Mediacology

The “one-to-many” model of mass media communications

VS.

The “many-to-many” model of the networked economy

An updated appraisal of how we monitor propaganda in the new media environment. PR Watch’s Sheldon Rampton breaks down the difference between propaganda under an industrial mass media model and one in the new network economy by examining Herman and Chomsky’s propaganda model from Manufacturing Consent. What follows is a snip but it is worth reading the whole thing.

Has the Internet Changed the Propaganda Model? | Center for Media and Democracy:

I would argue, however, that the five filters described by Herman and Chomsky are specific to the mass media in the United States during the period when they wrote their book. Today, the media are changing.

The rise of propaganda during the 20th century in part reflected the cultural and political effects of two world wars as well as the Cold War. It was reflected the culmination of the industrial revolution and the dominance of certain specific communications technologies — newspapers, radio, television — capable of mass-producing and broadcasting messages for public consumption. As the word “manufacturing” in Manufacturing Consent suggests, the mass media throughout the 20th century were largely based on a model of mass production similar to the assembly lines and railroads of the industrial revolution: a command-and-control system overseeing the production of messages that emanate outward from major hubs. This model was envisioned metaphorically in the now-iconic logo of RKO Pictures, which depicted a huge radio tower atop the earth, from which messages radiated electronically to the planet.

These were the technologies and political forces that defined the media when Manufacturing Consent was written. In 1988, cable and satellite television had only recently emerged as important media and were only briefly mentioned in the text of the book, while the internet was not mentioned at all.
Network graph

Today, in place of “broadcasting” we hear increasingly of “narrowcasting.” Rather than a single mass audience consuming the same broadcast information, we have multiple audiences, interests, and information channels. The emergence of new communications media challenge the propaganda/broadcast model by increasing the number of channels through which information reaches the public, and also by lowering the costs of entry to previously-excluded voices. On the internet in particular, blogging, virally-distributed email and collaboratively-written wikis have changed the traditional distinction between “broadcaster” and “audience.” Instead of relying on “one-to-many” broadcasts, people can now get information through “one-to-one” and “many-to-many” systems in which they themselves choose and create their own media from diverse sources.