The ideas Noam Chomsky presents to viewers in the documentary Manufacturing Consent require a lot of discussion. Most people do not think that the media is out there to profit, do not think that the news is twisted. Most people believe that they are hearing the honest truth each day.
I was especially shocked to see the way the situation that occurred in Southeast Asia was handled. The way the news was able to spin coverage away from East Timor due to what was occurring in Cambodia is amazing. The New York Times had only seventy pages of reporting on the conflict occurring in East Timor, while the conflict in Cambodia had thousands of pages of reporting on the subject. This reinforces Chomsky's belief that the media is protecting the American elite, because the President had backed the invasion so therefore all the atrocities being committed were "ok" in a way. The government in Cambodia was committing genocide of a worse nature, but not in the way it was represented in the paper. It was not 100s of times worse than what was occurring in East Timor, but that's what the New York Times would have made you think. I am amazed that this could happen to such a well-known paper. I agree with Chomsky I think just based on an event like this alone.
The propaganda model is still very relevant in the media world today. News organizations are still trying to profit more than present the news in an unbiased way, and still serve the elite organizations of American society. Companies such as Dow Jones and Fox control a large amount of the market for media, and thus they are able to feed the consumer news to protect their own valuable interests. They also have holdings in the movie industries and many cable companies, which extends their influence beyond the news sector. It is scary to think how much control these companies can exert over everyday life in a society where we think we have so many different kinds of freedoms.
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