From the Editors

In this pathbreaking work, now with a new introduction, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky show that, contrary to the usual image of the news media as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their search for truth and defense of justice, in their actual practice they defend the economic, social, and political agendas of the privileged groups that dominate domestic society, the state, and the global order.<br> <br>Based on a series of case studies—including the media’s dichotomous treatment of “worthy” versus “unworthy” victims, “legitimizing” and “meaningless” Third World elections, and devastating critiques of media coverage of the U.S. wars against Indochina—Herman and Chomsky draw on decades of criticism and research to propose a Propaganda Model to explain the media’s behavior and performance. Their new introduction updates the Propaganda Model and the earlier case studies, and it discusses several other applications. These include the manner in which the media covered the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement and subsequent Mexican financial meltdown of 1994-1995, the media’s handling of the protests against the World Trade Organization, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund in 1999 and 2000, and the media’s treatment of the chemical industry and its regulation. What emerges from this work is a powerful assessment of how propagandistic the U.S. mass media are, how they systematically fail to live up to their self-image as providers of the kind of information that people need to make sense of the world, and how we can understand their function in a radically new way.
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If you want to know how the commercial media works............
........then you should read this book. He provides 5 principles as to how the mainstream media news we hear is in reality filtered in favour of the government and big business interests (which are both very similar). He then illustrates these with very well researched practical examples. Of note, he also destroys the whole 'the media lost the US the Vietnam war' argument. That part was fascinating. He sources his work extremely well. His principles can be seen at work today (remember the lancet article about Iraqi civilian deaths and the 'flak' it copped?).

Of note, I am not a socialist. Luckily, in the internet age, we can obtain news from a variety of sources. However, western governments are already beginning to 'regulate' internet use. Watch this space.

The worlds biggest attention whore.
Most folks would bristle at the suggestion that they are capable of being manipulated, let alone the proposal that they are. The abstract concept of independence is so fundamental to our national identity as to become central to individual core values. To suggest that a person is somehow less then 100% free in body, mind and spirit is more then just offensive; it's positively unpatriotic.

To Americans the concept of propaganda is unpleasant, foreign, sinister, threatening. Usually associated with distant places populated with people different from us who speak strange languages and have bizarre customs and because they're so backwards, they practice some sort of primitive economic/political system at odds with our own possessing violent expansionist intentions. In short, the Generalized Other. Propaganda is something the Germans did in WW2, or Soviet era Russia, or those cah-raazy North Koreans with their cah-raazy leader. Propaganda isn't something that could ever happen here, so let's stick with the pleasantly acceptable euphamism, Mass Influence.

The mass media is comprised of a collection of for profit business corporations. The purpose of any business is to make money, in the case of a corporation, they have a legal fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder return, and can be sued if they don't. Mass media make their money by selling exposure to their audience to advertisers. Since it is so lucrative, they will do anything to increase their audience share. Massive amounts of capital are spent employing the brightest minds in psychology, marketing, and other creative disciplines developing increasingly sophisticated methods and techniques to influence the public, specifically to get and maintain attention, and create a suggestible state of mind. So that the public is more likely to go buy whatever it is they're selling. This is called effective advertising. Advertisers being their source of revenue, and alternate divisions part of the same organization (the connections are vast and serpentine, the obfuscation deliberate) possessing a mutual self-interest, media distributors are not about to draw attention to information that is unflattering of them. It's just common sense not to bite the hand that feeds you, and protect your family.

Now, if mass media is the worlds biggest attention whore, how do they get the public to pay attention? Content. They want it as fast and cheap and effective as possible, and tons of it is distributed, free of charge from Washington DC. You didn't really think all these news networks maintained foreign offices, with desks of reporters covering the Mumbai beat, did you? No! They just take what they get from Washington, and regurgitate it for mass consumption. If they don't do it how DC likes it, their access gets restricted, and they suffer a comparative disadvantage to their competition. That's a pretty compelling reason to stay in line and do what you're told.

To assume that a government dependent on popular support and approval for most of its activities would seek objective truth as the primary goal in its production and release of information is gullibly naive at best and willfully ignorant at worst. Any entity is going to present itself in the best possible light, that's just human nature, and the government is going to produce and release information intended to influence public opinion to support its practices and policies. A great deal of Manufacturing Consent is dedicated to demonstrating this premise, and it is done quite effectively.

Traditionally, propaganda has been quite crude in it's design. It was distributed directly from the government to the public. In Soviet Russia, the national paper was called Pravda. That means Truth. It's pretty easy to see through that one. But over here, we've got the most sophisticated Mass Influence information dissemination system ever designed. The process of Mass Influence will be more effective if people believe what they're told and people will inherently have greater trust for a third party with the facade of impartiality then the source itself.

True independence of mind and spirit takes work and folks tend to prefer a comfortable illusion to an unpleasant reality, so this book is not for everybody. But it is infinitely rewarding for those who would make the effort.

Effective and convincing, if a bit of a formulaic staccato
The author's intent is to convince the reader that the U.S. mainstream media actively participates in propaganda campaigns against their readership. The arguments are well researched and meticulously crafted, with hindsight providing a lens that feels laser accurate, almost without error. By evaluating what is known in the future, some decades after the events examined, the author makes quick work of painting the picture that the media is at best complicit in corporate/state propaganda, and at worst a massive siege engine distorting and confusing the populace in such a way as to make them apathetic and malleable to the will of the powerful.

Herman's punchy, staccato presentation can be difficult to endure at times, but it is as effective as it is formulaic. His juxtapositions of certain events, particularly Russia's invasion of Afghanistan compared with the United States invasion of Vietnam, enables the reader (most importantly the reader immersed in U.S. media) to more easily consider events outside the propagandized frame. Just as Russia's loyal and patriotic media portrayed their invasion of Afghanistan as a liberation of the native peoples from the tyranny of local warlords (in effect "saving them"), so too goes the line from U.S. media outlets regarding military actions in Vietnam. And when events did not fit within the framework or serve a useful enough purpose, the press quietly, dutifully failed to report accurately (or frequently) on them, as in the case of 6 years of bombings of Cambodian peasantry.

Readers of the original publishing of this book might have been left a bit disheartened. After severely beating the mainstream media by exposing their propaganda methods, the reader is left with little tools with which to educate themselves, save for the call to join activist groups and share information through non-standard means. However, reading it today, in this era of an online and connected world, barring censorship, our ability to educate ourselves is limited only by our skill in searching and discernment.

Your life could depend on reading this book.
Hey folks,

If you're out there considering buying this book, please know that it might prove to be one of the most important books you'll ever read.

You might realize that our government isn't always straightfoward with us. You might even have noticed the lack of objective and complete news reporting that is prevailing with the media these days. This book will show you how our government, large corporations, and the media work in concert to keep Americans in the dark about things that affect our most vital interests. It sounds like a conspiracy theory, I know--because that's the reaction we've all been conditioned to have about material like this. However, every fact in this book is verifiable. Please take the time to read it!!

I also highly recommend Blowback by Chalmers Johnson.

Read these books--learn to see past the propaganda we are inundated with daily!

Eye Opener
This book though old but was a revelation for me. I have become a huge fan of Mr. Noam Chomsky and by reading this book (still reading) of Mr. Edward Herman. The best about the book is that the work is mostly based on Hard Facts and proved by relevant documents etc. This also terrifies one that how media is changing minds and achieving something which could not be possible that easily. My limited knowledge on the subject is holding me to write more. WONDERFUL WORK.

Faisal Khan

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