Western Philosophy
20th-century philosophy
21st-century philosophy |
Noam Chomsky
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Name
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Birth
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December 7 1928 (1928--) (age 78)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
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School/tradition
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Linguistics
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Main interests
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Linguistics, Psychology, Philosophy of Language, Politics, Ethics
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Notable ideas
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Generative grammar, universal
grammar
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Influences
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Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, Mikhail Bakunin, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Adam Smith, Rudolf Rocker, Zellig
Harris, Immanuel Kant, René Descartes,
George Orwell, Karl Marx, C. West Churchman.
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Influenced
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Colin McGinn, Edward Said, Steven Pinker, Tanya Reinhart, Daniel Everett, Gilbert Harman, Jerry Fodor, Howard Lasnik, Robert
Fisk, Neil Smith, Ray Jackendoff,
Norbert Hornstein, Jean Bricmont,
Marc Hauser.
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Avram Noam Chomsky (Hebrew: אברם נועם חומסקי Yiddish: אברם נועם כאמסקי) (born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist,
philosopher, political activist, author, and lecturer. He is an Institute Professor and professor emeritus of linguistics
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Chomsky is credited with the creation of the theory of generative grammar,
considered to be one of the most significant contributions to the field of linguistics made
in the 20th century. He also helped spark the cognitive revolution in psychology
through his review of B. F. Skinner's Verbal
Behavior, in which he challenged the behaviorist approach to the study of
behavior and language dominant in the 1950s. His naturalistic approach to the study of language has also affected the
philosophy of language and mind (see
Harman and Fodor). He is also credited with the
establishment of the Chomsky hierarchy, a classification of formal languages in terms of their generative power. According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index in 1992, Chomsky was cited as a source more often
than any other living scholar during the 1980–1992 time period, and was the eighth-most cited scholar in any time period.[1][2][3]
Beginning with his critique of the Vietnam War in the 1960s,
Chomsky has become more widely known—especially internationally—for his media criticism and politics. He is generally considered
to be a key intellectual figure within the left
wing of United States politics. Chomsky is widely known for his
political activism, and for his criticism of the
foreign policy of the United States and other governments.
Biography
Chomsky was born in the East Oak Lane neighborhood of
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Hebrew scholar and IWW member William Chomsky
(1896–1977), who was from a town in Ukraine. His mother, Elsie Chomsky (born Simonofsky), came
from what is now Belarus, but unlike her husband she grew up in the United States and spoke
"ordinary New York English". Their first language was Yiddish, but Chomsky says it was "taboo" in his family to speak it. He describes his family as living
in a sort of "Jewish ghetto", split into a "Yiddish side" and "Hebrew side", with his family
aligning with the latter and bringing him up "immersed in Hebrew culture and literature". Chomsky also describes tensions he
personally experienced with Irish Catholics and anti-semitism in the mid-1930s, stating, "I
don't like to say it but I grew up with a kind of visceral fear of Catholics. I knew it was irrational and got over it but it was
just the street experience."[4]
Chomsky remembers the first article he wrote was at the age of ten about the threat of the spread of fascism, following the fall of Barcelona in the Spanish Civil War.
From the age of twelve or thirteen, he identified more fully with anarchist politics.[5]
A graduate of Central High School of Philadelphia, in 1945 Chomsky
began studying philosophy and linguistics at the
University of Pennsylvania, learning from philosophers C. West Churchman and Nelson Goodman and linguist
Zellig Harris. Harris's teaching included his discovery of transformations as a
mathematical analysis of language structure (mappings from one subset to another in the set
of sentences). Chomsky subsequently reinterpreted these as operations on the productions of a context-free grammar (derived from Post production systems).
Harris's political views were instrumental in shaping those of Chomsky.
In 1949, Chomsky married linguist Carol Schatz. They have two daughters, Aviva (b.
1957) and Diane (b. 1960), and a son, Harry (b. 1967).
