Table Of ContentPROPAGANDA IN THE
INFORMATION AGE
Propaganda in the Information Age is a collaborative volume which updates Herman
and Chomsky’s propaganda model for the twenty-first-century media landscape
and makes the case for the continuing relevance of their original ideas. It includes
an exclusive interview with Noam Chomsky himself.
2018 marks 30 years since the publication of Edward Herman and Noam
Chomsky’s ground-breaking book Manufacturing Consent, which lifted the veil over
how the mass media operate. The book’s model presented five filters which all
potentially newsworthy events must pass through before they reach our TV screens,
smartphonesornewspapers.InPropagandaintheInformationAge,manyoftheworld’s
leading media scholars, analysts and journalistsuse thismodel to explore the modern
media world, covering some of the most pressing contemporary topics such as fake
news, Cambridge Analytica, the Syrian Civil War and Russiagate. The collection
also acknowledges that in an increasingly globalized world, our media is increasingly
globalized as well, with chapters exploring both Indian and African media.
For students of Media Studies, Journalism, Communication and Sociology, Pro-
paganda in the Information Age offers a fascinating introduction to the propaganda
model and how it can be applied to our understanding not only of how media
functions in corporate America, but across the world in the twenty-first century.
Alan MacLeod is a member of the Glasgow Media Group and completed his
PhD in 2017. His first book, Bad News from Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News
and Misreporting was published in 2018. His research interests include propaganda,
media theory, social media and Latin American politics.
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PROPAGANDA IN THE
INFORMATION AGE
Still Manufacturing Consent
Edited by Alan MacLeod
Firstpublished2019
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This book is dedicated to the memory of
Edward S. Herman (1925–2017)
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CONTENTS
List of contributors ix
Introduction: Propaganda in the information age 1
Alan MacLeod
1 Still manufacturing consent: an interview with
Noam Chomsky 12
Alan MacLeod and Noam Chomsky
2 A propaganda model for the twenty-first century: structure-
agency dynamics and the intersection of class, gender and race 23
Florian Zollmann
3 Assessing the strength of the five filters today 45
Alan MacLeod
4 Fake news, Russian bots and Putin’s puppets 65
Alan MacLeod
5 Deflective source propaganda: a Syrian case study 84
Oliver Boyd-Barrett
6 Expanding the propaganda model to the entertainment
industry: an interview with Matthew Alford 104
Alan MacLeod and Matthew Alford
viii Contents
7 Still compromising news: obfuscation and evasion as dominant
filters in Indian media’s coverage of the IL&FS financial scandal 115
Tabassum Ruhi Khan
8 International public relations and the propaganda model: a
critical analysis of Bollywood blockbusters 128
Azmat Rasul
9 Still manufacturing consent in the digital era: disinformation,
“fake news” and propaganda in the 2017 elections in Kenya 141
Jacinta Mwende Maweu
10 Working inside the racket: an insider’s perspective to the
elite media 154
Matt Kennard
Conclusion: New media, same old rules 164
Alan MacLeod
Index 169
CONTRIBUTORS
Matthew Alford focuses on the relationship between entertainment, political
institutions and propaganda in the West in his research. His own feature film,
The Writer with No Hands, was premiered in the Future Cult Classics strand at
Hot Docs, Toronto and went on to receive three festival wins, seven further
nominations and distribution via international television platforms. He is based
at the University of Bath, UK.
Oliver Boyd-Barrett is Professor Emeritus at Bowling Green State University,
and California Polytechnic State University, USA. He has published primarily in
the field of media studies. His recent books include Western Mainstream Media and
the Ukraine Crisis (2017), Media Imperialism (2014) and co-author of Hollywood and
the CIA (2011).
Noam Chomsky is Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona
andInstituteProfessorEmeritusatMassachusettsInstituteofTechnology.Heisthe
author of more than 100 books, including Manufacturing Consent: The Political
Economy of the Mass Media (1995). In 1979 the New York Times described him as
“arguably the most important intellectual alive.” He has spent his life dedicated to
political activism and challenging media power.
Matt Kennard is an investigative journalist currently working for the Latin
America Bureau in London. He was previously a reporter for the Financial Times
and has written for the Guardian, the New York Times and Mother Jones. He is the
author of two books, Irregular Army (2012), about the degradation of the US mili-
tary during the War on Terror and The Racket: A Rogue Reporter vs. the Masters of
the Universe (2015), which details the pressures journalists face at work while trying
to scrutinize power.
