How to deconstruct our lying media
Robert Shone — July 12, 2010 13 Comments
Media criticism comes in many forms – the approaches of meta-journalism, propaganda model and frame semantics work well together, but the semantics method is relatively new and urgently needs investing with time, effort and funding. Meanwhile, dogmatic applications of the propaganda model lead to intolerance and closed beliefs.
Media
Sustaining Necessary Illusions: The Bosnia Genocide Lobby Strikes Again
David Peterson — June 7, 2010 17 Comments
A recent post to The Comment Factory chided Truthdig contributor Chris Hedges over his profile of Noam Chomsky in April.[1] Drafted by “three activists,” it took Hedges to task for focusing on Chomsky’s views on a variety of urgent topics, such as the ominous spread of “late Weimar”-like “parallels” across U.S. society, and went on [...]
Editor's Pick, Politics
Criticising Chomsky on the Balkans: Three activists speak out
Daniel Simpson — May 30, 2010 73 Comments
Don’t ignore Noam Chomsky. Just read him as critically as he suggests reading The New York Times. His persistent misrepresentations of Balkan war crimes have forced three activists to reappraise his analysis.
Politics
The Toronto declaration is not a violation of artistic freedom
Faraaz Rahman — September 18, 2009 7 Comments
The protest is not against the individual Israeli filmmakers included in City to City, nor does it in any way suggest that Israeli films should be unwelcome at TIFF. However, especially in the wake of this year’s brutal assault on Gaza, protest is against the use of such an important international festival in staging a propaganda campaign on behalf of what the South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and UN General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann have all characterized as an apartheid regime.
Culture, Editor's Pick, Politics
Anti-Israeli polemics are propaganda, not scholarship
Omri Preiss — January 13, 2009 6 Comments
The opinions of anti-Israeli scholars and activists avoid the facts and try to present Zionism as a monolithic movement when it has many complex strands.