Chomsky received his PhD in linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1955. He conducted part of his doctoral research during four
years at Harvard University as a Harvard
Junior Fellow. In his doctoral thesis, he began to develop some of his
linguistic ideas, elaborating on them in his 1957 book Syntactic Structures,
his best-known work in linguistics.
Young Chomsky with parents
Chomsky joined the staff of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1955 and in 1961 was appointed full professor in the
Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics (now the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy). From 1966 to 1976 he held the
Ferrari P. Ward Professorship of Modern Languages and Linguistics, and in 1976 he was appointed Institute Professor. As of 2007,
Chomsky has taught at MIT continuously for 52 years.
In February 1967, Chomsky became one of the leading opponents of the Vietnam War with the
publication of his essay, "The Responsibility of
Intellectuals",[6] in The New York Review of Books. This was followed by his 1969 book, American Power and the New Mandarins, a collection of essays which established
him at the forefront of American dissent. His far-reaching criticisms of US foreign policy and the legitimacy of US power have
made him a controversial figure: largely shunned by the mainstream media in the United
States,[7][8][9][10] he is frequently sought out for his views by publications and news outlets
worldwide.
Chomsky has in the past received death threats because of his criticisms of U.S foreign policy. In addition, he was on a list
of planned targets created by Theodore Kaczynski, better known as the
Unabomber; during the period that Kaczynski was at large, Chomsky had all of his mail
checked for explosives.[citation needed] Chomsky states that he frequently receives undercover police protection, in
particular while on the MIT campus, although he does not agree with the police protection.[11]
Chomsky resides in the United States and travels frequently, giving lectures on politics.
Contributions to linguistics
Syntactic Structures was a distillation of his book Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory (1955, 75) in which
he introduces transformational grammars. The theory takes utterances (sequences
of words) to have a syntax which can be (largely) characterized by a formal grammar; in particular, a Context-free grammar extended with transformational rules. Children are hypothesized to have an
innate knowledge of the basic grammatical structure common to all human languages (i.e. they assume that any language which they
encounter is of a certain restricted kind). This innate knowledge is often referred to as universal grammar. It is argued that modeling knowledge of language using a formal grammar accounts
for the "productivity" of language: with a limited set of grammar rules and a finite set of terms, humans are able to produce an
infinite number of sentences, including sentences no one has previously said. He has always acknowledged his debt to
Panini for his modern notion of an explicit generative grammar.
The Principles and Parameters approach (P&P)—developed in his Pisa 1979 Lectures, later published as Lectures on
Government and Binding (LGB)—make strong claims regarding universal grammar: that the grammatical principles underlying
languages are innate and fixed, and the differences among the world's languages can be characterized in terms of parameter
settings in the brain (such as the pro-drop parameter, which indicates whether an explicit subject is always required, as in
English, or can be optionally dropped, as in Spanish), which are often likened to switches. (Hence the term principles and
parameters, often given to this approach.) In this view, a child learning a language need only acquire the necessary
lexical items (words, grammatical morphemes, and idioms), and
determine the appropriate parameter settings, which can be done based on a few key examples.
Proponents of this view argue that the pace at which children learn languages is inexplicably rapid, unless children have an
innate ability to learn languages. The similar steps followed by children all across the world when learning languages, and the
fact that children make certain characteristic errors as they learn their first language, whereas other seemingly logical kinds
of errors never occur (and, according to Chomsky, should be attested if a purely general, rather than language-specific, learning
mechanism were being employed), are also pointed to as motivation for innateness.
More recently, in his Minimalist Program (1995), while retaining the core
concept of "principles and parameters", Chomsky attempts a major overhaul of the linguistic machinery involved in the LGB model,
stripping from it all but the barest necessary elements, while advocating a general approach to the architecture of the human
language faculty that emphasizes principles of economy and optimal design, reverting to a derivational approach to generation, in
contrast with the largely representational approach of classic P&P.
Chomsky's ideas have had a strong influence on researchers investigating the acquisition of language in children, though some[specify] researchers who work in this area today do not support Chomsky's theories, often
advocating emergentist or connectionist theories
reducing language to an instance of general processing mechanisms in the brain.
