Produced by The Listening Post, Published by Al Jazeera English
Many use the word ‘propaganda’ when talking about North Korea, Kazakhstan, Iran; countries viewed as authoritarian through the lens of the western media.
American linguist and political activist, Noam Chomsky co-authored a book with Edward Herman called ‘Manufacturing Consent’. It blasted apart the notion that media acts as a check on political powers; that media informs the public, serves the public. According to him, media operates through 5 filters: ownership, advertising, the media elite, flak and the common enemy. The Listening Post produced a video on Noam Chomsky's theory of the 5 Filters of the Mass Media Machine.This video animatedly and simplistically explains how we are consistently fed propaganda by the ‘free media’. Watch the video here.