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This site was updated 12/06/97.
"Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements
of Propaganda" by Noam Chomsky (The Open Media
Pamphlet series) 1991, 1997
Is the Media in Control? Report by Robb Scott
In this extended essay on the current state
of democracy in America, MIT Linguistics professor
Noam Chomsky uses the gulf war and the conflict
between Saddam Hussein and George Bush as the central
example to demonstrate his claim that the American
media, instead of delivering a comprehensive array
of news, are generating propaganda in concert with
a continuing and largely successful effort by a
powerful elite to "engineer consent" among the citizens
of the United States of America and "tame ... the
bewildered herd."
However, Chomsky is encouraged by the growth of
dissident groups since the "Crisis of Democracy" in
the 1960s. He suggests that if the media were to share
more information about what is happening in the world
then the general public would be better equipped to
participate in democratic life. Chomsky says that the
media has been "manufacturing" consent with propanda
instead of news since the days of Walter Lippman, who
said that this social manipulation was needed since
"the common interests elude public opinion entirely."
Chomsky believes that today's journalistic enterprises
"work for the people with real power: the business
community." He implies that cut-throat business practices
demand that the media conspire with the powerful few
to shoot down ideas like national health-care and other
pro-labor movements.
Chomsky might well be speaking
these days about the recent flurry of news reports
about "weapons of mass destruction" and the threat
posed by Saddam Hussein. Maybe he's reminding people
that there is an "Iraqi democratic opposition" in
exile and that the U.S. and world community have
largely ignored their ideas about making their home
country more democratic. Or laughing about the
notion that a guy who couldn't finish off
Iran in eight years might pose a serious
threat to the world at large.
Chomsky is a skeptic
and an American patriot who has made a solid
contribution to the continued liberty of the United
States by speaking his mind regarding the state
of our democratic society.
"The issue is whether we want to
live in a free society or whether we want to live
under what amounts to a form of self-imposed
totalitarianism, with the bewildered herd
marginalized, directed elsewhere, terrified,
screaming patriotic slogans, fearing for their lives
and admiring with awe the leader who saved them from
destruction, while the educated masses goose-step
on command and repeat the slogans they're supposed to
repeat and the society deteriorates at home. We end
up serving as a mercenary enforcer state, hoping that
others are going to pay us to smash up the world..."
(pages 57-58)
Noam Chomsky, "Media Control: The Spectacular
Achievements of Propaganda" (Seven Stories Press,
632 Broadway, New York, NY 10012)