Manufacturing
Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media is a book
written by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, in which the authors
propose that the mass communication media of the U.S. "are
effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a
system-supportive propaganda function, by reliance on market forces,
internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without overt
coercion", by means of the propaganda model of
communication. The title derives from the phrase "the
manufacture of consent," employed in the book Public Opinion
(1922), by Walter Lippmann (1889–1974).
The book
was first published in 1988 and was revised 20 years later to take
account of developments such as the fall of the Soviet Union. There
has been debate about how the internet has changed the public´s
access to information since 1988.
The
propaganda model for the manufacture of public consent describes five
editorially distorting filters, which are applied to the reporting of
news in mass communications media:
1) Size,
Ownership, and Profit Orientation: The dominant mass-media outlets
are large companies operated for profit, and therefore they must
cater to the financial interests of the owners, who are usually
corporations and controlling investors. The size of a media company
is a consequence of the investment capital required for the
mass-communications technology required to reach a mass audience of
viewers, listeners, and readers.
2) The
Advertising License to Do Business: Since the majority of the revenue
of major media outlets derives from advertising (not from sales or
subscriptions), advertisers have acquired a "de facto licensing
authority". Media outlets are not commercially viable without
the support of advertisers. News media must therefore cater to the
political prejudices and economic desires of their advertisers. This
has weakened the working class press, for example, and also helps
explain the attrition in the number of newspapers.
3)
Sourcing Mass Media News: Herman and Chomsky argue that “the
large bureaucracies of the powerful subsidize the mass media, and
gain special access [to the news], by their contribution to reducing
the media’s costs of acquiring [...] and producing, news. The large
entities that provide this subsidy become 'routine' news sources and
have privileged access to the gates. Non-routine sources must
struggle for access, and may be ignored by the arbitrary decision of
the gatekeepers.”
4) Flak
and the Enforcers: "Flak" refers to negative responses to a
media statement or program (e.g. letters, complaints, lawsuits, or
legislative actions). Flak can be expensive to the media, either due
to loss of advertising revenue, or due to the costs of legal defense
or defense of the media outlet's public image. Flak can be organized
by powerful, private influence groups (e.g. think tanks). The
prospect of eliciting flak can be a deterrent to the reporting of
certain kinds of facts or opinions.
5)
Anti-Communism: This was included as a filter in the original 1988
edition of the book, but Chomsky argues that since the end of the
Cold War (1945–91) anticommunism was replaced by the "War on
Terror" as the major social control mechanism.
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