In the digital age we are bombarded by subtle and not so subtle advertising. Powerful entities are engaged in a constant fight for our attention. Whether it’s selling products or ideas and often both. The traditional media now competes with new media, a vast array of non-professional journalists, influencers and content creators.

The media landscape may be different but the underlying logic of profit-seeking is more apparent than ever. Important changes have taken place, however. Navigating this landscape requires us to re-examine the role that the mass media plays and how new media fits into the picture. The wide adoption of the internet may not be the utopia many dreamed of in the past.

Manufacturing Consent

In 1988, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky first published Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. The book explains the role of the mass media by laying bare the internal and external mechanisms that determine which stories make the news and, equally important, which stories do not. Manufacturing Consent is generally known among those with a left-leaning political inclination since it provides an explanatory framework for understanding the mass media. While many may not have read the book itself, video fragments of Chomsky explaining its foundations are plenty and discourse around it remains popular.

There is certainly no shortage of works that reference Manufacturing Consent. The actual theoretical content of the book is quite short. The first two chapters outline the analytical framework of the propaganda model and the concepts of worthy and unworthy victims, followed by four chapters that discuss real world examples that take us from third world elections in Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador to the devastating destruction wrought upon Laos and Cambodia. Hindsight is 20/20 and, as the authors admit, conducting a thorough analysis of news cycles as they occur in real time is a difficult endeavour since the general public does not have access to the elusive editor’s room. Moreover, (mass) media has changed considerably since then. The cold war is over. Neoliberalism has emerged victorious and dominates nearly every facet of our lives.

Central to Manufacturing Consent is the propaganda model of communication. This model conceptualises a general filtering mechanism through which a news story must pass in order to be considered relevant for publication. These filters are a determining factor in news reporting and will be briefly summarized here. First, stories are selected to cater to the interests of media company owners, advertisers, and government and corporate policies. The interests are often financial but also relate to reputation and policy prescriptions. Besides promoting specific interests, there is also a general interest in avoiding negative public and corporate response so that media agencies retain a semblance of legitimacy in the eyes of the public. Finally, keeping in mind that this book was written during the Cold War, there is a strict adherence to the principle of anti-communism.

In essence, though a bit reductive, a particular news item must please the interests of a number of powerful groups to be considered news-worthy. A story that is unable to pass these filters is either dropped in favor of something else or presented in a way that suits these groups. What we see in the media is to an important degree determined by what we are allowed to see. One must be careful however as this should not be confused with outright censorship. As Chomsky himself once explained, a reporter is not necessarily told what they can and cannot say (though this happens as well). The point is that if they had something else to say, they would not be in the newsroom in the first place.

Old media and its discontents

Traditional media is a long way from being pronounced dead. The likes of AP, Reuters, BBC and CNN undoubtedly still hold significant weight in forming media narratives and are here to stay for the foreseeable future. It is in this sphere that the propaganda model of communication outlined by Herman and Chomsky certainly holds true. Though the principle of anti-communism is less obvious after the collapse of the USSR. While shaping narratives is on the one hand done by running certain news stories to the exclusion of others, there are more subtle ways in which stories are presented. Framing is used to present a specific perspective on an event by leaving out key details, lying by omission, or by using deceptive language to situate particular actions as being (un)just.

Throughout the genocide in Gaza, Assal Rad became known for pointing out such narrative framing by ‘fixing’ headlines coming from some of the largest media outlets by providing an alternative headline that more accurately reflects the reality of the situation. The sheer number of headlines Assal Rad fixed highlights that ostensibly objective news agencies like AP demonstrate a clear systematic bias. Who gets to be a worthy victim and who does not, but also who can be trusted to report the news accurately in the first place? Some of the original headlines were particularly egregious by casting doubt on countless victim and witness testimonies in favor of a belligerent occupier with a long track record of bending the truth (lying).

