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Title: Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda by Noam Chomsky ISBN: 1-58322-536-6 Publisher: Seven Stories Press Pub. Date: December, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $8.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.37 (27 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: An introduction to Chomsky's media analysis
Comment: Noam Chomsky's description of US foreign policy often causes people to ask, "If this is true, why haven't I heard about it?" That led Chomsky to write about the mainstream news media. His explanation is simple enough to understand, but it needs a lot of documentation to back it up. So Chomsky wrote a short stack of heavily-footnoted books on the topic, such as Necessary Illusions and (with Edward Herman) Manufacturing Consent. But it can be intimidating to pick up one of those books, so Chomsky wrote this introduction.
The footnotes are gone (more or less). The basic picture of the US news media --- how it works and who it serves --- is here, but in condensed form. If you want the nuances, the sources, and the case studies, you'll have to read his other books. Once you have a grasp of the broad outlines, you can get into the specifics much more easily.
This second edition adds the transcript of a talk Chomsky gave a few years ago. It was printed in FAIR's media watchdog magazine, Extra. In it, Chomsky imagines a Martian as an outside observer, someone who can analyze human affairs without being inside it. The Martian idea works well because so many Americans feel outside the mainstream media's message --- as Chomsky describes the current war on terror from the Martian point of view, you find yourself in total agreement.
The rest of the book is just as good. Chomsky talks about the history of the media as a voluntary propaganda arm of the government, citing examples from World War I to the Gulf War. His ten-year-old comments on Iraq (including references to WMDs) show how the old news has been re-packaged for a new decade. It's a new century, but it's the same old lies..
Rating: 4
Summary: So what, Noam?
Comment: I found Noam's writing style to be clear and plainly delivered, and thought his definition of terrorism was pretty accurate. The rest of the book is really a re-hash of details already available in many others, but since so many others quote Noam, it's hard to know who's re-hashing whom.
Like the other books of this type, the main failing is to address the issue of what is to be done to improve matters, so that the 'bewildered herd' can make a significant impact for their own benefit. It is presumed that some heroic figure or figures will take heed of all the problems and assume the mantle of responsibility to make it all better. Why should they? After all, if the bewildered insist in adopting a gimme gimme herd mentality there's not much beyond business as usual.
Until such times as Noam and his associates are prepared to write about how things as they are currently, are to be changed, without creating yet another propaganda machine to keep it all in check, he and they are simply throwing stones at the windows, and the herd will remain diverted by their unreal, 'Reality TV'.
Those interested in such a development should give the Ayn Rand school of thinking a look see, until Noam, etc., get it together.
Rating: 5
Summary: the Facts behind the Fiction
Comment: News is selective. We all know this. Noam does a great job of pointing out specific examples of times we didn't ask the questions. He also talks of the times where media blatently refused to print the news they know, and those times it was used to manipulate the mindless masses.
He also does a good job of drawing parallels between the two war on terrorism bits that are twenty years apart. This was my first read of Noam, and I am sure that by no means will it be my last!
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Title: 9-11 by Noam Chomsky ISBN: 1583224890 Publisher: Seven Stories Press Pub. Date: October, 2001 List Price(USD): $8.95 |
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Title: Manufacturing Consent : The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Noam Chomsky, Edward S. Herman ISBN: 0375714499 Publisher: Pantheon Books Pub. Date: 15 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky by Noam Chomsky, John Schoeffel, Peter R. Mitchell, Peter Mitchell ISBN: 1565847032 Publisher: New Press Pub. Date: February, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq by Sheldon Rampton, John C. Stauber ISBN: 1585422762 Publisher: J. P. Tarcher Pub. Date: July, 2003 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title:Noam Chomsky - Distorted Morality: America's War on Terror? ASIN: B00008AOW1 Publisher: Koch Vision Entertai Pub. Date: 25 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $7.98 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $7.98 |
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