All propaganda follows these rules (Chomsky's Five Filters)

Since that friendlyjordies video got me a sextillion new subs, next I'm explaining the book he tells everyone to read: Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky. It's a neat explanation of all the propaganda in your everyday environment and how people are often forced to believe it.

Chomsky frames all major messaging, from news to PSAs to advertising, as a kind of a five-person human centipede where raw facts are fed in and what you're told comes out. Information in free countries is often trustworthy, but it's still twisted in subtle ways that guide how we think and what we believe. Those five bodies are:

1) Ownership
2) Funding
3) Authority
4) Flak
5) Fear

Here's the whole propaganda chapter on Chomsky's site, in glorious Comic Sans:

I have articles about this on ...

[mattw]

Noam Chomsky was a professor of Linguistics and a distinguished researcher in the field.. He still may be or may be an emeritus professor. He was, I think, at MIT for decades but a few years ago moved to Arizona - not sure what university.

[johangrove]

Great summary! Good luck with the channel!

[Jack-evup]

Thanks for summarising such an important work!

[mattw]

Rule for life: don't believe anything you don't have substantial verified evidence for, from independent sources. Remain skeptical of everything.