Naom Chomsky’s Lecture-Manufacturing Consent

 Media acts a check on political power.

 It informs the public, serve the public so we can better engage in political process.
 They tell us what those in power need them to tell us so we can fall I line.

5 filters:
1. Ownership:
o Mass media firms are big corporations.
o Profit is their end game. So, it’s in their interests to push for whatever guarantees
that profit.
o Critical journalism takes second place to the needs and interest of the
corporation.

2. Real role of advertising:

o Advertisers are paying for audiences.
o Media are not only selling you a product but they are also selling advertisers a
product—you.

3. The Media Elite

o Governments, corporations, big institutions know how to play the media game.
They know how to influence the news narrative.
o They feed media scoops, official accounts, interviews with the ‘experts’.
o They make themselves crucial to the process of journalism.
o So, those in power and those who report on them are working together.
o If you want to challenge power, you will really need to give it your all.
o When the media—journalists, whistleblowers, sources—stray away from
consensus, they get flak.

4. Flak:
o When the story is inconvenient for the powers that be, you’ll see the flak machine
in action discrediting sources, trashing stories and diverting the conversation.

5. The common enemy:

o To manufacture consent, you need an enemy—a target.
o Communism, terrorists, immigrants. A boogeyman to fear, helps corral public
opinion.