Manufacturing Consent

Propaganda is about power and persuasion, and is used for many reasons by the government. This essay will explore the overt means by which the government uses systematic propagation to control the citizens of the society and the subtle ways in which information, independent thought, and their freedoms are restricted through radio and television.

In this essay I will attempt to show that consent does not justify UK state power.

In the propaganda model media’s function is to inform the public with values and beliefs that will integrate them but if the power is in the hands of state, which means if the state controls the media. It is clear that the media serves the state and their dominant elite. The propaganda and Duncan’s analysis both agree that the journalists that covered the Marikana massacre had critiques and inequality in their reporting. Both Chomsky and Duncan focused on this inequality of power and civil servants. Clearly money and power are able to filter out news that is fit to go to print. This means that government and dominant private interests are able to get their messages across to the

Noam Chomsky separates his surroundings in 2 groups. They are people that make decisions and have control over the politics, the culture and education of society. The 20% include big news corporations, for example he discusses The New York times quite a few time throughout the film. The remaining 80% are the followers. That is what most of the world is. These are people that either do not know, or do not care about the truth. Actually, the 80% has an important job and that is to be brainwashed. Without people acting like sheep, theses major corporations would not be able to function.

In the late 1980's, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky proposed a scientific study to determine the media's role in controlling public opinion and news. It was hypothesized that traditional mass media, despite their different political affirmations, will mainly discuss issues and subjects which indirectly correspond to elite governmental power. This study was called the "propaganda model of media control," and concluded that the relationship between government elites and the media was actually very influential through an agreed agenda. This assertion made by Herman and Chomsky was again tested in the UK in 2003, concerning the topic of immigration, and the various newspapers which frequently covered the topic. This particular case study was enacted by Matthew Randall, a researcher who lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Accordingly, Randall used the same hypothesis as Herman and Chomsky did in their interpretation of media conglomerates in "the propaganda model of media control." Not surprisingly, the conclusions for both studies were equally similar, as well as, a compelling grip on the "secret" relationship between government and the mass media.

Propaganda is use to control the citizens of society. “The real message is clear, ‘Look how we take your children and sacrifice them and there’s nothing you can do. If you lift a finger we will destroy ever last one of you. Just as we did in District Thirteen’” (Collins 19). This is the constant message the Capitol is telling the districts of what they can do, and this makes the citizens afraid of

"Propaganda tries to force a doctrine on the whole people... Propaganda works on the general public from the standpoint of an idea and makes them ripe for the victory of this idea." ( Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1926).

We live in a world of technological innovation where mass media is a major part of us today. People make assumptions on what they hear. They do not try to analyze the situation to see who is right and who is wrong, and mass media is the main source of manipulating one's mind. The concept of propaganda has changed over time. Propagandists create ideas stereotypically through the use of propaganda and use media to promote it and target people's minds to have influence on their views towards a certain group of people. These ideas create negative or positive images in the intended audience's minds. However, it is notable that the information is only the one that is exemplified through media and therefore, can be

One of his famous expressions is, "The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the opinions of the masses is an important element in a democratic society. It is the intelligent minorities which need to make use of propaganda continuously and systematically" ( ). The idea behind this statement has been widely used ever since for commercial profits, through the manipulation of public opinion and the power of mass marketing.

While the term propaganda is usually uttered oozing with negative connotation, it is important to understand that it is not only the tool of “totalitarian regimes,” but is also employed by “liberal democracies” (Taylor 3). The only difference between these two propaganda users (or abusers) is the intended audience and the rival group being criminalized.

This can be first seen when he writes if everything you have seen was an illusion and someone shows you reality you would say the reality was an illusion, the fact of seeing reality hurts, so you would naturally want to go back to your reality. The only way you would be able to get that person to see reality is if you forced them to, as a result they would kill the messenger. In modern time this is the equilivent of people showing reality but being punished for it. Examples of this are Eric Snowden and Julian Assange. However, Chomsky would argue that the people support them but the elites seem them as threats so they are not allowed to enter the country, and their voices are actively filtered

Stanley Milgram, a famous social psychologist, and student of Solomon Asch, conducted a controversial experiment in 1961, investigating obedience to authority (1974). The experiment was held to see if a subject would do something an authority figure tells them, even if it conflicts with their personal beliefs and morals. He even once said, "The social psychology of this century reveals a major lesson: often it is not so much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act (Cherry).” This essay will go over what Milgram’s intent was in this experiment and what it really did for society.

First and foremost, we must understand the concept of propaganda and mass media in contemporary world. According to Noam Chomsky, and Edward S. Herman on “Manufacturing Consent: The political Economy of the Mass Media” propaganda model was defined as

The subject of power, inequality, capitalistic persuites, profitability all influences the quality of news people receive and the objectivity shown within the news dissemination. In a critical media scrutiny Chomsky and Edward S. Herman in a book called The political Economy of the mass media( Pantheon, 1988) provide a methodical ‘propaganda Model’ and it’s ‘filters’ that clearly depicts the deeds of the corporate news agencies in the United states. Thus being Media ownership, Advertising, Media sourcing and ‘flack’." Although propaganda is not the sole function of the media, it is "a very important aspect of their overall service" (p. xi), especially "in a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest" (p.1).

The propaganda model was developed by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky in 1988. The propaganda model was published in the book of Manufacturing Consent, sought to provide an analytical framework that attempts to explain the behavioral and performance of the mass media in the United States (Herman, 2000). Herman and Chomsky (2002) argued that the propaganda model contains five filters which determine what is ‘news’. The first filter is the size, ownership, and profit orientation of the media, which refers to the cooperation between the mainstream media and the large conglomerate. The second filter is advertising, which refers to the mass media using advertising as the central source of income. The third filter is sourcing, which refers to the mass media dependency of information from the government, business and experts. The fourth filter is “flak”, which refers to the negative response that discipline the media. The fifth filter is anti-communism, which refers to the control mechanism of the