[mikegagnon]

I am surprised the author did not discuss Herman and Chomsky's propaganda model: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model

I believe it accurately predicts mass media's biases in this situation.

The propaganda model says that propaganda is an emergent phenomenon in democratic societies. Similar to how macro ant-colony behavior emerges when individual ants follow simple pheremonal rules --- propaganda emerges when journalists, managers, PR agents, government officials, etc. each optimize for their local objective functions.

The relationships between all the agents in the system are complex, but ultimately, according to the propaganda model, mass media's incentives align with business and government incentives.

[einhverfr]

>The propaganda model says that propaganda is an emergent phenomenon in democratic societies.

This looks like almost exactly what Hilaire Belloc proposed in his 1918 book "The Free Press."

[mikegagnon]

I just read a review for "The Free Press." http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/18/opinion/18tue4.html

To me it seems like they share some commonalities, but also have significant differences.

Belloc's main thesis seems to be that the Mass Media is "the true governing power in the political machinery of the State, superior to the officials in the State, nominating ministers and dismissing them, imposing policies, and, in general, usurping sovereignty — all this secretly and without responsibility."

I believe Manufacturing Consent somewhat agrees with that thesis, but Manufacturing Consent goes further by explaining how business interests align with mass media and government, and how it results in propaganda.

I haven't read "The Free Press" so perhaps there are greater similarities than what I could glean from the short NYT book review. After all, both "The Free Press" and the Propaganda Model predict that NYT aren't incentivized to give a fair review of "The Free Press."