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Friend,
In 1988, Noam Chomsky’s seminal work Manufacturing Consent was published, revealing how mass corporate media in the modern capitalist society functions as a powerful propaganda service on behalf of the wealthy and powerful.
In the 33 years, since the propaganda tools of Big Tech and the corporate media have become so much more powerful and concentrated that Chomsky’s original edition seems almost quaint by comparison.
When Chomsky was researching his book, federal laws limited corporate media concentration, with thousands of local newspapers and radio stations all over the country. Today, those local newspapers and radio stations are long gone or gutted, and the national media elites have been joined by an even smaller group of Big Tech giants.
The old media elites were limited to broadcasting a single national message. Today’s digital media giants use sophisticated, secret algorithms and massive amounts of personal data on each of us to control what we see, read, and think.
These big tech monopolists control a growing majority of the web traffic to online publishers like Common Dreams. As their stranglehold on the Internet has gotten tighter and tighter, our traffic and donations have fallen.
Every day that Big Tech and the corporate media become more powerful and concentrated, it's more difficult—and more critical—for independent, nonprofit news outlets like Common Dreams to survive. We rely on you, our readers, to keep us going. Will you make a donation to help meet our must-hit goal for our Fall Campaign goal by next week?
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