He also theorizes that unlimited extension of a language such as English is possible only by the recursive device of embedding sentences in sentences.
Generative grammar
The Chomskyan approach towards syntax, often termed generative grammar, studies grammar as a body of knowledge possessed by language users. Since the
1960s, Chomsky has maintained that much of this knowledge is innate, implying that children need
only learn certain parochial features of their native languages.[12] The innate body of linguistic knowledge is often termed Universal Grammar. From Chomsky's perspective, the strongest evidence for the existence of Universal
Grammar is simply the fact that children successfully acquire their native languages in so little time. He argues that the
linguistic data to which children have access radically underdetermine the rich linguistic knowledge which they attain by
adulthood (the "poverty of the stimulus" argument).
Chomsky's theories are still popular, particularly in the United States, but they have
never been free from controversy. Criticism has come from a number of different directions. Chomskyan linguists rely heavily on
the intuitions of native speakers regarding which sentences of their languages are well-formed. This practice has been criticized
both on general methodological grounds, and because it has (some argue) led to an overemphasis on the study of English. As of
now, hundreds of different languages have received at least some attention in the generative grammar literature,[13][14][15][16][17] but some critics nonetheless perceive this overemphasis, and a tendency to base claims about
Universal Grammar on an overly small sample of languages. Some psychologists and
psycholinguists, though sympathetic to Chomsky's overall program, have argued that
Chomskyan linguists pay insufficient attention to experimental data from language processing, with the consequence that their
theories are not psychologically plausible. More radical critics have questioned whether it is necessary to posit Universal
Grammar in order to explain child language acquisition, arguing that domain-general learning mechanisms are sufficient.
Today there are many different branches of generative grammar; one can view grammatical frameworks such as head-driven phrase structure grammar, lexical functional grammar and combinatory categorical
grammar as broadly Chomskian and generative in orientation, but with significant differences in execution.
Cultural anthropologist and linguist Daniel
Everett of Illinois State University has proposed that the language of
the Pirahã people of the northwestern rainforest of Brazil
resists Chomsky's theories of generative grammar. Everett asserts that the Pirahã
language does not have any evidence of recursion, one of the key properties of
generative grammar. Additionally, it is claimed that the Pirahan have no fixed words for colors or numbers, speak in single
phonemes, and often speak in prosody. [18] However, Everett's claims have themselves been criticized.
David Pesetsky of MIT, Andrew Nevins of Harvard, and Cilene Rodrigues of the Universidade Estadual de Campinas in Brazil have
argued in a joint paper that all of Everett's major claims contain serious deficiencies.[19] The dispute continues, pending further field research and analysis.[20]
Chomsky hierarchy
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Chomsky is famous for investigating various kinds of formal languages and whether or
not they might be capable of capturing key properties of human language. His Chomsky
hierarchy partitions formal grammars into classes, or groups, with increasing
expressive power, i.e., each successive class can generate a broader set of formal languages than the one before. Interestingly,
Chomsky argues that modeling some aspects of human language requires a more complex formal grammar (as measured by the Chomsky
hierarchy) than modeling others. For example, while a regular language is powerful
enough to model English morphology, it is not powerful enough to model English
syntax. In addition to being relevant in linguistics, the Chomsky hierarchy has also become
important in computer science (especially in compiler
construction and automata theory).
His best-known work in phonology is The
Sound Pattern of English, written with Morris Halle (and often known as simply
SPE). Though extremely influential in its day, this work is considered outdated (though it has recently been reprinted),
and Chomsky does not publish on phonology anymore.
