Communication Strategies

Creation or generation of meanings and understandings is a vital item in the existence of social relations and are vital in defining the essence of human society. This in turn creates a special link which provides meaning to the communication that takes place amongst people and which is greatly dependent on language as a central fundamental role player. Many varying accounts exist which attempt to explain this. With respect to this communication, this paper takes a keen analysis of the propaganda theory by Chomsky and Herman.

Discussion
According to Chomsky and Herman, in their propaganda model theory, structural economic causes provide a profound explanation and understanding of the systemic biases, which according to the theory, exist in the mass media. The theory looks at the mass media as business entities that have a sole interest of selling their product to the public and have nothing to do with provision of quality products to the target market (Corner 2003). The theory argues that there is no sense in studying the functioning of institutions except by way of contributing to the body of literature that is comparatively unclear or murky.

The propaganda model theory presents a postulation of five major items that are key determinants to the type of news that mass media present to the society. The determinants which form a list of five elements include ownership of the media institution, funding resources of the medium, its sourcing, its anti-communist ideology and the medias general tendency to be criticized (Chomsky 2002). These items are the ones that Chomsky and Herman refer to as filters in the theory and they argue that the media use these filters as avenues to instigate propaganda campaigns as would be helpful to national establishment. The mentioned filters interact in a chain-link to create reinforcement to one another.

Bearing in mind that the propaganda model theory was essentially developed as a characterization of the US media, the developers of the theory believed that the model was fit to describe any other country that has the characteristics that the model describes with respect to the economic structure (anti-communism ideologystructure) and principles of organizing that lead to media biases.

Ownership is a filter identified in the theory as influencing the systemic biases in the mass media. Early in the days of British press, mass media was involved in advocacy issues especially where it radically voiced the concerns of workers. Restrictions were introduced through unnecessarily excessive stamp duties. This of course implied that only the wealthy could afford to own the newspaper (Corner 2003).  The propaganda model holds that the mainstream outlets of media products are large corporations or components of conglomerates and therefore products availed to the public readership or public access will be in line with the interests of these corporations or conglomerates.  This calls for fundamental biasness on the part of the media firms especially where it implies that such a move translates to profit maximization.

Advertising is another filter of the propaganda communications theory model. In order for the costs incurred by the media companies to be covered, the companies have to attract and sustain large quantity of advertising (Kumar 2006). Without such an arrangement, they would be forced to increase the prices of newspapers to record sufficient revenues to cover the costs of production.

During the period when advertising was not prominent, the prices of the media products were higher to reflect the need to cover these costs. When advertising became part of the medias part of doing business, the media firms could afford to reduce the prices of the newspapers to attract more readerships of their papers (Chomsky 1989). Those which faced insufficiency in advertising were put at a disadvantage and they would easily be dislodged out of business. In addition, the firms that get more of advertising business are able to bring in more features to their products and thus have an added advantage in attracting more customers. Such features include promotion and color effects. And the choices made by the advertiser will have an impact on the survival and success of the medium.  

Affluent readers comprise the market for the newspaper and they are similarly the educated decision makers of the society. The audience comprises the very businesses that pay for their business interests to be advertised. With respect to this element or filter, the news channeled by the media is just a packing that secures chance for privileged audiences to see the advertisements made for their interest and the news has to be packaged in the most convenient way that ca attract them (Jeffery 2005).

Sourcing as a filter in the model, works for the media to ensure that the media only reports news in places where it gets economic reciprocity and fulfils its interests. This allows the corporation to plant its reporters to selected places where that interest will be fulfilled (Herman 2003). On the other hand, flak as a filter comes in as a necessary mechanism that aims to manage public information basically by scrutinizing and discrediting, where necessary, the information relayed to the public.

Countries that have power bestowed in the hands of a bureaucratic state, also bestow monopolistic control over the respective countries media and this is often enhanced by censorships that clearly show how the media serves or is supposed to serve the ends of the few dominating elite. According to the theory, therefore, the propaganda system is not common where the media is comprised of private ownership and where there is no formal censorship (Luck 2007). In such a case the privately owned media would compete and sporadically launch necessary attacks on the corporate governance and expose misconduct in government quarters. The media will also portray themselves as spokesmen and advocates for free speech and promoters of the interest of the entire community. Nevertheless, there is huge inequality in control of resources and this limits the absolute access to a system of private media.

Conclusion
In conclusion, propaganda model directs its focus on the existing inequality in command of wealth and power and the multifaceted nature of the inequality on the choices made by the mass-media and the interests it develops in making the choices. Thus, it brings out the concrete relationship between the ability of power and money resources to filter out the news in the media to provide room for the government and prevailing private interests to pass their messages across the public arena and monopolistic control of the media.