The Role of Mass Media in The Model

The model propels around the perception that the leaders adopted media as a crucial element to justify their goals and achieve objectives. It is seen that the media is more influenced by the elite community. Furthermore, it is stated that the media passes through five filters, which also support the elites.

The First Filter: ownership, profit orientation and size of the Mass Media

The American media has had its concentration only on a certain group of people. This group only consists of the wealthy in society. The renounced news networks including newspapers, radios, and television networks form a segment of a big corporation. It is like a sequence of organisations in which each and every corporation includes another. For instance, the three renounced television stations, CBS, and NBC, through the General Electric [GE]) its ultimate parent, the organizations only present certain information to the public. In fact, they only act according to their own interests (Ashraf et al., 2016). The pressures from directors, stockholders, as well as bankers are some of the powerful forces that affect the content of these companies’ media content. The government and news agencies provide an illustration of news agenda. They supply local and international news to lower tiers of the media and the government is in charge of general policy support.

The Second Filter: The Advertising License to do business

In reference to Chomsky and Herman, the elites demonstrate that advertising is the basic source of income for most media houses. During the times when advertising wasn’t known, the business costs could be covered by the cost of a newspaper. The operation costs and production costs are quite high for the media and hence the advertisers are in charge of the funding given how advertising has become prominent (Ashraf et al., 2016). Advertisers normally purchase and pay for the programs on TV. They would at most times avoid difficulties by doing away with the programs that have a complex nature which might be detrimental to the buying mood. Therefore, there is no need to state that the media would screen the news to provide favours to their fund providers normally for their existence.

The Third Filter: Sourcing Mass-Media News

The media needs information to be published and it will only do this if it has a source. The source most specifically should be reliable. Financially, it would not be feasible to keep a close count of news reporters in every location where news break. Thus, business leaders, politicians and government PR are often regarded as the most reliable sources of information. Close relationships must be established with the sources and it is usual that the news is printed keeping in mind the “source.”

Flak and the Enforcers: The Fourth Filter

The term Flak implies an obstructive answers to a statement concerning the media or rather a program. It may be manifested in the form of telegrams, letters phone calls, lawsuits, petitions, bills, and speeches before Congress, as well as other means of complaint. If such negative responses are produced on a large volumes, it is destructive to the media. The media tends to like news that spark negative responses (Ashraf et al., 2016). A thorough search is done by the media in order to know the materials and news to be published. The filter will try to sidestep the news items which may end up bringing sorts of negative responses.

Anticommunism as a Control Mechanism

Communism is regarded as the ultimate evil and is seen to haunt property owners and it tends to threaten the sole of their class position and superior status. The Soviet, Chinese and Cuban revolutions were seen to be like an abrasion to the Western elites. Communism would often be brought forth by the US and British newspapers in such a way to create a bad rapport for a particular person. The elites being the original owners of the media, decide to adopt a policy to bring censorship to the respective articles and news which talk about the positive aspects of communism. The west has perceived propaganda to be an act of communism.

Dichotomization and Propaganda Campaigns

The outlined five filters only give a small part of the news and to a greater extent, it tends to limit what could have been ’big news’ in accordance to the new campaigns. Propaganda campaigns are normally in line to the interests of the elites. In most occasions, it’s the government and the media who institute it (Ashraf et al., 2016). Normally propaganda themes are always deemed to be true even though there isn’t any evidence to support it. Most specifically, articles that are written in such a manner that are more convincing will not be subject to any sought of criticism or rather misinterpretation. This is because the mass media is supported by authority figures. Pressing issues that constitute real facts that are well documented are at most times ignored.

Reference

Ashraf, S.I., Soherwordi, S., Hussain, S. and Javed, T., 2016. Herman and Chomsky’s Propaganda Model: Its Application on Electronic Media and Journalists in Pakistan. Journal of Political Studies, 23(1).