In Western media, Palestinians are often not considered to be trustworthy journalists. As of writing, and despite countless violations by Israel that has killed over a hundred Palestinians, there is a ceasefire deal in place. Western journalists are still not allowed into Gaza however. Despite working for some of the largest, corporate-backed news agencies in the world they are often called ‘independent’ journalists to distinguish them from their Palestinian counterparts. We are led to believe that real (independent) journalism comes from those that uncritically regurgitate a genocidal state’s unfounded security considerations. Not from those that continue to endure daily horrors first hand.

As Herman and Chomsky point out, we have no way of peeking into whatever backroom where key decisions are made. In fact, it is in the best interest of these stakeholders to keep the process obscured. For example, in the case of the Washington Post it is reasonable to assume that Jeff Bezos was not simply interested in supporting honest reporting. We know that in the lead up to the 2024 US presidential elections the decision was made to not endorse a candidate for the first time in 36 years and perhaps it is just a coincidence that Bezos’ ties to Trump strengthened both before and after the election.

The LA Times also has a long track record of endorsing presidential candidates, endorsing Republicans from its inception in 1884 until 1972. From 2008 to 2020 the editorial board endorsed Democratic candidates. In 2024 the editorial board voted to endorse Democratic candidate Kamala Harris yet the LA Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, who bought the paper for $500 million in 2018, ordered that the endorsement not be made. It is rare to see such transparent interference at play but it might also signal a new era of corporate impunity.

Let us not forget that self-proclaimed champion of the working class Donald Trump’s 2025 inauguration saw the likes of tech billionaires Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk stand beside him as newly sworn-in loyal generals of the techno-fascist empire. Far from a radical departure, peddling to fascists is simply business as usual. It was after all Zuckerberg’s Facebook that was implicated in contributing to the systematised killing of the Rohingya people in Myanmar through its algorithm that promoted anti-Rohingya sentiment. Musk’s Twitter (now X) needs little explanation. The platform is riddled with racism and the owner himself has not shied away from overt anti-Semitism.

The rise of new media

Today’s media landscape is quite different from 30 years ago. Not only is traditional media like physical newspapers in decline, news itself is diffuse and reporting is increasingly dominated by non-professionals. As overall trust in traditional media wanes, people turn to alternative channels such as Facebook and TikTok to consume their news instead. Entertainment remains an integral part of these platforms and ‘infotainment’ is sure to drive clicks on otherwise dry and fictitious subject matter. By now the terms misinformation and disinformation have become commonplace descriptors. The idiom stating that you should not believe everything you see on the internet is truer than ever.

The rise of easy access to generative AI has only exacerbated the spread of false and misleading information. But even in such a diffuse media landscape there are still actors at play that have a vested interest in promoting their particular take on what constitutes worthy news. Algorithms are used as levers to determine what type of content users should see. Often promoting short, attention-grabbing content like rage-bait, inflammatory by design and meant to elicit outrage and driving users to stay on the platform for longer periods of time. At the same time, so-called engagement farming has a financial incentive for the content creator. Both the platform and the creator win.

Social media, and perhaps the internet as a whole, was at one time considered to be the great equaliser; a democratising force for good where everyone has a voice and where everyone’s voice can be heard. Then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even spoke of the merits of internet freedom, fourteen years after the heavily lobbied for Telecommunications Act of 1996 was enacted that enabled further corporate consolidation of the telecommunications market. Without a doubt the birth of the internet has greatly accelerated the dissemination of information both in volume and velocity. A new breed of entrepreneur called the influencer, or content creator, now dominates social media and by extension the internet.

Yet influencers are far from neutral actors. Besides the incentive towards engagement farming and promoting their own brand, advertisement has become a widespread phenomenon. Whether it’s dubious skincare products or get rich quick crypto schemes, ads have become so pervasive that it is not always clear when you are looking at one. Social media marketing legislation can be vague and policies are hard to enforce due to the nature of the medium. A VoxEU study found that the vast majority of commercial content is not properly disclosed.

But what is more insidious than peddling useless products is paid political messaging. In the run up to the 2024 U.S. presidential elections non-profit advocacy organisation Chorus was found to have signed contracts with dozens of influencers to be a part of their Incubator Program. The program itself provides training to creators on political messaging in direct support of the Democratic Party.

