Week Eight: Noam Chomsky

Investigating academic and political social strucutures and how it pertains to mainstream and elite media organizations

In his October 1997 essay titled, “What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream,” author Noam Chomsky discusses how the intellectual culture plays on the past and future structures of information. Chomsky states that these organizations provide almost like a “doctrinal system” and investigates issues in a similar manner to science applications. The experimental process includes a hypothetical theory, a repeated number of trials, and a conclusion of results as to what occurred. In the beginning of his essay, Chomsky notes that “virtually all work in media analysis is the last part—trying to study carefully just what the media product is and whether it conforms to obvious assumptions about the nature and structure of media.”


Chomsky dictates that media that caters to the mass audience is often derivative from newspapers, entertainment news, and even television soap operas. He also states the other section of the media, which is often considered as “elite” since it almost “agenda-setting” in its actions because it caters to an audience of highly privileged individuals. Examples of this type of media include the evening news on CBS as well as the New York Times, which include people of the wealthy class or have some form of political interest or involvement. Many times, these individuals are business owners, journalists, and university professors.

When studying an edition of the New York Times, a viewer observes that there is a certain layout for the newspaper as well as its complimentary online website. On the front page, both versions of the paper depict top news headlines like economic woes and historical events but also many human interest stories or spontaneous news headlines trickle their way to the top. In addition, the reader may thumb through numerous sections from entertainment, opinion, classifieds, to weather, crossword puzzles, and the Arts.

With this sort of structure, various news organizations across the country and world are able to pull information and collaborate on upcoming headlines for their own media outlets. An example is CNN.com, which utilizes news sources from numerous external publications in order to get the news collected into one source. This way, anyone news can be generated from a local news station like Washington, D.C.-based ABC7 may be featured on the main website or a college student out in Sacramento, California can snap a photo on their iPhone in order to post a cool story on an iReport page.

Although this sounds great, Chomsky states that “the real media are basically trying to divert people.” For instance, this is the case when a historical event takes place but the main news on the front page may be the recent demise from an adored celebrity. It appears the certain news outlets choose what news will be on the front page based on their own interests and allow the public to feed on the updates. Chomsky notes that these media publications are “major, very profitable, corporations” who hold a lot of power and often have a “tyrannical structure.” These corporations are selling products to their consumers, which are actually products themselves.

He discusses that this same concept is true on university campuses and their own publications. The top news headlines may be overshadowed by the university’s high-performing NCAA basketball team or based on the business relationships with certain vendors who are advertised in the campus newspapers and magazines.

Furthermore, Chomsky states that educational institutions also reward conformity and obedience to their structures and rules. This “filtering device” allows a system that generates students who embody the same beliefs and framework of the institution. This is true in instances where students attend Ivy League schools where proper etiquette and socialization skills are key principles of doing well in society.

Chomsky also mentions author George Orwell’s classic novel, Animal Farm, which actually contained a suppressed introduction on how the totalitarian state of the Soviet Union was actually very similar to “literary censorship in England” because those with innovative ideas are actually cut out from the picture similar to how that introduction was removed from the classic tale. Until a recent discovery in Orwell’s personal papers, which were 30 years later after the novel, became a major hit for booksellers, these original introductory paragraphs would have never been found.

Towards the end of his essay, Chomsky states that “ignorant and meddlesome observers” often serve as outsiders and not participants themselves in the important issues. He notes that academic and political social science is derivative from similar structures. He concludes that anything political has to become “warfare that applies propaganda” as to how people should think and act. Chomsky mentions that students do not attend college in order to control each other’s thoughts but that is an interesting concept to consider, especially if we ever decide to join as a member of the elite media.