Manufacturing Consent

Manufacturing Consent reveals how the upper class controls and skews the news to get the masses to believe whatever serves them best.

At first glance into the ideas behind this book, you might say you’ve seen the media criticize someone who is rich or powerful. But did you stop to think that their condemnation could be the result of another person who is more rich and powerful paying them off?

As Qui-Gon Jinn put it in Star Wars Episode I, “there’s always a bigger fish.”

Publishers of news will always favor the elite in one way or another. If harshness against the rich, who govern what these outlets share, comes from someone outside the upper class, news outlets merely ignore and suppress it.

Take the Watergate scandal for example. Appearing to criticize Richard Nixon, the news was actually only a puppet of another ruling class-the Democrats. The events around the scandal were harmful to the Democrats, and their aim was to improve their image again.

At the same time, government agencies illegally spied on the small Socialist Workers Party. But the media didn’t make any effort to cover this act because it’s masters, the ruling class, didn’t care about the little guys.

Political and financial incentives that benefit the elite govern what the news shares, and what it keeps quiet. Many of these top earners and power-wielders are big business owners. Their large corporations contribute a lot of material for media outlets, who rely on these companies heavily. Thus, the wealthy and powerful have a tight grip on what the media talk about and what they snuff out.

To make it in the media world, you’ve got to pay for expensive reporters and publishing equipment. Add to this the competitive nature of the industry and you’ve got a recipe for easy disaster. That is unless you’ve got the cash to back up your station. This is why advertisers play such a large part in the reporting and publishing business. But you can’t get sponsorship without making those advertisers happy. That means the coverage a news station provides is almost always biased. And who controls these advertisers? You guessed it, the rich and powerful. Consider for a moment what happened to one TV network in the United States who lost their advertising funding. The station aired a documentary on the malpractice of some international companies in Third World countries. This upset their funder because it made big business look bad. Some programs even get wiped from the schedule because it messes with the “buying mood” of potential customers. More serious shows, like documentaries and dramas, are shadowed by lighter entertainment like sit-coms to help drive sales. The end interest of these…