III. NP (Fukao) Propaganda and news media

Purpose: to raise students' awareness toward information they
encounter in their everyday life.

The lecture first showed many war propaganda posters, pictures, and
some advertisements, and asked students whether they thought they
were propaganda or not. Various definitions of propaganda were then
introduced to show that there is no agreed upon definition of the term.

Then the lecture examined whether or not news can be considered as
propaganda.

The main part of the lecture focused on explaining the model
developed by Herman and Chomsky. They developed a model called "The
Propaganda Model" in 80's, the main  claim of that is that there are
systematic biases in the news media. The possible news materials go
through 5 filters before they get printed or broadcast, and these
filters serve to create the biases. They are 1) corporate ownership
of the media, 2) advertising as the main funding source, 3)
government and business as the major sources of news, 4) negative
responses and pressure to the media content from corporations, and 5)
anti-communism ideology (=unchallenged ideology).