Contributions to psychology
Chomsky's work in linguistics has had major implications for modern psychology.[21] For Chomsky, linguistics is a branch of cognitive psychology; genuine insights in linguistics imply concomitant understandings of aspects
of mental processing and human nature. His theory of a universal grammar was seen by
many as a direct challenge to the established behaviorist theories of the time and had major
consequences for understanding how language is learned by children and what, exactly, the
ability to use language is. Many of the more basic principles of this theory (though not necessarily the stronger claims made by
the principles and parameters approach described above) are now generally
accepted in some circles.[dubious – discuss]
In 1959, Chomsky published an influential critique of B.F. Skinner's
Verbal Behavior, a book in which Skinner offered a speculative explanation
of language in behavioral terms. "Verbal behavior" he defined as learned behavior which has its characteristic consequences being
delivered through the learned behavior of others; this makes for a view of communicative behaviors much larger than that usually
addressed by linguists. Skinner's approach focused on the circumstances in which language was used; for example, asking for water
was functionally a different response than labeling something as water, responding to someone asking for water, etc. These
functionally different kinds of responses, which required in turn separate explanations, sharply contrasted both with traditional
notions of language and Chomsky's psycholinguistic approach. Chomsky thought that a functionalist explanation restricting itself
to questions of communicative performance ignored important questions. (Chomsky-Language and Mind, 1968). He focused on questions
concerning the operation and development of innate structures for syntax capable of creatively organizing, cohering, adapting and
combining words and phrases into intelligible utterances.
In the review Chomsky emphasized that the scientific application of behavioral principles from animal research is severely
lacking in explanatory adequacy and is furthermore particularly superficial as an account of human verbal behavior because a
theory restricting itself to external conditions, to "what is learned", cannot adequately account for generative grammar. Chomsky
raised the examples of rapid language acquisition of children, including their quickly developing ability to form grammatical
sentences, and the universally creative language use of competent native speakers to highlight the ways in which Skinner's view
exemplified under-determination of theory by evidence. He argued that to understand human verbal behavior such as the creative
aspects of language use and language development, one must first postulate a genetic linguistic endowment. The assumption that
important aspects of language are the product of universal innate ability runs counter to Skinner's radical behaviorism.
Chomsky's 1959 review has drawn fire from a number of critics, the most famous criticism being that of Kenneth MacCorquodale's
1970 paper On Chomsky’s Review of Skinner’s Verbal Behavior (Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior,
volume 13, pages 83–99). This and similar critiques have raised certain points not generally acknowledged outside of behavioral
psychology, such as the claim that Chomsky did not possess an adequate understanding of either behavioral psychology in general,
or the differences between Skinner's behaviorism and other varieties; consequently, it is argued that he made several serious
errors. On account of these perceived problems, the critics maintain that the review failed to demonstrate what it has often been
cited as doing. As such, it is averred that those most influenced by Chomsky's paper probably either already substantially agreed
with Chomsky or never actually read it. Chomsky has maintained that the review was directed at the way Skinner's variant of
behavioral psychology "was being used in Quinean empiricism and naturalization of philosophy".[22]
It has been claimed that Chomsky's critique of Skinner's methodology and basic assumptions paved the way for the
"cognitive revolution", the shift in American psychology between the 1950s through
the 1970s from being primarily behavioral to being primarily cognitive. In his 1966 Cartesian Linguistics and subsequent
works, Chomsky laid out an explanation of human language faculties that has become the model for investigation in some areas of
psychology. Much of the present conception of how the mind works draws directly from ideas that found their first persuasive
author of modern times in Chomsky.
There are three key ideas. First is that the mind is "cognitive", or that the mind actually contains mental states, beliefs,
doubts, and so on. Second, he argued that most of the important properties of language and mind are innate. The acquisition and
development of a language is a result of the unfolding of innate propensities triggered by the experiential input of the external
environment. The link between human innate aptitude to language and heredity has been at the core of the debate opposing Noam
Chomsky to Jean Piaget at the Abbaye de Royaumont in 1975 (Language and Learning. The
Debate between Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky, Harvard University Press, 1980). Although links between the genetic setup of
humans and aptitude to language have been suggested at that time and in later discussions, we are still far from understanding
the genetic bases of human language. Work derived from the model of selective stabilization of synapses set up by Jean-Pierre Changeux, Philippe Courrège and Antoine Danchin,[23] and more recently developed experimentally and theoretically by
Jacques Mehler and Stanislas Dehaene in
particular in the domain of numerical cognition lend support to the Chomskyan
"nativism". It does not, however, provide clues about the type of rules that would organize neuronal connections to permit
language competence. Subsequent psychologists have extended this general "nativist" thesis beyond language. Lastly, Chomsky made
the concept of "modularity" a critical feature of the mind's cognitive architecture.
