20 votes

Noam Chomsky explains the best way for ordinary people to make change in the world, even when it seems daunting

7 comments

  1. [6]
    Eric_the_Cerise
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    Has anyone here read "Manufacturing Consent"? Recently? Is it still worth reading? I've skimmed thru a couple summaries, and I feel like—as a fairly well-informed reader—knowing about all the...

    Has anyone here read "Manufacturing Consent"? Recently?

    Is it still worth reading? I've skimmed thru a couple summaries, and I feel like—as a fairly well-informed reader—knowing about all the manipulative crap of Facebook, Google, etc, and how propaganda machines like Fox, and pretty much every political campaign work, I already know the lessons this book taught. Is there more to learn from this book?

    3 votes
    1. [2]
      Death
      Link Parent
      Manufacturing Consent very much still holds up, but I recommend reading a book like Hate Inc. as well, which one you pick first doesn't really matter. Hate Inc. does a lot to build upon the...

      Manufacturing Consent very much still holds up, but I recommend reading a book like Hate Inc. as well, which one you pick first doesn't really matter. Hate Inc. does a lot to build upon the foundations laid out in Manufacturing Consent, but Chomsky and Herman were much, much more meticulous in sourcing their data and constructing the general framework from that concrete knowledge. I think many people understand the broad strokes of Discourse and Media, but not many understand it so deeply as Chomsky and Herman laid out in their book.

      Manufacturing Consent reads both like a political essay and a kind of manual of study on the subject of media and discourse. For this reason it shouldn't, as others have said, ever be read alone or without broader context; positions are taken in the book other authors might not have. But abstracted away from it's context the model of media manipulation it lays out is still very valuable, in my opinion.

      7 votes
      1. kfwyre
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        I came here to recommend Hate Inc. and you beat me to it! Instead I'll simply reinforce your recommendation for @Eric_The_Cerise. It's a great and insightful read. Taibbi heavily references...

        I came here to recommend Hate Inc. and you beat me to it!

        Instead I'll simply reinforce your recommendation for @Eric_The_Cerise. It's a great and insightful read. Taibbi heavily references Manufacturing Consent throughout the book and positions his book as a modern update to the model that Chomsky introduced. The last chapter is actually an interview between Taibbi and Chomsky.

        4 votes
    2. thundergolfer
      Link Parent
      The role of the government is huge in the propoganda model, and missing from your listing above. That might be a blindspot? The propaganda model is described in the book with around 50 pages of...

      knowing about all the manipulative crap of Facebook, Google ...

      The role of the government is huge in the propoganda model, and missing from your listing above. That might be a blindspot?

      The propaganda model is described in the book with around 50 pages of text. It's well worth learning about the model from the primary source.

      Beyond that, there's a lot of media analysis that seeks to test the model they've laid out. I think that's useful to read just to reinforce the horrid stuff that happened in South America and the complicity of the USA state and media in either assisting it, covering it up, or distracting the public from the issue.

      4 votes
    3. cmccabe
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      I strongly recommend it. But keep in mind, it was written for a time when TV news and print-based news dominated the media. If anyone knows of work that extends this book into the Internet age,...

      I strongly recommend it. But keep in mind, it was written for a time when TV news and print-based news dominated the media. If anyone knows of work that extends this book into the Internet age, please recommend.

      The book spells out Herman and Chomsky's "Five Filters" of the mass media, and through them you get an idea of how what you see and hear about is shaped by what are variously referred to as the political and economic elite -- i.e. the true powers affecting our lives. I am a little hesitant to overemphasize government in these powers because government itself is manipulated by the corporate military industrial complex. (This is a slight aside from the book, but I think an important one.) The take-away for me from the book was that supporting independent media and encouraging people to build up what Chomsky calls in the link above "intellectual self-defense" are super, super important.

      But also, like @skybrian says, you really can't read this book in isolation. This is a good thing. The book points you in the direction of many other topics that you need to (and will want to) learn more about. For me, this includes not only the broader context of the U.S. meddling in Latin America and Southeast Asia, but also topics like the history of independent media in the U.K..

      [Edit: typo]

      4 votes
    4. skybrian
      Link Parent
      I read it a long time ago so my memory is fuzzy, but I'm not sure if I'd recommend it. One of the problems with reading Chomsky is that you need to read a lot of other stuff too, to get an idea of...

      I read it a long time ago so my memory is fuzzy, but I'm not sure if I'd recommend it. One of the problems with reading Chomsky is that you need to read a lot of other stuff too, to get an idea of when he might be omitting relevant context. Particularly when you're reading about the history of countries that you're otherwise unfamiliar with.

      3 votes
  2. vord
    Link
    Thanks for this. I'll be reading it more in the morning, but given some of the other discussions I've read/posted today this is inspiring.

    Thanks for this. I'll be reading it more in the morning, but given some of the other discussions I've read/posted today this is inspiring.

    2 votes