BLOG 2 (Week 2): Manufactoring Consent

In the video “Manufacturing Consent,” it uses many visual techniques to further illustrate Noam Chomsky’s ideas. One of the techniques that stood out most to me was the use of old black and white movie clips that were produced by major media companies of the time, such as the New York Times. One black and white video clip took the camera into the editing room where the television show host then interviewed the foreign news editor. The editor explained on camera how he chose and discarded certain foreign news articles. One main reason for doing this was that he simply could not fit all received foreign news articles into one newspaper everyday; it was simply impossible. This ties into Chomsky’s idea of the “Propaganda Model” because it is an example of elite, powerful figures framing the news to their favor. While the editor in the old movie clip was forced to pick and choose certain articles for the sake of the newspaper not being overloaded with articles, the question arises of what criteria was used to select certain articles. One video clip, though more modern, used the prime example of the chaos in Timor a few decades ago to illustrate this point of the media framing news to its advantage. There was heavy international coverage of Timor when the issue first arose. However, once the United States government itself started contributing to mass genocide in Timor, news coverage began to dwindle to almost no coverage at all. Certain elite figures did this to protect themselves. The United States instead was framed as a generous country who intended to give aid. Because of this framing years earlier, nobody really knew about what truly happened until years later when it was uncovered. Elite figures still frame the news to their advantage since they own most media sources in the United States. Even today, they still frame many issues into propaganda that deceives people.