The Propaganda Model (PM), developed by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky and published in Manufacturing Consent in 1988, sought to explain the behaviour of the mass media in the United States. Analysing the function, operation and effects of the media are essential to any understanding of contemporary societies and the article begins by sketching out the contours of the liberalpluralist vs. critical-Marxist debate about the role of the media. The article then presents an overview of the PM, locates it within the field of media and communication studies, considers its reception, discusses a number of complementary methodological and theoretical approaches, and argues that the PM, more than 20 years after its formulation, continues to provide an invaluable tool for understanding the media within contemporary capitalist societies. IntroductionThe Propaganda Model (PM), which sought to explain the behaviour of the mass media in the United States, was developed by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky in Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, published in 1988. Firmly rooted in the critical-Marxist, more specifically the political economy, tradition of media and communication studies, the PM, or more specifically its reception within the field, is somewhat of a paradox. In terms of its application, mainly by those working within the aforementioned tradition, the PM is one of the most tested models within the social sciences. However, it has received very little attention within mainstream media and communication studies, sociology or the wider social sciences. This article introduces the liberal-pluralist vs. critical-Marxist debate about the role of the media in contemporary societies, presents an overview of the PM, locates it within the field of media and communication studies, and discusses its reception, discusses a number of complementary methodological and theoretical approaches and argues that the PM, more than 20 years after its formulation, continues to provide an invaluable tool for understanding the media within contemporary capitalist societies. Understanding society, politics and the mediaIf the job of sociologists is to understand and explain the development, stratification and functioning of societies, then attention must be paid to how members of those societies communicate. More specifically, given the long-standing hierarchical nature of societies, there is a need to analyse what, how and why the elites in societies communicate with the masses and what this means for the structures of power. In simplistic terms, there are two diametrically opposed perspectives on how power is distributed within contemporary, capitalist, liberal-democratic societies and what the role of the media, as an

Their Propaganda Model (PM), which attempted to explain the behaviour of the media in the United States, found that it consistently served the interests of corporate and state power. Furthermore, they anticipated that the PM would be generally ignored within academia, which, all too often, also served the interests of corporate and state power. This commentary breaks new ground by focusing upon their second-order prediction, concerning the reception of the PM within academia; it demonstrates that the PM has been systematically marginalized within the field of media and communication studies, just as Herman and Chomsky forecast it would. The commentary is divided into six sections. The first section highlights the contrast between the liberal-pluralist perspective and the Marxist-radical critique of how political and media systems function in capitalist, liberal-democratic societies. The second section situates the PM within the Marxist-radical tradition of media and communication studies. The third section provides an overview of the PM, more specifically its three hypotheses, its five operative principles and the evidence presented by Herman and Chomsky in support of the PM. The fourth section, which assesses how the PM has been received within the field of media and communication studies since 1988, is concerned with the second-order prediction that the PM would be neglected. More specifically, it surveys the way in which scholars have engaged with the PM; it provides data on the proportion of media and communication journal articles that have attended to the PM; and it submits data on the number of media and communication texts that refer to the PM. The fifth section suggests a number of reasons to explain why the PM has been generally dismissed, while the sixth section makes the case for the continued relevance of the PM.

The largest city in Benin, West Africa (Cotonou), is reliant upon groundwater for its public water supply. This groundwater is derived from the Godomey well field which is located approximately 5 Km north of the coast of the Atlantic Ocean and in close proximity to Lake Nokoue—a shallow lake containing water with elevated concentration of chloride and other elements. Historical data indicate increased chloride concentration in a number of wells nearest to the lake, with unknown contribution from groundwater encroachment from the coastal area. Hence, there is substantial interest in better characterizing this groundwater system for the purpose of determining appropriate management practices and degree of sustainability. Among the efforts attempted to date are a series of numerical models ranging from assessment of flow to a recent effort to include density-dependent transport from the lake. In addition, substantial field characterization has been pursued including assessment of shallow water chemistry along the region of the coastal lagoon and border of the lake, characterization of hydraulic response to pumpage in the aquifer system, estimation of the distribution of electrical resistivity with depth along the coastal lagoons, and installation of multi-level piezometers at seven locations in the lake. When integrated across methods, these numerical and field results indicate that the lake remains a primary concern in terms of a source of salinity in the aquifer. Further, the coastal region appears to be more complex than previously suggested and may represent a future source of salt-water encroachment as suggested by current presence of saline waters at relatively shallow depths along the coast. Finally, hydraulic testing suggests that both natural and pumping-based fluctuations in water levels are present in this system. Substantial additional characterization and modeling efforts may provide a significantly greater understanding of the behavior of this complex groundwater system and, thereby, an improved ability to manage the potential for negative impacts from salt-water and anthropogenic contaminants entering this sole source of fresh water for southern Benin

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