Noam Chomsky in the 1990s, the Overton window, and the five filters

Andrew Marr (aged 27 in 1996) is today a prominent member of the media elite in the UK*
(note that the third of the five filters – see animation below – is the media elite)

seven seconds from Chomsky, at 11:08:
I’m not saying you’re self-censoring. I’m sure you believe everything you’re saying. But what I’m saying is if you believed something different, you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting.
the 1945 Orwell essay Chomsky mentions earlier, at 08:23, ends with this:
If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. The common people still vaguely subscribe to that doctrine and act on it. … [I]t is the liberals who fear liberty and the intellectuals who want to do dirt on the intellect: it is to draw attention to that fact that I have written this preface. (!?)*
Caitlin Johnstone heads her 2019 post on the Overton window* with this Chomsky quote from 1998:
The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum — even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.
animation narrated by Amy Goodman (!w2) of Democracy Now! (!w2)
media operate through five filters: ownership, advertising, the media elite, flak, and the common enemy*


*a link; see a note on notes and links; see also a disclaimer

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see the article the tweet links to – archived*



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