The movie "Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media" examines in great detail the political beliefs of Noam Chomsky. It focuses on his comments about media and how the dominant order employs it to distract the masses from important social issues.
In the first part, "Thought Control in Democratic Society," Chomsky describes the necessity of every regime to create illusions and control the thoughts of public. He claimed that "propaganda to democratic society is what violence is to dictatorship". In his opinion, the mass media functions themselves as setting agenda and selecting, distorting and framing issues; it serves as a form of "thought control in a democratic society", supports the status quo and promote the interest of the ruling class.
In the film, two compelling case studies were conducted to illustrate how media selects and distorts information when dealing with political issues. The East Timor genocide and the Cambodia invasion broke out nearly at the same time. However, the New York Times published only 70 column inches about the East Timor genocide while 1,175 column inches about Cambodia invasion. There was another study showed in the film, which was about "Nightline's usual suspects". It found that in the 865 NIGHTLINE programs analyzed for the study, there were 1530 appearances by guests, 92 percent of the guests were white, 89 percent males, and 80 percent professionals, government officials or corporate representatives.
As Chomsky suggested, the media system of the United States should be a propaganda model. He pointed out that the reason why this model could work is that people don't have time to work and conduct the research so that they could get necessary information and make change. However, the information is present. Finally, Chomsky gave his solution to change and overcome the effectiveness of the propaganda model. He said we should rely in part on activism and alternative media. We need to develop independent mind and review a wide range of press, particularly alternative media, and we should work at the community level in organizations that may have different focuses but share similar values.
I do agree with Chomsky's opinions on how to change and overcome the effectiveness of the propaganda model. Here I'd like to summarize them into two parts: media literacy and alternative media. I believe these two can effectively make a change when the media is utilized by the ruling class to control the minds of the public. Though the media system in China definitely cannot be seen as a propaganda model as that of the U.S., but both media systems share something in common, which is that they are both serves as a form of thought control in the societies. And China's media system definitely functions in a more direct and extreme way. So I would take sina weibo as an example to show how the two make changes now in China. In the past, what you saw on China's mainstream media are almost positive news favoring the government and the ruling party. China's Central Television as the lead in this media system has been working very hard to give the public a prosperous and harmonious picture of our country. People didn't doubt about any information from CCTV and even never thought about the possibility that CCTV might lie. However, with the development of IT technology, traditional media strictly controlled by the government lost its monopoly on information. People get more access to information. We got internet. Then we realized there is bad news in China every day, and the country is not perfect. The government don't want us know too much, particularly the bad news, so they try to control the internet and then we got locked inside the firewalls. However, the appearance of weibo took a challenge for the information control. The authority could not control the information on line as effectively as before. So now what you see from weibo are pretty much like a different world from what you see from the mainstream media. Weibo serves as an alternative media in China which provide more access for the public to the information. It has been taking a big challenge to the Chinese media system meanwhile it help the public develop media literacy. People in China do take a serious consideration when getting information from mainstream media. And now if you watch CCTV news, there are less news reports on leaders attending various meeting but with more issues reflecting some social problems including anti-corruption campaign, combating the abduction of children by using weibo and the like. Though it still serves as a "thought control", but changes can be seen there.
In the first part, "Thought Control in Democratic Society," Chomsky describes the necessity of every regime to create illusions and control the thoughts of public. He claimed that "propaganda to democratic society is what violence is to dictatorship". In his opinion, the mass media functions themselves as setting agenda and selecting, distorting and framing issues; it serves as a form of "thought control in a democratic society", supports the status quo and promote the interest of the ruling class.
In the film, two compelling case studies were conducted to illustrate how media selects and distorts information when dealing with political issues. The East Timor genocide and the Cambodia invasion broke out nearly at the same time. However, the New York Times published only 70 column inches about the East Timor genocide while 1,175 column inches about Cambodia invasion. There was another study showed in the film, which was about "Nightline's usual suspects". It found that in the 865 NIGHTLINE programs analyzed for the study, there were 1530 appearances by guests, 92 percent of the guests were white, 89 percent males, and 80 percent professionals, government officials or corporate representatives.
As Chomsky suggested, the media system of the United States should be a propaganda model. He pointed out that the reason why this model could work is that people don't have time to work and conduct the research so that they could get necessary information and make change. However, the information is present. Finally, Chomsky gave his solution to change and overcome the effectiveness of the propaganda model. He said we should rely in part on activism and alternative media. We need to develop independent mind and review a wide range of press, particularly alternative media, and we should work at the community level in organizations that may have different focuses but share similar values.
I do agree with Chomsky's opinions on how to change and overcome the effectiveness of the propaganda model. Here I'd like to summarize them into two parts: media literacy and alternative media. I believe these two can effectively make a change when the media is utilized by the ruling class to control the minds of the public. Though the media system in China definitely cannot be seen as a propaganda model as that of the U.S., but both media systems share something in common, which is that they are both serves as a form of thought control in the societies. And China's media system definitely functions in a more direct and extreme way. So I would take sina weibo as an example to show how the two make changes now in China. In the past, what you saw on China's mainstream media are almost positive news favoring the government and the ruling party. China's Central Television as the lead in this media system has been working very hard to give the public a prosperous and harmonious picture of our country. People didn't doubt about any information from CCTV and even never thought about the possibility that CCTV might lie. However, with the development of IT technology, traditional media strictly controlled by the government lost its monopoly on information. People get more access to information. We got internet. Then we realized there is bad news in China every day, and the country is not perfect. The government don't want us know too much, particularly the bad news, so they try to control the internet and then we got locked inside the firewalls. However, the appearance of weibo took a challenge for the information control. The authority could not control the information on line as effectively as before. So now what you see from weibo are pretty much like a different world from what you see from the mainstream media. Weibo serves as an alternative media in China which provide more access for the public to the information. It has been taking a big challenge to the Chinese media system meanwhile it help the public develop media literacy. People in China do take a serious consideration when getting information from mainstream media. And now if you watch CCTV news, there are less news reports on leaders attending various meeting but with more issues reflecting some social problems including anti-corruption campaign, combating the abduction of children by using weibo and the like. Though it still serves as a "thought control", but changes can be seen there.