| Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media | |
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| Author | Edward S. Herman, Noam Chomsky |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Politics |
| Publisher | Pantheon Books |
| Publication date | 1988 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover,Paperback) |
| ISBN | 0-3757-1449-9 |
| OCLC Number | 47971712 |
| Dewey Decimal | 381/.4530223 21 |
| LC Classification | P96.E25 H47 2002 |
| Preceded by | The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians |
| Followed by | Necessary Illusions |
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988), by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, is an analysis of the news media as business. The title derives from the phrase “the manufacture of consent” that essayist–editor Walter Lippmann (1889–1974) employed in the book Public Opinion (1922).
Contents |
The propaganda model
Using the propaganda model, Manufacturing Consent posits that corporate-owned news mass communication media — print, radio, television — are businesses subject to commercial competition for advertising revenue and profit. As such, their distortion (editorial bias) of news reportage — i.e. what types of news, which items, and how they are reported — is consequence of the profit motive that requires establishing a stable, profitable business; therefore, news businesses favoring profit over the public interest succeed, whilst those favoring reportorial accuracy over profits fail, and are relegated to the margins of their markets (low sales and ratings).
Government and news media
Editorial distortion is aggravated by the news media’s dependence upon private and governmental news sources. If a given newspaper, television station, magazine, et cetera, incurs governmental disfavor, it usually is subtly excluded from access to information (news); resultantly, its competitors receive biased, preferential access. Consequently, the excluded news medium loses readers, viewers, and subscribers, hence its market-place business-leadership when it loses advertisers — the primary income sources. To minimize such financial danger, news media businesses editorially distort their reportage to favor government and corporate policies in order to maintain revenues and increase profits.
Editorial bias: five filters
The propaganda model describes five editorially-distorting filters applied to news reportage in mass media:
- Size, Ownership, and Profit Orientation: the business connections among the owning corporations, the identity of the controlling investors, and the personal, political, and financial affiliations of external directors.
- The Advertising License to Do Business: the advertising-income-based news media must cater to the political prejudices and economic desires of advertisers.
- Sourcing Mass Media News: reporters consider governmental sources as more factually reliable than private sources. “In effect, the large bureaucracies of the powerful subsidize the mass media, and gain special access, by their contribution to reducing the media’s costs of acquiring . . . and producing, news”.
- Flak and the Enforcers: powerful, private influence groups (e.g. conservative think tanks) organize systematic replies to reporters deviating from the official corporate interpretation of facts and events.
- Anti-Communism: since the Russo–American Cold War’s (1945–91) ending, anticommunism was transubstantiated into the contemporary War on Terror, as the current national religion and social control mechanism. See “Media Control, the Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda”[1].
Recent developments
- In 1992, the documentary film Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (1992), directed by Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick, partly based upon the book, presents the propaganda model and its arguments, and a biography of Chomsky.
- The 1997 pop culture movie Good Will Hunting (1997), features a university professor asking the eponymous protagonist’s opinion if A People's History of the United States (1980), by Howard Zinn, is better than Manufacturing Consent.
- In 2006, the Turkish government prosecuted Fatih Tas, owner of the Aram editorial house, two editors and the translator of the revised (2001) edition of Manufacturing Consent for "stirring hatred among the public" (per Article 216 of the Turkish Penal Code) and for "denigrating the national identity" of Turkey (per Article 301), because that edition’s introduction addresses the Turkish news media’s reportage of governmental suppression of the Kurdish populace in the 1990s; they were acquitted. [2] [3]
- In 2007, at the 20 Years of Propaganda?: Critical Discussions & Evidence on the Ongoing Relevance of the Herman & Chomsky Propaganda Model (15–17 May 2007) conference at the University of Windsor, Canada, Herman and Chomsky summarized developments to the propaganda model, followed by the publication of the proceedings of a commemoration of the twentieth publication anniversary of Manufacturing Consent in 2008.
- In 2008, Prof. Chomsky replied to how internet blogs and self-generated news reportage conform to the propaganda model.[4]
See also
- Propaganda
- Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media
- Media Imperialism
- The Engineering of Consent
References
- ^ Noam Chomsky (2002). "The Journalist from Mars". Third World Traveler. http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Chomsky/Journalist_Mars.html. Retrieved 2009-11-08., pp. 69–100
- ^ Butler, Daren (2006-07-04). "Turkish publisher faces prosecution over Chomsky book". Reuters. http://www.kurdishaspect.com/doc75101.html. Retrieved 2006-07-12.
- ^ "Turks acquitted over Chomsky book". BBC News. 2006-12-20. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/europe/6198021.stm. Retrieved 2006-12-20.
- ^ "Authors@Google: Noam Chomsky". 2008-05-02. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnLWSC5p1XE#t=27m38s.
- ^ Butler, Daren (2006-07-04). "Turkish publisher faces prosecution over Chomsky book". Reuters. http://www.kurdishaspect.com/doc75101.html. Retrieved on 2006-07-12.
- ^ "Turks acquitted over Chomsky book". BBC News. 2006-12-20. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/europe/6198021.stm. Retrieved on 2006-12-20.
- ^ Chomsky, Noam 2002 "Media Control, The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda", Seven Stories Press ISBN 1-58322-536-6
External links
- Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (Excerpt)
- Synopsis with Herman interview
- The Herman-Chomsky Propaganda Model Twenty Years On Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture 6(2), 2009
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