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Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media QUOTES

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media QUOTES

21 " Governments and business-news promoters go to great pains to make things easy for news organizations. They provide the media organizations with facilities in which to gather; they give journalists advance copies of speeches and forthcoming reports; they schedule press conferences at hours well-geared to news deadlines; they write press releases in usable language; and they carefully organize their press conferences and "photo opportunity" sessions. It is the job of news officers "to meet the journalist's scheduled needs with material that their beat agency has generated at its own pace. "

― Edward S. Herman , Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

22 " [reporting components for "worthy" victims]: Fullness and reiteration of the details of the murder and the damage inflicted on the victim. Stress on indignation, shock, and demands for justice. The search for responsibility at the top. "

― Edward S. Herman , Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

23 " [on sponsored elections] Thus the dramatic denouement of the election is voter turnout, which measures the ability of the forces of democracy and peace (the army) to overcome rebel threats. [...] "Off the agenda" for the government in its own sponsored elections are all of the basic parameters that make an election meaningful or meaningless prior to the election-day proceedings. These include: (1) freedom of speech and assembly; (2) freedom of the press; (3) freedom to organize and maintain intermediate economic, social, and political groups (unions, peasant organizations, political clubs, student and teacher associations, etc.); (4) freedom to form political parties, organize members, put forward candidates, and campaign without fear of extreme violence; and (5) the absence of state terror and a climate of fear among the public. Also off the agenda is the election-day "coercion package" that may explain turnout in terms other than devotion to the army and its plans, including any legal requirement to vote, and explicit or implicit threats for not voting. "

― Edward S. Herman , Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

24 " In contrast to the standard conception of the media as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their search for truth and their independence of authority, we have spelled out and applied a propaganda model that indeed sees the media as serving a "societal purpose," but not that of enabling the public to assert meaningful control over the political process by providing them with the information needed for the intelligent discharge of political responsibilities. On the contrary, a propaganda model suggests that the "societal purpose" of the media is to inculcate and defend the economic, social, and political agenda of privileged groups that dominate the domestic society and the state. The media serve this purpose in many ways: through selection of topical distribution of concerns, framing of issues, filtering of information, emphasis and tone, and by keeping debate within the bounds of acceptable premises. "

― Edward S. Herman , Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

25 " The anti-Communist control mechanism reaches through the system to exercise a profound influence on the mass media. In normal times as well as in periods of Red scares, issues tend to be framed in terms of a dichotomized world of Communist and anti-Communist powers, with gains and losses allocated to contesting sides, and rooting for “our side” considered an entirely legitimate news practice. "

― Edward S. Herman , Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

26 " When a Vietnamese official suggested that the U.S. send food aid to regions where starving villagers are being asked to spend their time and energy searching for the remains of American pilots killed while destroying their country, State Department spokeswoman Phyllis Oakley reacted with great anger: “We are outraged at any suggestion of linking food assistance with the return of remains,” she declaimed. So profound is the U.S. commitment to humanitarian imperatives and moral values that it cannot permit these lofty ideals to be tainted by associating them with such trivial concerns and indecent requests.166 "

― Edward S. Herman , Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

27 " Large corporate advertisers on television will rarely sponsor programs that engage in serious criticisms of corporate activities, such as the problem of environmental degradation, the workings of the military-industrial complex, or corporate support of and benefits from Third World tyrannies. "

― Edward S. Herman , Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

28 " But entertainment has the merit not only of being better suited to helping sell goods; it is an effective vehicle for hidden ideological messages.24 Furthermore, in a system of high and growing inequality, entertainment is the contemporary equivalent of the Roman “games of the circus” that diverts the public from politics and generates a political apathy that is helpful to preservation of the status quo. "

― Edward S. Herman , Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

29 " the mass media are interested in attracting audiences with buying power, not audiences per se; it is affluent audiences that spark advertiser interest today, as in the nineteenth century. The idea that the drive for large audiences makes the mass media “democratic” thus suffers from the initial weakness that its political analogue is a voting system weighted by income! "

― Edward S. Herman , Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

30 " The culture and ideology fostered in this globalization process relate largely to “lifestyle” themes and goods and their acquisition; and they tend to weaken any sense of community helpful to civic life. "

― Edward S. Herman , Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

31 " an advertising-based system will tend to drive out of existence or into marginality the media companies and types that depend on revenue from sales alone. With advertising, the free market does not yield a neutral system in which final buyer choice decides. The advertisers’ choices influence media prosperity and survival. "

― Edward S. Herman , Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

32 " This bias is politically advantageous to U.S. policy-makers, for focusing on victims of enemy states shows those states to be wicked and deserving of U.S. hostility; while ignoring U.S. and client-state victims allows ongoing U.S. policies to proceed more easily, unburdened by the interference of concern over the politically inconvenient victims. "

― Edward S. Herman , Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

33 " media are independent and committed to discovering and reporting the truth, and that they do not merely reflect the world as powerful groups wish it to be perceived. "

― Edward S. Herman , Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

34 " I gruppi di potere sono in grado di difendersi e secondo gli standard dei media il fatto che la loro posizione e i loro diritti vengano minacciati costituisce scandalo. Al contrario, finché illegalità e violazione dei principi democratici colpiscono gruppi marginali [...] l'opposizione dei media è completamente assente. "

― Edward S. Herman , Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media