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A review by storytold
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Edward S. Herman, Noam Chomsky
4.5
4.5 — I read the majority of this book for my MA, which studied relationships between minority community advocacy, mass media coverage, and government policy change in 1960s Canada. Eight years later, in the wake of a strengthened right wing and more prevalent dictatorial and warmongering government tendencies worldwide, it seemed like time to pick it up again. My interests have shifted to concern media and culture much more significantly since I dabbed out of academia, and I initially picked it up to see if it shed much light on how we can understand the news landscape in the internet age, now that local news has been decimated by corporate interests and social media determines ideological patterns of coverage.
And it did!
Then war broke out abroad halfway through reading this, and my reasons for reading it changed again. The portions of this book I did not read a decade ago—on the US invasion of Indochina, and US news media coverage of same—became astronomically relevant to media patterns in the coverage of Russia's invasion of the Ukraine, despite being first penned 35 years ago. It was bewildering and stupefying to watch individuals and mass media outlets immediately pepper social media with jingoistic "worthy victim" language in regards to the Ukraine in the exact model here outlined by Herman & Chomsky, and it was undeniably comforting to have this book explain to me the hows, whys, origins, and legacies of this sort of discourse management, including its spread speed and seemingly total domination.
This book's concluding chapter argues for the role of (free) news media as an essential function of civilian dissent in a democratic society. The authors note throughout the book how worrying it is, then as now, that news media has been obligated to pander and bend to wealthy interests—capitalist interests—in order to maintain influence. It is not outright said that the hoarding of capital (and interests serving same) are the enemy of democracy but, between the media analysis and the comprehensive historical analysis of US imperial wars executed between 1946 and 1980, it is the clear conclusion to draw. This volume serves an essential function in contextualizing the US's imperialism since 1946—among other things highlighting the reasons and methods through which denial of such a war machine is manifested and maintained among significant portions of the populace, US and abroad—while also serving as an example of the very civilian dissent called for by the book.
It's good for the soul to read Marxist analysis now and again. I recommend this wholeheartedly and for a whole host of reasons: media studies, as a historical retrospective on the Vietnam War & surrounding conflicts, or simply as reassurance that good critical works are out there, being read, and informing the late-capitalist media landscape. Some portions of the book are just responding to external criticism of the authors, but even this was delightful thanks to the dry, sarcastic humour that occasionally pervaded the text.
An engaging, thorough, well argued, and informative historical study of the mass media's role in the preservation of imperial priorities among the US populace.
And it did!
Then war broke out abroad halfway through reading this, and my reasons for reading it changed again. The portions of this book I did not read a decade ago—on the US invasion of Indochina, and US news media coverage of same—became astronomically relevant to media patterns in the coverage of Russia's invasion of the Ukraine, despite being first penned 35 years ago. It was bewildering and stupefying to watch individuals and mass media outlets immediately pepper social media with jingoistic "worthy victim" language in regards to the Ukraine in the exact model here outlined by Herman & Chomsky, and it was undeniably comforting to have this book explain to me the hows, whys, origins, and legacies of this sort of discourse management, including its spread speed and seemingly total domination.
This book's concluding chapter argues for the role of (free) news media as an essential function of civilian dissent in a democratic society. The authors note throughout the book how worrying it is, then as now, that news media has been obligated to pander and bend to wealthy interests—capitalist interests—in order to maintain influence. It is not outright said that the hoarding of capital (and interests serving same) are the enemy of democracy but, between the media analysis and the comprehensive historical analysis of US imperial wars executed between 1946 and 1980, it is the clear conclusion to draw. This volume serves an essential function in contextualizing the US's imperialism since 1946—among other things highlighting the reasons and methods through which denial of such a war machine is manifested and maintained among significant portions of the populace, US and abroad—while also serving as an example of the very civilian dissent called for by the book.
It's good for the soul to read Marxist analysis now and again. I recommend this wholeheartedly and for a whole host of reasons: media studies, as a historical retrospective on the Vietnam War & surrounding conflicts, or simply as reassurance that good critical works are out there, being read, and informing the late-capitalist media landscape. Some portions of the book are just responding to external criticism of the authors, but even this was delightful thanks to the dry, sarcastic humour that occasionally pervaded the text.
An engaging, thorough, well argued, and informative historical study of the mass media's role in the preservation of imperial priorities among the US populace.