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Zusammenfassung von Manufacturing Consent

Name: Manufacturing Consent
Rating: 4.5 (170 reviews)
Author: Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky

Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky

The Political Economy of the Mass Media

4.5 (170 Bewertungen)

20 Min.

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Manufacturing Consent
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The media play a vital role in indoctrinating people to accept an unequal society.

The media have many roles; it is the media’s job to inform us, entertain us and to amuse us. But the mass media have an additional vital task: the promotion of shared social values and codes of behavior. The government and ruling institutions need an outlet to ‘educate’ the general population with their ideals, and the mass media fulfill this role.

As society is massively unequal in terms of wealth and power, the media’s defense of the status quo is actually a defense of the interests of the dominant elite, ensuring that their politically and economically powerful positions are maintained. The media must therefore slant their coverage to produce stories that support the ruling political and economic classes: a tiny community of people who sit at the top of society.

In their role of defending the social hierarchies, the media effectively create propaganda backing the ruling classes.

The mass media often proudly proclaim that they produce objective and trustworthy coverage whilst holding the powerful to account; the coverage of the Vietnam War is often used as an example. In reality, the media have no interest in defending the public interest against the wealthy and powerful. Instead, they protect the rights and privileges of the ruling elites by reporting events through a narrow, biased lens. This ensures that audiences accept their position in the unequal and unfair structure of society.

The media play a vital role in indoctrinating people to accept an unequal society.

The media will never criticize the ruling elite, but may appear to do so when opinions within the elite are divided.

On occasion, the media do appear to criticize the ruling elites of society. There are numerous cases, the Watergate scandal being a fine example, where politicians or business leaders are criticized by the media and their misdeeds exposed.

Such incidents seem to disprove the idea of an inherent bias in the media toward the ruling classes. Certainly, media spokespeople do proudly proclaim that they act as the defenders of free speech and the wider community against the wealthy and powerful. Yet, in these cases, the mass media’s so-called criticism merely consists of representing the interests of one group of the elite against another, never of a non-elite group versus an elite group. When criticisms come from outside the elite, the media will suppress or ignore them.

The mass media follow a ‘propaganda model’ that filters out information counter to elite interests.

The mass media heavily slant their coverage in favor of the interests and opinions of the elite. News which goes against these interests is deliberately ignored or suppressed.

Unlike the media in authoritarian societies, the media in the democratic west are not constrained by state ownership or heavy censorship. The forces which coerce the western media are more subtle and ‘natural,’ leading many to falsely believe that the West has a ‘free’ and ‘objective’ press.

Most of the mass media is owned by a few wealthy families and corporations whose main objective is profit.

In Britain in the first half of the 19^th century, the left-wing radical press owned by small, independent proprietors flourished. This medium helped represent and spread working class views, seriously threatening the ruling class’s monopoly on information. Despite attempts to quell this media through libel laws and prosecutions, the radical press remained strong.

What destroyed the radical press’s power was the free market. Where state repression had failed, the ultra-competitive market succeeded. The industrial revolution allowed large publications to reach mass audiences through new printing machines, while the cost of buying and maintaining such machinery squeezed out the underfinanced radical press. This left only the right-wing press backed by the dominant elites, and it prospered. This process continued and the industry consolidated, leaving a few massive giants to dominate the entire media market of the Western world.

The media depend on advertising revenue for their survival and will therefore take measures to keep advertisers pleased.

In the media, business costs from studios, publishing facilities and reporters are high, and the industry is highly competitive. Success in the marketplace depends overwhelmingly on the sponsorship of advertisers. Media organizations that lack advertising revenues are very likely to fail.

Therefore, the main objective of media companies is the attraction of advertisers. To this end, the media will seek to please its advertisers through biased coverage. Thus, advertising becomes another filter in the propaganda model, allowing the wealthy to filter out critical news stories.

The media’s need for regular material forces them to rely on government organizations and large corporations.

The media need a reliable and constant stream of information to fill their news schedules and columns, but of course they cannot have reporters at every location where news stories might break. Hence, they must focus on sources which provide material constantly.

Such sources are overwhelmingly state institutions, such as the police and government agencies, or the press departments of large corporations.

The elite punish critical media by generating ‘flak.’

If the media report the news in a way that offends the interests of the ruling social groups, they can find themselves facing a backlash. The criticism thrown back at the media by the elite is known as ‘flak.’

Flak can take various forms: Journalists and media outlets can be directly threatened by the government or corporations, becoming the target of negative press releases. The elite can also create flak indirectly, leaning on advertisers to boycott certain media companies. Sometimes even legal action is taken against critical media.

The mass media view all events through the prism of the battle against communism.

The mass media are coerced by the ruling elites to judge events through the lens of an ideological battle between the ‘free’ and communist worlds.

The actions of communist forces are always reported negatively and those of America and its allies seen in a positive light. Thus, executions and torture in a communist-controlled state will be reported at great length, whereas similar occurrences in a nation friendly to America will be completely ignored.

When reporting world news, the mass media heavily favor states that are allied with the West.

The mass media like to proclaim that their coverage is objective, but if this were the case they would report events in the same way irrespective of where in the world they happened. Looking at the media’s coverage of events, it is clear that this is not so, as they slant news stories differently depending on the political situation of those involved.

A perfect example of this is the mass media coverage of the issues concerning Central America. The nations in this area lie within the sphere of American influence and are therefore of interest to the US government and mass media. Some nations, such as Guatemala and El Salvador, are US-sponsored military dictatorships. Others, such as bourgeoning democracy Nicaragua, are left-leaning and are therefore mistrusted by US authorities.

The media will often use ‘expert’ opinions to support their biased views.

The mass media will often employ the insights of an ‘expert’ when discussing events. This, the media hopes, will lend authority and objectivity to its reports. Yet, despite their unbiased image, media ‘experts’ are in fact a crucial component in spreading the propaganda of the elite.

The ruling elites are able to furnish the media with a constant stream of ‘experts,’ because they spend huge amounts of resources educating and employing them. Think tanks and similar institutions are created to fund and publish the studies of ‘experts’ who are able to spread ruling class opinions in the media.

The mass media view some people’s lives as more worthy than others depending on what message their deaths send.

In 1984, a Polish priest who actively campaigned against Poland’s communist government was abducted, beaten and murdered by members of the secret police. The story was covered at great length in the US media with the emphasis on its emotional impact and its wider political implications for the communist system.

This story is perfect for the media, because it fits into the framework created by the interests of the ruling elites: It casts the communist enemy as a brutal and dangerous force which in turn helps gather support for American policies.

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Worum geht es in Manufacturing Consent?

Manufacturing Consent (1988) takes a critical view of the mass media to ask why only a narrow range of opinions are favored whilst others are suppressed or ignored.

It formulates a propaganda model which shows how alternative and independent information is filtered out by various financial and political factors allowing the news agenda to be dominated by those working on behalf of the wealthy and powerful. Far from being a free press, the media in fact maintain our unequal and unfair society.

Wer Manufacturing Consent lesen sollte

Anyone who wants to know who sets the agenda of the mass media
Anyone who would like to know whose interests the media serve
Anyone who wants to understand why the mass media suppress independent voices

Über den Autor

Edward S. Herman is an academic specialising in finance who has written many works on political economy and the media.

Noam Chomsky is a world-renowned expert in the fields of linguistics and global political culture. He is best known for his criticisms of globalisation, American power and the mass media. He has authored numerous publications including Hegemony or Survival and Deterring Democracy.

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