In 1988, Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman published the media-critical study "Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media". The authors soberly expose how the mass media fulfil the system-maintaining propaganda function of creating a social consensus.

In doing so, they draw on the work of Walter Lippmann, who in his book "Public Opinion" described "agenda setting" such as the "gatekeeper" function and the bias problem of the media for the first time in terms of news research.

Without going into the details, one important point should be made here: The mainstream media do not reflect the real spectrum of opinion. Rather, they delineate a spectrum of opinion. This means: the ownership (carrier of the medium), the sources of income (e.g. advertising), the sources of the news, the reactions of the consumers and finally the ideological or anti-ideological background set a framework.

In Germany, this framework is usually "two-dimensional" (right-left), although the actual diversity of opinion can go "three-dimensional" in all directions. "Gatekeepers" define what is still within the range of what can be said and what is not. Opinions outside this spectrum are marginalised, silenced or discredited, at worst even criminalised (at least verbally).

Typical of the recent German media landscape: Another form of limiting the diversity of opinion is to firmly link all opinions outside a narrowly defined spectrum with negative attributes ("conspiracy theorist", "right-wing populist", "alt-left" and "neo-right", "reactionary", etc.). By repeating the attribute attributions with certain opinions, fixed associations are created in the end. This creates a self-censorship among journalists to have to carry out evaluations of opinions.

The more the mainstream media function unilaterally as a consensus machine and exclude alternative opinions, the more the "counter-media" are formed.

What falls completely under the table and is urgently lacking today is the value-free reproduction of different opinions. This can be seen in the example of reporting on Corona politics. It is no longer possible to juxtapose different opinions, views, information and demands in a value-free way in order to have an open-ended debate. Instead, the mainstream media create such a narrow corset of opinions that alternative views appear radical next to them.

This mainstream reporting with its narrow spectrum of opinions can only be broken if alternative media set the counterpoint. This is then defamed by the mainstream media as "fake news" and "disinformation". But the mainstream media have only themselves to blame: the more they act unilaterally as a consensus machine and exclude alternative opinions, the more the "counter-media" form. This has also been seen in the USA: The more the "New York Times" railed against then US President Donald Trump, the more "FOX News" sided with the president. The German media quickly got behind the opinion window of the "New York Times" and portrayed "FOX News" as unserious.

Conclusion for the reader: As long as the mainstream media do not completely reflect the real spectrum of opinion and information, it only helps to consult different media and compare them with each other in order to then form one's own picture of the situation.