The mind is composed of an array of interacting, specialized subsystems with limited flows of inter-communication. This model
contrasts sharply with the old idea that any piece of information in the mind could be accessed by any other cognitive process
(optical illusions, for example, cannot be "turned off" even when they are known to be illusions).
Opinion on cultural criticism of science
Chomsky strongly disagrees with post-structuralist and postmodern criticisms of science:
I have spent a lot of my life working on questions such as these, using the only methods I know of; those condemned here as
"science", "rationality", "logic" and so on. I therefore read the papers with some hope that they would help me "transcend" these
limitations, or perhaps suggest an entirely different course. I'm afraid I was disappointed. Admittedly, that may be my own
limitation. Quite regularly, "my eyes glaze over" when I read polysyllabic discourse on the themes of poststructuralism and
postmodernism; what I understand is largely truism or error, but that is only a fraction of the
total word count. True, there are lots of other things I don't understand: the articles in the current issues of math and physics
journals, for example. But there is a difference. In the latter case, I know how to get to understand them, and have done so, in
cases of particular interest to me; and I also know that people in these fields can explain the contents to me at my level, so
that I can gain what (partial) understanding I may want. In contrast, no one seems to be able to explain to me why the latest
post-this-and-that is (for the most part) other than truism, error, or gibberish, and I do not know how to proceed.
Chomsky believes that science is a good way to start understanding history and human affairs:
I think studying science is a good way to get into fields like history. The reason is, you learn what an argument means, you
learn what evidence is, you learn what makes sense to postulate and when, what's going to be convincing. You internalize the
modes of rational inquiry, which happen to be much more advanced in the sciences than anywhere else. On the other hand, applying
relativity theory to history isn't going to get you anywhere. So it's a mode of thinking.[24]
Chomsky has also commented on critiques of "white male science", stating that they are much like the antisemitic and politically motivated attacks against "Jewish physics" used by the Nazis to denigrate research done by Jewish scientists during the Deutsche
Physik movement:
In fact, the entire idea of "white male science" reminds me, I'm afraid, of "Jewish
physics". Perhaps it is another inadequacy of mine, but when I read a scientific paper, I can't tell whether the author is white
or is male. The same is true of discussion of work in class, the office, or somewhere else. I rather doubt that the non-white,
non-male students, friends, and colleagues with whom I work would be much impressed with the doctrine that their thinking and
understanding differ from "white male science" because of their "culture or gender and race." I suspect that "surprise" would not
be quite the proper word for their reaction.[25]
Chomsky's influence in other fields
Chomskyan models have been used as a theoretical basis in several other fields. The Chomsky hierarchy is often taught in fundamental computer
science courses as it confers insight into the various types of formal languages.
This hierarchy can also be discussed in mathematical terms[26] and has generated interest among mathematicians, particularly combinatorialists. Some arguments in evolutionary
psychology are derived from his research results.[27]
The 1984 Nobel Prize laureate in Medicine and Physiology, Niels K. Jerne, used
Chomsky's generative model to explain the human immune system, equating "components of a generative grammar … with various
features of protein structures". The title of Jerne's Stockholm Nobel lecture was "The Generative Grammar of the Immune
System".
Nim Chimpsky, a chimpanzee who was the subject of a study in animal language acquisition at Columbia University, was
named after Chomsky in reference to his view of language acquisition as a uniquely
human ability.
Famous computer scientist Donald Knuth admits to reading Syntactic Structures during his
honeymoon and being greatly influenced by it. "…I must admit to taking a copy of Noam Chomsky's Syntactic Structures along with
me on my honeymoon in 1961 … Here was a marvelous thing: a mathematical theory of language in which I could use a computer
programmer's intuition!".
