which should not be the case. The mass media should aim at providing quality news, giving the public priority instead of focusing on corporations and individual interests.
References
Barsamian, D. and Chomsky, N., 2001. Propaganda and the public mind: Conversations with Noam Chomsky. Pluto Press.
Dahlgren, P. ed., 2013. Young citizens and new media: Learning for democratic participation. Routledge.
Herman, E.S. and Chomsky, N., 1988. Manufacturing consent: A propaganda model. Manufacturing Consent.
