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11 A Critical Review and

Assessment of Herman and

Chomsky’s ‘Propaganda

Model’

Jeff er y Klaehn

Introduction

The ‘propaganda model’ of media operations (henceforth PM) laid out and
applied by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky (1988) in Manufacturing
Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media avows to the view that the mass
media are instruments of power that ‘mobilize support for the special interests
that dominate the state and private activity’ (Herman and Chomsky, 1988: xi).
The model argues that media function as central mechanisms of propaganda in
the capitalist democracies and suggests that class interests have ‘multilevel
effects on mass-media interests and choices’ (Herman and Chomsky, 1988: 2).
Media, according to this framework, do not have to be controlled nor does their
behaviour have to be patterned, as it is assumed that they are integral actors in
class warfare, fully integrated into the institutional framework, and act in unison
with other ideological sectors, i.e. the academy, to establish, enforce, reinforce
and police corporate hegemony. 1
At least two commentators have referred to the PM as ‘an almost conspiratorial
view of the media’ (Holsti and Rosenau, n.d.: 174). Herman and Chomsky (1988:
xii) respond to this, stressing that the PM actually constitutes a ‘free market
analysis’ of media, ‘with the results largely an outcome of the working of market
forces’.

With equal logic, one could argue that an analyst of General Motors who
concludes that its managers try to maximize profits (instead of selflessly
labouring to satisfy the needs of the public) is adopting a conspiracy theory.
(Chomsky, 1982: 94)

The term ‘conspiracy theory’ implies secret controls that operate outside normal
institutional channels. Herman and Chomsky’s PM explains media behaviour in
terms of institutional imperatives (see Rai, 1995: 42). 2

Source: EJC (2002), vol. 17, no. 2: 148–182.