1st Edition
The Economic Policy of Online Media Manufacture of Dissent
This book explores the distortion of communication online, centered around the theory that the economic policy model of online media is primarily based on the systematic manufacture of dissent.
Following the media criticism tradition of Habermas and Chomsky, among others, the book shows how anger can motivate news consumption as the principle of divide-and-rule in the online media of the 21st century is systematically applied. The author posits that media addiction increases interest, therefore deliberate distortion of facts and the manufacture of dissent provide the media with a larger audience and this becomes the business model.
This insightful volume will interest researchers, scholars, and students of media economics, political economy of media, digital media, propaganda, mass communication, and media literacy.
Introduction: the Civil Cold War online
1. Changing the paradigm of mass communication
1.1. The need for a new paradigm
1.2. The rise of dissent in the network society
1.3. The 'New World Information Order' dystopia
1.4. Dysfunctions in the propaganda model
2. Dissent and the theory of mass communication
2.1. 'Manufacture of consent'—Walter Lippmann
2.2. 'Democratic propaganda'—Edward Bernays
2.3. 'The spiral of silence'—Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann
2.4. 'The propaganda model'—Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman
2.5. 'The end of history'—Francis Fukuyama
2.6. 'Agenda setting'—Maxwell McCombs
2.7. 'Pseudo news'—Niklas Luhmann
2.8. 'Distorted communication'—Jürgen Habermas
3. Digital media as a risk to democracy
3.1. Digital capitalism and decorative democracy
3.2. Trust and dissent in democracy
3.3. Dissidents' dissent and cognitive infiltration
4. Mass media as dissent manufacture
4.1.The Bulgarian connection in the attack on the pope
4.2. The effects of the 'lying press' (Lügenpresse)
4.3. Doublespeak and conflict propaganda
4.4. The language of Russophilia/Russophobia
Conclusion: the dissent of the governed
1. Media hostility index
2. Angry citizens of the internet
3. Second-degree cybernetics and Kayfabe
4. Planned obsolescence of communication
Biography
Peter Ayolov is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communication at Sofia University 'St. Kliment Ohridski', Bulgaria.
