Manufacturing Consent

"Manufacturing Consent" has a lot of visual techniques that reinforce Chomsky's message and serve to keep the documentary interesting throughout its long runtime. For example, some shots show Noam Chomsky speaking shown on massive television screens, such as in an empty sports stadium or inside a mall, showing that Noam Chomsky attempts to use the very mass media that keeps us ignorant by dodging issues and giving us skewed and/or narrow information to spread the message to the masses.

Another powerful video technique of "Manufacturing Consent" shows the literal gutting and restitching of an article. The London Times' story on East Timor was brought over to the New York Times, whom in this scene is portrayed by "Manufacturing Consent" as a group of surgeons. They cut out the vital parts of the London Times' article (deeming "unneccessary" very important parts such as a paragraph that sums the entire story), resulting in the flatlining of the story's heartbeat. The scene then shows the surgeon pick up thread and restitch a new, Frankensteinish story, that is devoid of the actual, important facts that Chomsky warns media is keeping from us in an attempt to whitewash the USA, and shows this article sent off to Newsweek and other such publications to turn East Timor a national non-story of sorts. The documentary then contrasts footage of the New York Times talking about how hard it is to create articles, and how the stress of working under a time limit every day results in articles that are less than perfect, but is undermined and is seen by the viewer as less than honest due to the fact that obviously vital bits are cut out of their article.