The Propaganda Model Today: Filtering Perception and Awareness

While the individual elements of the propaganda system (or filters) identified by the Propaganda Model (PM) – ownership, advertising, sources, flak and anti-communism – have previously been the focus of much scholarly attention, their systematisation in a model, empirical corroboration and historicisation have made the PM a useful tool for media analysis across cultural and geographical boundaries.

Despite the wealth of scholarly research Herman and Chomsky’s work has set into motion over the past decades, the PM has been subjected to marginalisation, poorly informed critiques and misrepresentations. Interestingly, while the PM enables researchers to form discerning predictions as regards corporate media performance, Herman and Chomsky had further predicted that the PM itself would meet with such marginalisation and contempt.

In current theoretical and empirical studies of mass media performance, uses of the PM continue, nonetheless, to yield important insights into the workings of political and economic power in society, due in large measure to the model’s considerable explanatory power.

Dr Joan Pedro-CaraÒana, works at the Communication Department at Saint Louis University, Madrid Campus. Joan holds a European PhD in Communication, Social Change and Development from Complutense University of Madrid, Spain (2015), and has been a visiting Scholar in Universidad del Norte and Universidad Minuto de Dios in Colombia, as well as in Complutense. His research interests revolve around the role of culture, communication and education in the reproduction and change of societies. He is co-editor of Talking Back to Globalization: Texts and Practices (Peter Lang, 2016), with Brian M. Goss and Mary R. Gould. His work has been published in international journals such as the International Journal of Communication, Global Media Journal, Synaesthesia: Communication Across Cultures, Fifth-Estate-Online - The International Journal of Radical Mass Media Criticism, OBETS: Revista de Ciencias Sociales, Historia y ComunicaciÛn Social and Revista Latina de ComunicaciÛn Social. Joan has also been active in a variety of social movements and is a contributor of OpenDemocracy, RebeliÛn and other online magazines. His work can be found at https://slu.academia.edu/JoanPedro.

Dr Daniel Broudy is Professor of Rhetoric and Applied Linguistics in the Graduate School of Intercultural Communication at Okinawa Christian University. As a former imagery analyst with the US Army and current member of Veterans for Peace, he draws upon his military experience and doctoral training in psycholinguistics to develop courses in communication and the rhetoric of the visual. His research focuses on systems and techniques of mass manipulation in state and corporate public relations. Recent edited collections include Under Occupation: Resistance and Struggle in a Militarized Asia-Pacific (CSP, 2013) and News from Somewhere: A Reader in Communication and Challenges to Globalization (Wayzgoose Press, 2015). His most recent book is the coauthored Okinawa Under Occupation: McDonaldization and Resistance to Neoliberal Propaganda (Palgrave, 2017).

Dr Jeffery Klaehn holds a PhD in Communication from the University of Amsterdam (2007) and completed a second PhD, in Sociology, at the University of Strathclyde in 2012. His writings on the Propaganda Model have been published in the European Journal of Communication, Sociology Compass, Journalism Studies, Synaesthesia: Communication Across Cultures, and International Communication Gazette. He has edited six books, including Filtering the News: Essays on Herman and Chomsky's Propaganda Model (Black Rose, 2005), Bound by Power: Intended Consequences (Black Rose, 2006) and The Political Economy of Media and Power (Peter Lang, 2010). His ongoing series of interviews with comic book writers and illustrators have been published in the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, ImageText: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies, Studies in Comics, and the International Journal of Comic Art. He teaches in the areas of social theory, communication, cultural studies, media and pop culture. More information about his work can be found at: http://uva.academia.edu/JefferyKlaehn