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Is it wrong to like Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent"? (hexbear.net)

submitted 22 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) by Wisconcom@hexbear.net to c/askchapo@hexbear.net

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Considering all the recent attention surrounding Noam Chomsky and his connections to Jeffery Epstein, I thought I might ask this question.

I personally think Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media is a good book and makes a lot of good points regarding the bourgeois media which few other left-wing authors have made, at least not in such a concise and easily-explained way. When I shared this book with new leftists, they seem to appreciate and comprehend its contents rather quickly. The only part which I found myself majorly disagreeing with was the conclusion in which Chomsky suggests that "American democracy" is "under threat," as opposed to being non-existent in the first place.

With that being said, I consider Chomsky's work to be a pearl in an ocean of bad takes. I think that Chomsky, particularly recently, is an anti-communist propagandist and apologist for the bourgeois system, basically a left-liberal.

Is my take incorrect?

Edit: I failed to mention how this book was co-authored by someone else who is not on the Epstein files. Thank you to all those who mentioned that.

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[–] purpleworm@hexbear.net 7 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

From 2000 onward, access is not that relevant.

What are you saying? Access is still extremely important. Check out that NBC interview just a few days ago with Trump ("okay, yeah, yeah, okay" says the journo as Trump says the most ridiculous debunked lies, like "every boat I sink is 25,000 American lives saved"). You can say that some of its specific nature changed, but network news still heavily emphasizes, for example, interview practices oriented around avoiding offending big names so that they'll come back for more interviews so that people watch your show (though this is not evenly applied, of course).

[–] micnd90@hexbear.net 4 points 17 hours ago

I would argue that network news (NBC, CBS, ABC) are not as relevant as they are in shaping public opinion, their viewership have been tanking compared to the 80/90s. People don't watch network news for news, except for really old boomers in retirement homes. A one-on-one interview with the sitting President back in the 80s or 90s would give the network news show big scoop and translate to big ratings, these days not so much. Most working people these days get their news online from social media, from a very fragmented media landscape. People want to watch a short "take" on interview with the President from someone they trust, not the whole interview itself.

The "manufacturing consent" in fragmented media landscapes these days in my opinion are largely done via class-based exclusion, mainly in primary (written) news, e.g., NYT, AP, Reuters, Politico, WaPo. The clearest example here is that a famous White House Correspondent in the past was maybe Dan Rather. He was a son of manual laborer and both of his parents were highschool dropouts. Now the NYT White House Correspondent is Maggie Haberman, her dad Clyde Haberman was already a big shot NYT writer, and her father-in-law ran Carnegie Corporation. These days journalism is a white collar job and there's barely any class representation in mainstream news media.