Another focus of Chomsky's political work has been an analysis of mainstream mass media (especially in the United States), its
structures and constraints, and its perceived role in supporting big business and government interests.
Edward S. Herman and Chomsky's book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass
Media (1988) explores this topic in depth, presenting their "propaganda model" of the news
media with numerous detailed case studies demonstrating it. According to this propaganda model, more democratic societies like
the U.S. use subtle, non-violent means of control, unlike totalitarian systems, where physical force can readily be used to
coerce the general population. In an often-quoted remark, Chomsky states that "propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is
to a totalitarian state." (Media Control)
The model attempts to explain this perceived systemic bias of the mass media in terms of structural economic causes rather
than a conspiracy of people. It argues the bias derives from five "filters" that all published news must "pass through" which
combine to systematically distort news coverage.
The first filter, ownership, notes that most major media outlets are owned by large corporations. The second, funding, notes
that the outlets derive the majority of their funding from advertising, not readers. Thus, since they are profit-oriented
businesses selling a product—readers and audiences—to other businesses (advertisers), the model would expect them to publish news
which would reflect the desires and values of those businesses. In addition, the news media are dependent on government
institutions and major businesses with strong biases as sources (the third filter) for much of their information. Flak, the
fourth filter, refers to the various pressure groups which attack the media for supposed bias. Norms, the fifth filter, refer to
the common conceptions shared by those in the profession of journalism. (Note: in the original text, published in 1988, the fifth
filter was "anticommunism". However, with the fall of the Soviet Union, it has been broadened to allow for shifts in public
opinion.) The model describes how the media form a decentralized and non-conspiratorial but nonetheless very powerful propaganda
system, that is able to mobilize an élite consensus, frame public debate within élite perspectives and at the same time give the
appearance of democratic consent.
Chomsky and Herman test their model empirically by picking "paired examples"—pairs of events that were objectively similar
except for the alignment of domestic elite interests. They use a number of such examples to attempt to show that in cases where
an "official enemy" does something (like murder of a religious official), the press investigates thoroughly and devotes a great
amount of coverage to the matter, thus victims of "enemy" states are considered "worthy". But when the domestic government or an
ally does the same thing (or worse), the press downplays the story, thus victims of US or US client states are considered
"unworthy."
They also test their model against the case that is often held up as the best example of a free and aggressively independent
press, the media coverage of the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War. Even in this case, they argue that the press was behaving subserviently to élite interests.
Critics of Chomsky and Herman's mass media analysis, including author and neoconservative military historian Victor Davis Hanson of
the Hoover Institution severely disagree with Chomsky and Herman's theories. They see
the idea of "Manufacturing Consent" as nothing more than a recycling of the Marxist idea of "false consciousness", in which the masses, having been so manipulated that they have neither the
perspective or intellect to see beyond the propaganda, require superior intellects like Chomsky's to point out to them the real
truth. Arch Puddington of the Hoover Institution also claims he sees virtually no empirical
evidence in media coverage, specifically regarding the mass media's treatment of Cambodia and East Timor, to back the claims made
in Manufacturing Consent.
Stephen J. Morris, a critic of Chomsky's position on Cambodia, evaluates Herman and Chomsky's
propaganda model by reviewing their analysis of media coverage during the rule of the Khmer
Rouge. Chomsky and Herman argue that the "flood of rage and anger directed against the Khmer Rouge" peaking in early
1977, was a concrete example of their "propaganda model" in action. They argued that the media was
singling out Cambodia, an enemy of the United States, while under-reporting human rights abuses by American allies such as
South Korea and Chile. A study performed by Jamie Metzl (Responses to Human Rights Abuses in Cambodia, 1975–80) analyses major media reporting on
Cambodia and concludes that media coverage on Cambodia was more intense when there were events with an international angle, but
had largely disappeared by 1977. Metzl also contradicts Chomsky and Herman by claiming that of all the articles published
regarding Cambodia, less than one in twenty dealt with the political violence being perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge.
Political views
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