Thoughts on Manufacturing Consent

[mat89]

What are your thoughts on the ideas presented in Manufacturing Consent?

 

[danarhea]

What are your thoughts on the ideas presented in Manufacturing Consent?

I thought the film was quite good. It actually is an extension of concepts actually first presented by Marshall McLuhan. His book, the Media is the Message, pretty much transformed the way we look at the role of mass media.

 

[mat89]

Couple more questions

Do you agree with the ideas?

Also do you know if Marshall McLuhan and Chomsky had any kind of dialogue?

 

[TheHonestTruth]

I think its essential viewing for anyone that cares about democracy. The issue over control of media is incredibly important in a free society.

 

[new coup for you]

The power of the media is so, so, so overstated.

 

[mat89]

The power of the media is so, so, so overstated.

What do you mean by overstated?

 

[new coup for you]

the media's abillity to affect the political process is actually quite limited.

 

[mat89]

So you disagree with Chomsky?

Do feel that the media dictates the information the electorate is given and in doing so controls the issues we are concerned about?

 

[new coup for you]

What you're referring to is called agenda setting. And yes, the media does play a significant role in agenda setting. However, it's role in agenda setting is totally overstated by scholars (particularly by Chomsky, who for some reason thinks his doctorate in linguistics makes him a media and political science expert) and the importance of agenda setting itself is overstated. Perfect example: Valerie Plume. It's probably really important, and recieves alot of attention from the media. But the proles don't care. Consequentially, it hasn't become a significant issue.

People know what they care about, the media can only influence it to a degree. That's why as much as I complain about the Republicans and their stupid "family values" campaign speech items, I realize that the saliency of these issues isn't fake- it's just that middle Americans are really, really stupid.

Speaking as a liberal, I think that liberals tend to create eleborate theories to explain away our political failures. The reason the proles vote for the stupid stuff they do isn't because "they havn't seen the light" or that they've been lied to by a media conspiracy, it's because they're inherently retarded zealots that genuinely do care about the souls of stem cells more then their own economic conditions.

The Republicans and the media may play a role in leading the masses to cess pools of stupid ****, but the masses drink from them of their own free will.

The media just isn't that powerful.

 

[mat89]

One could argue that the reason Valerie Plume was not a big deal as it was is that the people who control the media/our government would not allow it. People care about what they are taught is important and the media plays a significant role in that. I think that as the only connection between the sheep and the sheep herders the media does play a significant role in how we think. They control not only the information that is presented but the way it is presented as well.The masses drink out of the cess pool because that is the only source of water we are given.

 

[Hundebolg]

The following article gives clean quantitative evidence of the ideas put forward in Manufacturing consent. It's not much, but it's a start: Al Jazeera English - Archive - Pro-Israel Bias Found In Us Tv News

"Our analysis reveals troubling patterns of omissions and disparities in emphasis that, we feel, profoundly hamper the ability of viewers to understand this conflict"