Week 6 (How do States Exert Control?) Flashcards
Platos ideal political community
raising a class of people who are willing to die in defence of the ideal society, and that this can be achieved through CENSORSHIP. Many other strategies to secure the ideal state and keep it stable are also discussed, including encouraging moderation, shaping what kinds of music people listen to, what kind and how much exercise they do, and what food they eat, etc.
Plato’s “Noble Lie”
The propagation of a NOBLE LIE will bound people together and build loyalty to their country.
The lie aims to persuade its citizens to embrace the classes of society to which they had been assigned, and their roles within them, contentedly and in harmony with their fellow citizens.
Because most citizens were judged incapable of understanding the truth about the most important matters, the rulers of the ideal state were authorized to tell them whatever stories, true or false, would induce them to behave well
Noam Chomsky “manufacturing consent”
central argument is that propaganda is central to modern democracy.
Mainstream media is engaged NOT with truth-seeking or “speaking truth to power” BUT RATHER WITH “manufacturing public consent” in support of government and corporate interests.
This explains why some news stories receive far more coverage than others and the bias that exists within the media
Noam Chomsky asserts media propagation is the result of five political and economic factors
1.) Media outlets are owned by large, profit seeking corporations
2.) Media outlets rely on selling advertising space to stay in business
3.)Media outlets rely on and give greater credibility to information provided to them by officials from government, big corporations and high-profile corporate-backed think-tanks – “much news is biased for the simple reason that it comes straight from self-interested sources.”
4.)Media outlets fear the criticism or punishment they receive from government officials and their corporate sponsors – deny info that doesnt toe-the-line.
5.) Media employees are part of the “establishment” and report the news in ways that reflect the dominant national ideologies of the time, such as “anti-communism” during the cold war or “neo-liberalism” today.
Does Chomsky’s argument accurately reflect the information ecosystems of modern democracies today? (no).
The information ecosystem has dramatically changed over the last few years, specifically the introduction of Youtube, Twitter, SubStack, Rumble, etc, has revolutionized how and what kinds of information and opinions are accessed, which has also gave way to growing distrust for the mainstream media
Mainstream media outlets have in fact taken a strong stand against government policy in the past, for example the NYT and Washington Post published the Pentagon Papers in the 70s, the publication of the Snowden leak in 2013, and the overtly harsh and hostile media coverage towards the Trump administration.
