Manufacturing Consent

Man­u­fac­tur­ing Con­sent: Noam Chom­sky and the Media directed by Mark Achbar and Peter Win­ton­ick, partly based upon the book, presents the pro­pa­ganda model and its argu­ments, and a biog­ra­phy of Chom­sky. Chom­sky, the eighth most cited source of all time, is also con­sid­ered the "most cited liv­ing author" as well as the lead­ing critic of US for­eign policy.

Using the pro­pa­ganda model, Man­u­fac­tur­ing Con­sent posits that cor­po­rate — owned news mass com­mu­ni­ca­tion media — print, radio, tele­vi­sion — are busi­nesses sub­ject to com­mer­cial com­pe­ti­tion for adver­tis­ing rev­enue and profit. As such, their dis­tor­tion (edi­to­r­ial bias) of news reportage — i.e. what types of news, which items, and how they are reported — is a con­se­quence of the profit motive that requires estab­lish­ing a sta­ble, prof­itable busi­ness; there­fore, news busi­nesses favor­ing profit over the pub­lic inter­est suc­ceed, while those favor­ing repor­to­r­ial accu­racy over prof­its fail, and are rel­e­gated to the mar­gins of their mar­kets (low sales and ratings).

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