Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media | Edward S. Herman, Noam Chomsky | Great insight into the media

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Manufacturing Cons...

	Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media Edward S. Herman, Noam Chomsky Pantheon, 2002 - 480 pages average customer review:based on 85 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Essential Reading!

Finally, a clear and complete guide to understand how the media works in democratic systems. The theories presented in this book (and thoroughly demonstrated with abundant case studies) can be applied at a daily basis to understand why mainstream media report what they report, and keep an ominous silence about the rest. The authors' theories fit so well, and with such accuracy, the actions of the media (the reporting on the war in Iraq, torture cases, and so on being just recent examples) that it is not just eye-opening, but profoundly revealing.

If you want to gain a better understanding of the world around you and the workings of the propaganda system that is tightly wrapped around every citizen in this country, this book is an essential and vital tool.

ESSENTIAL READING!

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Great insight into the media

I loved this book and still do it shaped my college degree which I pursued

Decent But Lacking in Focus

There's no other way to summarize this book for me other than to say that this is tough book to read. A meager 300 pages (in book terms, that's meager enough), this book still took me months of passive reading to get through. While not entirely a fair statement, it is somewhat representative of how thick this book can get at times. While imparting the reader with a perspective that they may not have previously had, it also wastes a lot of space saying the same thing over and over again. By the end, the book isn't saying anything you haven't read 12 (or more) times before.

To summarize, the book is an in-depth discussion of the media's role in shaping public opinion, shaping the news, and how it fails to live up to the commonly accepted position as an objective observation element. I don't think the average person denies that media has gone beyond the bounds of basic objective reporter. However, this takes it to a whole new level. Whether or not you agree is up to you, if you choose to read the book.

The book starts by describing the basic foundation of the media. Specifically, it details how content can be shaped by ownership, reader consumption and/or desired consumption, income considerations, and sourcing. By "sourcing", I refer to the contention that the vast majority of media sources are government feeds, either overtly or discreetly. Given the resource constraints of most media outlets, government propaganda is an easy way to get, at the very least, one side of any story. Even ignoring Chomsky's tendency of overbearance, it does certainly beg the question of media objectivity.

The remainder of the book is story after story showing examples of the media catering, willingly or not, to what the government wants them to say. Due to deadlines and limited resources, government officials are the easiest and cheapest way to cite a "reliable" source, where the reliability of said source brings into question the idea of conflict of interest. In the end, there probably is no conflict, since media outlets are geared to make money, as opposed to the misconception that media institutions exist to seek the truth. The government's goal of forwarding their agenda does not run counter to the media outlet's goal. This key concept is forgotten in most attacks against the media.

All of these issues (and more) are brought to the attention of the reader in great detail. Having said that, this book is tough to read, often times bogging down in poorly constructed paragraphs that plod along with no real direction. The book is not written to be read, per se, so much as it stands as a representation of the author's ideas which make it to the pages trough whatever words came to mind while writing it. There's a big discrepancy here, as many ideas of the book are lost in the sea of imprecise prose. While some may be able to ignore this in light of the truth it attempts to bring to light, I am not. A book needs to be both potent and readable for me to really enjoy it.

What this translates to is such. The book is a fair read but I found it difficult to pick it up for more than 2-3 pages at a sitting. Anything more than that resulted in my losing attention. Repeated attempts to consume greater portions of the book only resulted in drowsiness and lack of focus. For me, it became a burden to try and finish the book. In the end, that's how I rate a book. Is it easy to ascertain what the writer has to say, or do I find myself struggling to concentrate?

A decent book that needs to be read in small doses.

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