Jonas Robin
The Dissemination of Political Information through Media:
Surveillance Capitalism as a Case Study
My capstone project examines how our political beliefs are informed through mass media and social media. Drawing on the propaganda model advanced by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman in their book Manufacturing Consent, I break down particular cases in which the media builds strategic political consensus that is amenable to capital and state power. The propaganda model describes five political-economic imperatives that shape how information is disseminated through the media. From this lens, the concept of a fair and neutral news media is ultimately a myth. Multinational conglomerates have become the dominant players in news media, as publicly funded or local news and media outlets declined. The dependence of news media on advertising revenue as its core profit source is a particularly important imperative, as sensationalism and consumerism have displaced informative and empowering news coverage. In the digital age, the concept of surveillance capitalism exposes the destructive nature of targeted advertising as personal privacy is sacrificed to obtain (distorted) political news from social media. Ultimately, state and corporate surveillance and the media we consume are interconnected in ways that debase the quality of our political information system.