Noam Chomsky

Engineering opinion: Propaganda

Pedro A. González, Jr.
▪ Presentation October 3rd, 2013

▪ Prof. Sony J. Raj

▪ Communications
Noam Chomsky
▪“(Avram) Noam Chomsky is an eminent linguist and a
radical political philosopher of international reputation. He
was born on December 7, 1928 in Philadelphia
(Pennsylvania, USA) where he grew up in a family of
Ukrainian and Belarusian Jewish immigrants who had gone
through New York before settling in Philadelphia Today
Chomsky is Professor emeritus of linguistics at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (EGS Biography,
2012).
Propaganda
▪ Noam Chomsky set the record straight when he
said in an interview: “propaganda is to a
democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian
state…” (WBAI, 1992).
▪ This theory focus, in control and influence in
democratic States imposed not by force, but by
the propaganda through the media.
A half hour interview first aired by the BBC
▪ Keywords: Noam Chomsky, propaganda, ideology, (Marr, 1966).
media, public opinion.
Purpose of the Media
“The mass media serve as a system for
communicating messages and symbols to the
general populace. It is their function to amuse,
entertain, and inform, and to inculcate
individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes
of behavior that will integrate them into the
institution structures of the large society. In a
world of concentrated wealth and major
▪ TV Show Breaks the Set on Media Propaganda,
conflicts of class interest, to fulfill this role War on Terror, Civil Liberties and more with Dr.
requires systematic propaganda” (Herman, Noam Chomsky (Martin, 2013).
1988).
 Mass
media
Manufacturing Consent
▪ “The essential ingredients of our propaganda model, Anti
Advertise
or set of news “filters,” fall under the following communi
ment
headings: (I) the size, concentrated ownership, sm
owner wealth, and profit orientation of the dominant
mass-media firms; (2) advertising as the primary
income source of the mass media; (3) the reliance
of the media on information provided by
government, business, and "experts" funded and Governm
Flak
approved by these primary sources and agents of ent
power; (4) "flak" as a means of disciplining the
media; and (5) "anticommunism" as a national
religion and control mechanism. These elements
interact with and reinforce one another…” (Herman,
Chomsky, 1988:2).
21 years after

(Martin, A.)
 References

EGS Biography (2012). Noam Chomsky: Biography. European Graduate School. Retrieved from http://www.egs.edu/library/noam-chomsky/biography/

Herman, E. S. & Chomsky, N. A. (1988). Manufacturing Consent, The Political Economy of the Mass Media, Pantheon Books, NY, 1988. Retrieved from http://books
.google.com/books?id=18IWX4hxHNUC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Martin, A. (2013, May 21). TV Show Breaks the Set on Media Propaganda, War on Terror, Civil Liberties and more with Dr. Noam Chomsky. RT America (TV-Novosti,
Russia). Published on YouTube. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlONaMmIT1o

Marr, A. (1966). TV Show The Big Idea: Noam Chomsky on Propaganda. London, UK. Published on YouTube on Oct. 12, 2012. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com
/watch?v=GjENnyQupow

WBAI (1992, Jan.). On Propaganda, Noam Chomsky interviewed by unidentified interviewer. WBAI Pacifica radio station, 99.5, New York . Chomsky.info [Web page].
Retrieved from http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/199201--.htm