Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda

Noam Chomsky

Jan 2011 · Seven Stories Press

About this ebook

Noam Chomsky’s backpocket classic on wartime propaganda and opinion control begins by asserting two models of democracy—one in which the public actively participates, and one in which the public is manipulated and controlled. According to Chomsky, "propaganda is to democracy as the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state," and the mass media is the primary vehicle for delivering propaganda in the United States. From an examination of how Woodrow Wilson’s Creel Commission "succeeded, within six months, in turning a pacifist population into a hysterical, war-mongering population," to Bush Sr.'s war on Iraq, Chomsky examines how the mass media and public relations industries have been used as propaganda to generate public support for going to war. Chomsky further touches on how the modern public relations industry has been influenced by Walter Lippmann’s theory of "spectator democracy," in which the public is seen as a "bewildered herd" that needs to be directed, not empowered; and how the public relations industry in the United States focuses on "controlling the public mind," and not on informing it. Media Control is an invaluable primer on the secret workings of disinformation in democratic societies.

Ratings and reviews

The alien being hypothesized by Noam Chomsky is an excellent idea and we need it very much in the Western world, while in the Middle East most people know the truth. This book needs to be published more widely.

It is a quick read that will expand your perspective on propaganda, or give you new ones entirely. If nothing else, it will paint international politics in an honest light.

Propaganda hasn't changed much. The collective consciousness is manipulated and misused not just in America, but everywhere!

About the author

NOAM CHOMSKY is known throughout the world for his political and philosophical writings as well as for his groundbreaking linguistics work. He has taught at Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1955 and remains one of America's most uncompromising voices of dissent.