2017/06/13 by Matthew Alford · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Advertising #Aesthetics #Art #Business #Gender, Feminism, and Media #Grassroots #History #Hollywood #Ideology #Law #Mainstream #Media Studies and Communication #Media studies #Newspaper #Political science #Politics #Social Media and Politics #Sociology
paper · pdf · doi:10.16997/wpcc.128
openalex publication_date 2017/06/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
This article proposes a Hollywood Propaganda Model, based on Herman and Chomsky’s original theory for news media, to explain the ideological output of mainstream Hollywood. The five filters are: concentrated ownership; the importance of merchandising; dependence on establishment sources; the disproportionate ability of the powerful to create flak; and a dominant ideology of ‘us’ versus the ‘Other’. The article acknowledges the limits of such a model but makes the case that the filters are important overarching concerns in determining the ‘bounds of the expressible’ and that countervailing forces such as the supposed left-wing beliefs of grassroots Hollywood are of limited significance.