Introduction
Manufactured consent is a film exploring the tenets of Chomsky as stated in his book, manufactured consent: the political economy of mass media. Although the film received high accolades and for a while was considered the best documentary from Canada, there are many who feel that it simply did not communicate the message of Chomsky’s book. Unlike popular belief that the film features ideas by Chomsky where he calls upon mass action and desire to lead some sort of movement, the truth is that the film is all about media criticism. According to Briggs, manufactured consent is all about propaganda designed by the media, propagated by the same media and indoctrinated into the lives of people and citizens as the truth (11). The propaganda is set by market forces, where few conglomerates control and run the economics and politics of the country. The media is often the in between, passing on what this conglomerates feel is the right message such as the ideal candidates in voting patterns. In doing so, the media in turn influences the minds of the citizens.
People also read
Role of Manufactured Consent
The media cannot survive or grow without government and private sources. Most of the stories highlight in the news columns, and given time to air on media including stories in corruption and other scandals arise from the sources within these two major players. The citizens on the hand, only play a role is reacting to such information rather than actually playing a role in the production and spread of this information. At one time or another according to Chomsky, an independent media company may come into play. They may report unvarnished truth, exhibiting both the government and private sectors in disfavor. If this happens, the media house is quietly shunned by sources from each of the sides, and in turn lacks news to report. Viewers and readers opt to watch and read information from other media houses and soon this media house is shut down due to losses and lack of viewership.
Media bias: Chomsky indicates that whereas our focus as citizens is always in the truth that media reports, there are not media houses that exist and succeed without bias. Often information is distorted and edited by the media houses to suit either the private conglomerates or the government. The main focus is to gain favor with the group of their choice and in doing so remain in business making profits. Media bias goes beyond just the stories reported to the media; it also includes sanctions imposed by both governments and corporations. With such sanctions, journalists cannot report all the facts as they have received them; they are required to withhold some information to the citizens who believe they are receiving the entire truth from the media.
Developing Intellectual Self Defense
Chomsky shows that there are two categories of people who are adversely affected by manufactured consent, or whose consent is manufactured by the media. In a country there are the educated people, people who have advanced in terms of intellectual understanding. They are expected to have some knowledge and the ability to gauge the truthfulness of particular facts. However, they are often kept busy with social roles such as employment and the desire for financial gains. In doing so, they are simply controlled by the same institutions controlling the media. On the other hand, there are the majorities who have no education and no understanding at all. These are the ones most adversely affected by manufactured consent. They only follow what they see and hear from the media. When the educated focus on identifying the truth and teaching the masses the truth, media imperialism is broken.
The media is the vehicle used to drive propaganda. For propaganda to take root in a population there must be a spread and indoctrination into illusions. Because of the innate desire of people to enjoy creative pieces, they never seek out the truth instead focusing on the artwork and creativity put in place for the piece. Media houses therefore use illusions to mask the facts, to recode the truth and in doing so indoctrinate the people into what is thought to be true. It is important for people to seek out the truth in the propaganda, ignore the illusions and focus on the facts.
MANUFACTURED CONSENT AND ETHICS
Indoctrination: in the film, it is shown that the focus of media is to take away the freedom of choice and knowledge from the masses. Each individual has an ethical right to get the facts and using these facts develop a personal system of choice. However, the media often misdirects individuals from the truth. They are indoctrinated into watching and focusing on irrelevant information such as football games and fancy stories on unique human beings. The media uses these stories to keep them away from any information that could generate facts that are contrary to what the government and private institutions desire. Indoctrination takes away the ability of the people to make their own choices; choices are already made for them since they lack the right information, the complete set of data and the concrete facts.
Changes in history: Achbar states that manufactured consent does not just influence the present generation, it also alters the access of the right information for future generations (74). Majority of today’s decisions are based on what we consider to be true facts as reported by various media sources. However, the documentation of such facts has already been heavily influenced by the media. The information we possess about our past, maybe far from the truth. This means that the media have the power and the ability to alter our identity which is based on the history we have. We are therefore unable to recognize ourselves fully because we lack even the basic facts, facts not about others or the world around us; but facts about ourselves and our own identity. This robs humanity of identity, giving instead a false identity based on propaganda and illusions and which propagates from generation to generation until the truth is hard or impossible to identify.
Protection of life: the foundation of ethics is built on the protection of the freedom of choice and most importantly the protection of the quality of life. Achbar (199) gives an example of where manufactured consent has lessened the quality of life. According to him, the debate on global warming began decades back; however, the media continually indicates that scientists were wrong and misinformed. Majority of the time, credible scientists were discredited by media, they were portrayed as fumbling fools seeking a thrill and out to scare citizens (Kieran 111). Today, however, the symptoms are clear and global warming disasters have become a reality. In the past, the media took away the ability of the human race to prepare itself and attempt changes that would in turn improve the quality of their future lives. This is just but one example where the quality of life has been influenced by the media manufactured consent. In another scenario, the public could be influenced into voting new policies that individuals that in future would lead to a decreased state of wellbeing influencing their ability o earn a living, engage in production and influence the economy of the country.
Control of resources: each human being has an ethical right to access resources that in turn allow them to continue existing and existing in a quality life. In the past, before the influence of media each human being was granted the same chance as another. Today however, the manufactured consent is used to influence who controls the resources. The individual who controls the resources influences the information that is reported to the public. The influence is basically so that the public does not access information and facts that could in turn influence negatively on the individual’s control of resources. The masses are kept locked up in the world of illusions so that they lack the time and energy to question the ownership of the resources, control of public resources and use of the same resources. Hence, the resources are controlled by a few minorities who in turn influence policies and dissemination of information to their favor. The cycle becomes detrimental to the masses because they have lower chances and in many cases nonexistent opportunities to influence the control and use of resources.
Work Cited
Achbar, Mark. Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media : the Companion Book to the Award-Winning Film by Peter Wintonick and Mark Achbar. Montréal: New York, 1994
Briggs, Robert. Manufacturing Consent?Melbourne, Victoria: School of Applied Communication, 2005
Kieran, Matthew. Media Ethics. London: Routledge, 2002
With a student-centered approach, I create engaging and informative blog posts that tackle relevant topics for students. My content aims to equip students with the knowledge and tools they need to succeed academically and beyond.