The leaked contracts reveal that influencers were not allowed to disclose their relationship to Chorus or the Sixteen Thirty Fund that funds the program, known for its ‘dark money’ dealings. Chorus acts in lockstep with the establishment Democrats, stifling any type of anti-Israel sentiment and maintaining the liberal status quo while parading a thinly veiled progressivism. The notion of a responsible consumer making informed decisions on what they consume is a myth. Instead, we find ourselves in an era where a constant barrage of advertisements becomes increasingly pervasive.

Against the tide

Historically, and certainly post-Cold War, the Western left has been unable to establish a media ecosystem that can counter the mainstream media. An important reason for this is a lack of funding. Challenging the dominant narratives that form the status quo means going against the media conglomerates with a vested interest in upholding it. The reason why the Sixteen Thirty Fund spends exorbitant amounts of money on supposed progressive causes is because it is allowed to do so with institutional backing. There are some counter currents however.

Dropsite News, launched by Ryan Grim and Jeremy Scahill in 2024, is wholly supported by its readers. The independent news outlet has been engaged in excellent investigative reporting and frequently runs stories that are criminally under highlighted in the mainstream media if covered at all. The founders used to work at The Intercept, a progressive news outlet with corporate financial backing, and left amid internal turmoil and lack of funding.

Beyond more formal news reporting a surge of left-wing political commentators has flooded the internet that provide an alternative perspective on the mainstream news cycle and are often at odds with so called mainstream ‘left wing’ politicians. Besides the occasional advertisement (looking at you Ground News) they are largely supported by their viewers since outspoken voices on so called sensitive topics are prone to being demonetised and not receive sponsorships at all.

But even if they manage to overcome the built-in constraints and organically grow their viewership, platforms still manage to suppress these creators in insidious ways. Platforms like Meta’s Instagram for example have considered posts containing the LGBTQ+ hashtag to be “sensitive content”, thereby limiting and even hiding posts. The practice of shadow banning on Twitter (now X), while hard to prove, is widely accepted as the most plausible explanation for why particular users’ reach is drastically reduced while xenophobia and racism run rampant.

Where do we go from here?

The new media landscape is in many ways the same as the old. Dominated by those with access to capital and beholden to the principle of capital accumulation. Headlines continue to paint a world in which the fight for democracy requires the bombing of speed boats off the coast of Venezuela while only questioning the legality of such actions and not whether such an attack is warranted at all.

The advent of new media has brought with it even more opportunities to reinforce these narratives. Influencers and content creators can on the one hand position themselves as independent while at the same time receive funding from established political parties and corporate entities. The constant drive for clicks and engagement further incentivises digestible rather than informative content. More than that, the rise of the influencer brings with it a sense of trust between the creator and their audience that the traditional media lacks.

The idea of a free internet may seem true on the surface but the underlying financial incentives of modern social media dispels that notion rather quickly. Advertisements either contain overt political messaging or are meant to distract us from meaningful political discourse by insisting that we are a just small crypto investment away from joining the nouveau riche while generative AI models like Sora create and fuel mass confusion and hysteria by promoting non-existent scandals.

The situation is dire but all hope is not lost. The advent of new media has also opened up ways for the left to form and promote its own narratives and engage in much needed critical reporting. Though it is an uphill battle due to financial constraints and gatekeeping on behalf of our tech overlords, worker-cooperatives like Means TV show us that a different media landscape is possible. Without a doubt, navigating these online spaces is crucial but it is equally important to find alternatives that go beyond the confines of a phone screen. As screen time goes up we become increasingly isolated from each other in the real world. Online communities become vehicles for collective outrage instead of collective action.

Imagining a better world requires us to rethink the role of the mass media as it exists today. We do not need a Joe Rogan of the left. What we need is an innovative way of approaching media as a whole that permeates the existing order without being subsumed by it. Conforming to traditional and new media as is will merely reproduce the existing power structures. Breaking free from neoliberal atomisation means fostering offline communities that lay bare the contradictions inherent to the economic order. Only when our shared class interests are at the heart of discourse can we begin to build something better. This is no easy task but if we are to make a difference it is a necessity.

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