From: harelb@math.cornell.edu
Newsgroups: alt.activism
Date: 27 Dec 92 16:52 PST
Subject: FILM: Manufacturing Consent
Nf-ID: #N:9212280050.AA29933@tba.msi.corne:-1297078148:000:5801
Nf-From: math.cornell.edu!harelb    Dec 27 16:52:00 1992


From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (Harel Barzilai)
Subject: FILM: Manufacturing Consent

[Originally posted to misc.activism.progressive from PeaceNet's media.issues]
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Topic 798	Film rev: Manufacturing Consent 
rich	misc.activism.progressive	12:30 am  Dec 24, 1992 
(at pencil.cs.missouri.edu)	(From News system) 
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A New Documentary 
On Noam Chomsky  
and the Media 

By David Peterson 
Insight Features 

    "They who have put out the people's eyes reproach them for 
their blindness." 
                                        --John Milton 

   Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonock use this line from the great 
English poet as the inscription to their new documentary, 
`Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media.' The same 
quote was also used to inscribe the 1988 book by Chomsky and 
Edward Herman, `Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of 
Mass Media.' 

   The quote captures one of Chomsky's basic themes: in the 
relatively freer, formally democratic societies, particularly the 
more powerful ones, the role of the media is to blind people to 
their real interests in truth, freedom, authenticity, fellowship 
and justice.  As a component of an ideological system, the role 
of media is to "manufacture the consent" (the phrase penned by 
Walter Lippmann in his 1922 book `Public Opinion') of these same 
people to policies and to a way of life that is typically not in 
their best interest and often self-destructive as well. 

   This unhappy fact of life also has a more optimistic 
concomitant: the native capacity of people to escape from these 
doctrinal constraints.  We all feel the need to move in the 
direction of something more truly human, providing we are willing 
and able to make the effort. 

   Hence ruling elites of every stripe have always found 
themselves forced to resort to forms of thought control and 
deception.  They have done so more or less to the same extent 
that their social structures were unjust or their governments 
behaved unjustly, whether against their own citizens or other 
countries. 

   In Chomsky's perspective, the human species is not without its 
emancipatory potential.  Thus, as opposed to the political 
insider, the activist's ideal is to help people discover their 
decent instincts, as well as to provide them with the moral, 
intellectual and political tools they need to act on these 
instincts in a positive and constructive fashion. 

   The film's general approach is to portray Chomsky's legendary 
and uncompromising labors toward this end.  More important, it 
succeeds--impressively.  Achbar and Wintonock have managed to 
match many of Chomsky's theoretical points with helpful footage 
concretely representing the point he's making. 

   One good example: Chomsky is shown quoting Reinhold Neibuhr's 
infamous line about the need for "necessary illusions," i.e., 
"emotionally potent over-simplifications" to keep the great mass 
of people in check and on the proper course.  The filmmakers then 
cut in with a Reaganesque PR film on the glories of the Strategic 
Defense Initiative, complete with space-based lasers zapping 
incoming Soviet ICBMs.  It's a riot--you'll love it. 

   The film also has some excellent vintage footage of Chomsky 
appearing on Dutch TV, in a 1971 debate with the French historian 
Michel Foucault.  There are clips of a debate with William 
Buckley on `Firing Line' and of Chomsky speaking outside MIT, 
denouncing the technocrats who created the Indochina wars.  There 
is a powerful treatment of the comparative U.S. media coverage of 
the Cambodian and East Timorese bloodbaths, which serves as a 
classic example of the media's subservience to power. 

   There are also interviews with people who think the Chomsky- 
Herman Propaganda Model is a lot of crap.  From my seat in the 
balcony, the film does have one boring lapse. The work is in two 
parts; first is "Thought Control" (95 minutes), second is 
"Activating Dissent (72 minutes).  About two-thirds of the way 
through part one, the filmmakers travel to Media, Pa. Who knows 
why the footage is there, except maybe they invested a lot of 
time and couldn't bring themselves to cut it? 

   Most average, everyday people know little or nothing about 
Noam Chomsky.  Yet I think they are the people who would most 
enjoy and have their eyes opened by this film.  As Chomsky puts 
it toward the end of part two: 

   "The question is whether privileged elites should dominate 
mass communication, and should use this power as they tell us 
they must--namely, to impose `necessary illusions'....Either the 
general population will take control of its own destiny and will 
concern itself will community interests, guided by values of 
solidarity, and sympathy, and concern for others.  Or 
alternatively, there will be no destiny for anyone to control. 

                            -- 30 -- 

   David Peterson is a free lance writer living in Chicago. 
** End of text from cdp:media.issues ** 


INSIGHT FEATURES / December 1992 

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** Topic: Chomsky on Media ** 
** Written  2:56 pm  Dec 21, 1992 by hrcoord in cdp:media.issues ** 
From: Human Rights Coordinator <hrcoord> 
Subject: Chomsky on Media 

/* Written  8:43 pm  Dec 20, 1992 by ihandler@igc.apc.org in igc:nfd.ifeatures */ 
Film Review / 700 Words 

Newsgroups: alt.activism