Manufacturing Consent

The Political Economy of the Mass Media

By: Edward S. Herman, Noam Chomsky

Narrated by: John Pruden

In this pathbreaking work, now with a new introduction, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky show that, contrary to the usual image of the news media as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their search for truth and defense of justice, in their actual practice they defend the economic, social, and political agendas of the privileged groups that dominate domestic society, the state, and the global order.

Based on a series of case studies - including the media's dichotomous treatment of "worthy" versus "unworthy" victims, "legitimizing" and "meaningless" Third World elections, and devastating critiques of media coverage of the US wars against Indochina - Herman and Chomsky draw on decades of criticism and research to propose a Propaganda Model to explain the media's behavior and performance. Their new introduction updates the Propaganda Model and the earlier case studies, and it discusses several other applications.

©2002 Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky (P)2017 Tantor

Critic reviews

"[A] compelling indictment of the news media's role in covering up errors and deceptions in American foreign policy of the past quarter century." ( New York Times)

Propaganda model

It's an interesting and well supported work. The whole thing is basically a list of examples of the US media supporting a propaganda model to protect existing power structures. One thing I worry is that this cycle is inevitable... any country or organization will gradually shift power to the top until it fails, then starts all over again via revolution or whatever.

The problem I see is that this is a systematic issue that will always form. In engineering this is called a positive feedback loop... those in power have disproportionate influence to protect and increase their power, and this snowballs until the whole system fails. It's an unfortunate thing, but I guess until someone figures out some fix for this, it's always good to take the side of the unpowered group in all cases, if only to rebalance this asymmetry. Culturally this at least slows down the cycle.

A must read to understand the full concept of a nation of the people by the people and for the people!

In a nation where it’s people have vision to do it better. This beacon of hope called the United States still has a lot of growing. Unfortunately the dis-ease called greed plagues it’s people
as the system is rigged to benefit the rich and the powerful. In this readers eyes it is only when the people stay awake that peace can prevail. A compelling tell of the mistakes made in our collective slumber and who empowers those who are evil in our collective name!

The first 8-10 chapters are a MUST READ

The rest is a mostly a rant on the Vietnam war.
The first half should be required reading before anyone can vote.

essential reading for anyone interested in news

this book is fantastic in how it theorizes a Propaganda model for US news media and in how it seeks to prove the model true. though some of the case studies are a little dated others feel fully relevant even today and the model is still useful for current media analysis in the internet age

Thorough and frightening

A must read for understanding propaganda and it’s impact on American media, and the people. Long, but well thought-out and presented. It’s not gripping, except in how scary is our reality.