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A Critical Review and Assessment of Herman and Chomsky’s ‘Propaganda Model’ 149

authors explain that ‘the modes of handling favoured and inconvenient materials
(placement, tone, context, fullness of treatment) differ in ways that serve political
ends’ (Herman and Chomsky, 1988: 35). Thus, it is assumed that media content
serves ‘political ends’, by ‘mobilizing interest and outrage’ and by generating
interest and sympathetic emotion in some stories while directing attention away
from others (Herman and Chomsky, 1988: 35). [...]

Nexus: interrelations of state and corporate
capitalism and the corporate media

In sum, the PM constitutes an institutional critique of mass media. It highlights the
multilevel ways in which money and power influence media performance, argues
that media interests and choices routinely amount to propaganda campaigns, and
suggests that media performance reflects the fact that dominant media firms share
interlocking and common interests with other institutional sectors.
The PM assumes that dominant elites are the major initiator of action in
society. They dominate economic decision-making processes, as well as the
33
political processes. As noted, the PM hypothesizes that elites share common
interests and goals that are largely integrated. 34 Herman and Chomsky
acknowledge that elites can disagree but stress that such disagreements are
largely confined to tactics on how they can achieve common goals. Disagreement
over tactics will be reflected in mass media discourse.

The mass media are not a solid monolith on all issues. Where the powerful
are in disagreement, there will be a certain diversity of tactical judgments
on how to attain shared aims, reflected in media debate. But views that
challenge fundamental premises or suggest that the observed modes of
exercise of state power are based on systemic factors will be excluded from
the mass media even when elite controversy over tactics rages fiercely.
(Herman and Chomsky, 1988: xiii)

The PM acknowledges that a careful and thorough reading of the mass media
will bear this out. However, ‘the filter constraints are so powerful, and built into
the system in such a fundamental way, that alternative bases of news choices are
hardly imaginable’ (Herman and Chomsky, 1988: 2). Furthermore, the PM holds
that the illusion of genuine debate serves to reinforce the overall effectiveness of
the propaganda system in society (Herman and Chomsky, 1988: 298). Chomsky
remarks that:

The more vigorous the debate, the better the system of propaganda is
served, since the tacit, unspoken assumptions are more forcefully implanted.
(Chomsky, 1982: 81)

While emphasizing its extensive reach and resiliency, Chomsky describes the
propaganda system as ‘inherently unstable’, commenting that, ‘Any system that’s