"The major agenda-setting media — after all, what are they? As institutions in the society, what are they? Well, in the first place they are major corporations, in fact huge corporations. Furthermore, they are integrated with and sometimes owned by even larger corporations, conglomerates — so, for example, by Westinghouse and G.E. and so on. So what we have in the first place is major corporations which are parts of even bigger conglomerates. Now, like any other corporation, they have a product which they sell to a market. The market is advertisers — that is, other businesses. What keeps the media functioning is not the audience. They make money from their advertisers. And remember, we’re talking about the elite media. So they’re trying to sell a good product, a product which raises advertising rates. And ask your friends in the advertising industry. That means that they want to adjust their audience to the more elite and affluent audience. That raises advertising rates. So what you have is institutions, corporations, big corporations, that are selling relatively privileged audiences to other businesses. Well, what point of view would you expect to come out of this? I mean without any further assumptions, what you’d predict is that what comes out is a picture of the world, a perception of the world, that satisfies the needs and the interests and the perceptions of the sellers, the buyers and the product."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Academics from the United StatesHistorians from the United StatesJews from the United StatesLinguists from the United StatesSocial anarchists
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Noam Chomsky
philosopher, linguist, political writer
1928 · United States
US-amerikanischer Sprachwissenschaftler und Autor
467 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Noam Chomsky →
Related Quotes
"In the post-Vietnam War era the need for Communist abuses has been no less pressing than before. More facts have come…"
"Among the many symbols used to frighten and manipulate the populace of the democratic states, few have been more impo…"
"And it’s gone on for the United States. We have measures of it. I’m sure you know that the Rand Corporation about a y…"
"The U.S.'s privatized for-profit health care system had long been an international scandal, with twice the per capita…"
"It is tempting to cast the blame on Trump for the disastrous response to the crisis. But if we hope to avert future c…"
"In the West, I think a large part of what’s happening, a very large part, is the bitter, savage, class war that’s bee…"
"The scale of the plague is surprising, indeed shocking, but not its appearance. Nor the fact that the U.S. has the wo…"
"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all."
"I use Google all the time, I’m happy it’s there. But just as when I read The New York Times or the Washington Post, o…"
"The Native population (in the US) suffered a migrant crisis of an incredible kind ... where the immigrants come in wi…"