Wednesday, April 20, 2005
MSM getting the hype
Daily Kos was on C-Span recently. I don't know if they have marble staircases but I doubt there is any less prominent way to treat bloggers than to put Markos Moulitsas on the air.
And yet again the Chomskyans seem to be dead wrong - one of Chomskys theoretical points in his book Manufacturing Consent is that there is a filter called "flak and the enforcers" in MSM which can take the breath out of grass-root initiative and competition. As if C-Span would be able to clip the wings of Kos and "make him mainstream". Even if they could ... this would open for other blogs to fill the gap.
The reason for this allocation of blogs? Cost-efficiency. To post an entry costs next to nothing. To put a tv show on the air is a veritable money-muncher, even by C-Span's standards.
So in a way Chomsky was right - "Follow the Money" is the lead motive for a sound media analysis. Too bad he doesn't know any microeconomics and can't see the big picture.
And yet again the Chomskyans seem to be dead wrong - one of Chomskys theoretical points in his book Manufacturing Consent is that there is a filter called "flak and the enforcers" in MSM which can take the breath out of grass-root initiative and competition. As if C-Span would be able to clip the wings of Kos and "make him mainstream". Even if they could ... this would open for other blogs to fill the gap.
The reason for this allocation of blogs? Cost-efficiency. To post an entry costs next to nothing. To put a tv show on the air is a veritable money-muncher, even by C-Span's standards.
So in a way Chomsky was right - "Follow the Money" is the lead motive for a sound media analysis. Too bad he doesn't know any microeconomics and can't see the big picture.
