Dear ladies and gentlemen,

today we’d like to share some media insights by our appreciated Noam Chomsky:

1 OWNERSHIP
The first has to do with ownership. Mass media firms are big corporations. Often, they are part of even bigger conglomerates. Their end game? Profit. And so it’s in their interests to push for whatever guarantees that profit. Naturally, critical journalism must take second place to the needs and interests of the corporation.

2 ADVERTISING
The second filter exposes the real role of advertising. Media costs a lot more than consumers will ever pay. So who fills the gap? Advertisers. And what are the advertisers paying for? Audiences. And so it isn’t so much that the media are selling you a product — their output. They are also selling advertisers a product — YOU.”

3 THE MEDIA ELITE
The establishment manages the media through the third filter. Journalism cannot be a check on power because the very system encourages complicity. Governments, corporations, big institutions know how to play the media game. They know how to influence the news narrative. They feed media scoops, official accounts, interviews with the ‘experts’. They make themselves crucial to the process of journalism. So, those in power and those who report on them are in bed with each other.

4 FLAK
If you want to challenge power, you’ll be pushed to the margins. When the media – journalists, whistleblowers, sources – stray away from the consensus, they get ‘flak’. This is the fourth filter. When the story is inconvenient for the powers that be, you’ll see the flak machine in action discrediting sources, trashing stories and diverting the conversation.

5 THE COMMON ENEMY
To manufacture consent, you need an enemy — a target. That common enemy is the fifth filter. Communism. Terrorists. Immigrants. A common enemy, a bogeyman to fear, helps corral public opinion.

As we stated oftentimes in the past here, it’s important that indie media like AETHYX MEDIAE exists. Maybe today more than ever. Let us explain.

1 Ownership: we value critical journalism over profit. Of course our margins are small but we’re also a company after all. We have costs, we need resources. Be it the time for writing this text here or when we want to extend our domain with which we are available in the web for another year. However, we share the opinion that journalism needs to be critical regarding profit if it wants to be valuable – and believable. As such, most of the journalism today doesn’t work anymore. It’s oftentimes even up to the individual to change that to the better – which is a shame for our current times.

2 Advertising: what we try here is to give you the control over what is published. That’s the contrary to making you a product for anything. If you want to show ads on your site or sell merchandise, no problem at all. But we have a problem with paradigms and corporations who make you a product. There are social media websites out there who convert individual human beings into plastic products. It’s horrible and needs to be stopped. Currently, it’s not even made out which heavy negative implications it will have on our future on this burning planet.

3 The media elite: we’re honest here – of course we want to be part of that elite too. Who doesn’t? However, we never will be the ones spin doctoring around. We never did and we wouldn’t be around here anymore if we ever did something similar. What we want is to have a “real media elite” full of competence, innovation and surrounded by bleeding edge technology. We want Eliza Cassan media! No, really: of course we want individuals with their blog, app, etc. be part of that “real media elite” but there’s room for AI media too.

4 Flak: this is something which won’t be changeable, unfortunately. If we observe this fluid media webspace correct for the last 20+ years, this won’t go away ever. We shouldn’t mind though, as if we long for the 100% credit and respect in this space, we might achieve maybe 80%. And this number is too damn high regarding the current media channels and outlets out there – and it is still growing. Let us be proud on what we will have achieved in the end, we here would be happy with 55/45. But for the heck of it, let’s long for the 100.

5 The common enemy: there are more than enough targets today which are important for humanity and its future. Let’s focus on those and not on those stupid conflicts between humans themselves. For as long as we humans stay on this planet, and this might not be very long anymore, we shouldn’t go down as the species which valued its own ego above the problems of a whole planet. Or a solar system. We think you get the idea, we should get hold of ourselves before it’s too late.

If we can believe in ourselves, you can too. Start today!

Take care out there and remember to stay real during these fake times,
your aethyx staff