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Abstract

Reclining significantly on the five filters of the propaganda model of western journalism as theorized by Herman and Chomsky in their seminal Manufacturing Consent, this article focuses on the fifth filter understood as a two-tiered ideological consensus. This framework prompts journalists to focus attention away from domestic malfeasance towards such international threats as Soviet aggression or ambiguous ‘terrorists’ in the context of validating the domestic market and a consumer culture normativity. Under the bipartite conditions of a new media political economy and the vicissitudes of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ideology filter has fragmented even further and engendered a new kind of panic that reformulates older forms of ‘yellow’ journalism and sensationalist rhetoric. The paper outlines the new precarious political economy for journalists in an ever-competitive market. Panic occurs for journalists to produce an ever-titillating stream of information in order to remain commercially viable with headlines that trade on new waves of social panic engendered in phenomena such as COVID-19. The paper surveys a number of headlines that exemplify the trend before concluding with a call for a new media paradigm and a renewed social interest in media literacy.

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2026-03-20
2026-04-22

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/content/journals/10.1386/ajms_00201_1
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  • Article Type: Article
Keywords: panic journalism ; precariat ; alarmism ; propaganda model ; ideology filter ; sensationalism

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