Mark Achbar

94min.50s. In an energetic fusion of images and ideas, this two-volume video explores the political life and ideas of the controversial author, linguist and radical philosopher, Noam Chomsky. Highlighting Chomsky's analysis and criticisms of the media, Manufacturing Consent focuses on democratic societies where populations not disciplined by force are subjected to more subtle forms of ideological control. Shocking examples of media deception permeate Chomsky's critique of the forces at work behind the daily news.… (meer)

The Corporation is a fast-moving critique and a bracing call-to-action that questions the sanity of the world's most dominant institution. Using a mental health checklist developed by psychologists, the film finds that if a corporation were a person, it would be a self-interested, amoral, callous, and deceitful one — in short, a psychopath. After winning awards and attracting sold-out screenings at other festivals including Toronto and Sundance, The Corporation is looking like this year's Bowling for Columbine, a no-holds-barred, devastating assault that is nonetheless deeply entertaining and humorous. While the film would seem to be capitalizing on recent corporate meltdowns a la Enron, it's been in production for the last six years, and the makers, including co-director Achbar (Manufacturing Consent) have masterfully shaped it into something that will be long relevant. (PS) 145 mins.… (meer)

Written in 1988, Manufacturing Consent is the classic left-wing analysis of US mass media as a "propaganda model". Chomsky and Herman challenged accepted notions of press objectivity (and this was way before Fox News!).

An excerpt: "The mass media serve as a system for communicating messages and symbols to the general populace. It is their function to amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society. In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfill this role requires systematic propaganda."

Read it critically, but read it and especially read the footnotes, which provide the sources to back up their claims. The authors provide specific examples of how major media, especially the New York Times' foreign policy coverage to demonstrate how the propaganda model works. It will change the way you read the newspaper or watch TV news. Brilliant stuff.… (meer)