politalX Politics Store - Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda
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List Price: £6.99
Our Price: £5.49
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
Manufacturer: Seven Stories Press,U.S.
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 303.3
EAN: 9781583225363
ISBN: 1583225366
Label: Seven Stories Press,U.S.
Manufacturer: Seven Stories Press,U.S.
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 104
Publication Date: 2002-09-01
Publisher: Seven Stories Press,U.S.
Studio: Seven Stories Press,U.S.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: A really excellent short exposition
Comment: Unlike many of Chomsky's other political books this one is somewhat easier to read and the points it gets across are lucidly put
It is also short and would make an excellent introduction to his work and ideas
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Summary: Nothing much surprising in this book
Comment: Overall an interesting little book, but the topic is much too complex to adequately cover in such a small book/pamphlet.
In my opinion it is also lacking examples from Nazi Germany, which would much better highlight the achievements of propaganda in media.
Also, from a European perspective, where there are much broader and more independent sources of news reporting, US propaganda in media form is pretty much "old news".
Customer Rating:
Summary: Chomsky
Comment: This is a great place to start if you're new to Chomsky and political books. It is one of his most accessible books, with a lots of varied information to whet your appetite. You are left with a feeling of shock, but also a desire to go out and learn more, which this book points you in the right direction of. Well worth a read.
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Summary: How is Internet going to impact the Media Control?
Comment: This is another book from Chomsky that makes you look at the American political life from a critical point of view. He has a certain style in writing his books; he makes an hypothesis and builds the book around it. The hypothesis of this book is that American democracy developed towards a system (which he calls "spectator democracy") during early 20th century in which there is an elite group that basically "figure things out" for the rest, i.e. "bewildered herd". For this system to work, the elite group engineer others' opinions by using propaganda or in other words by using public relations. As you would guess, once the elite group recognize the power they have, they start abusing the system for their own benefit but not for that of the public (the herd). He gives many examples, including First World War, labor union laws, Vietnam War and The Gulf War to prove his hypothesis.
What I found unsatisfactory is the lack of his ideas about how Internet is going to impact the propaganda tools that the elite group use. With only TV, newspapers and radio in place, engineering others' opinions were easier because it was enough to own or cooperate with few media channels. With Internet getting more available for the masses, it is a totally different ball game. An individual or a group gets the power to produce or share content to inform and influence others. So, his analysis fails to explain what role Internet will play in this whole argument of "media control".
Having said that, I respect Noam as an honest and smart intellectual and highly recommend this book to everyone who would like to understand how media can be and was used as an evil tool. His analysis is powerful yet not totally contemporary.
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Summary: The bewildered herd must be tamed
Comment: Noam Chomsky explains perfectly how propaganda spectacularly achieved to turn `real' democracy, where the public participates meaningfully in state affairs, into `spectator' democracy, where the public is occasionally allowed to elect one or another member of a specialized class.
Spectator democracy is based on the assumption that the stupid masses (`the bewildered herd') are too dump and incompetent to really understand their own interests. Only a small elite, the decision makers, can understand the common interest. The bewildered herd must be tamed by, among other means, propaganda.
But who benefits? How get the decision makers into their position? The answer is very simple: by serving people with real power, by defending the interests of private power and the state-corporate nexus.
Noam Chomsky dissects brilliantly the propaganda machine with its use of disinformation, falsification of history, and marginalization of dissident opinion.
He gives perfect examples of propaganda, like the Creel commission in WWI, which turned a pacifist majority of the people into a warmongering crowd, or the battle against the `Vietnam syndrome' (`the sickly inhibitions against the use of military force'), or the use of fear of enemies in order to hide real domestic problems (health, education, homelessness, joblessness, crime, soaring criminal populations, jails, deterioration in the inner cities).
Ultimately, the bewildered herd will never be tamed completely. It will have to choose between a real free society and a self-imposed totalitarianism where it will be marginalized.
A brilliant essay by a superb free mind.
We need Noam Chomsky's loud and clear voice.
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