Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman.Yikes, what a long and painful read. It was only 307 pages of book, and lengthy appendices and sources (always a good sign, they have the facts and sources behind them.) but each single page was a crawl through dense words, small typeface and an overabundance of hard facts followed by interpretation.
It is a good book and very seminal to many scholars and dissidents to follow, but just hard, hard work. John Pilger by comparison was more horrifying in his portrayal but easier to read.
The thing is that the media is free, but by right of that freedom, market forces and the desires that drive government and media organisations alike, they waste that freedom in ignorance and acceptance. Even the so-called left-wing opposition press in the mainstream is prey to such basic misconceptions.
If the premise from which you operate is flawed, then all your reports focussing on the details (true or otherwise) never question the basics and therefore perpetuate the myths.
This book is now well out of date, but the comparisons between the "terrorists" and "worthy vitcims" when it was written and nowadays would be well worth a re-examination of the medias involvement today.
I make no secret of my disdain for most media and the bias they maintain, but things have changed some for the better (the internet and instant news) and some for the worse (Fox News).
The current mid-east push for democracy is relevant in seeing where the US support goes to, they support democracy only where the outcome is favourable. This book is over twenty years old but still shines a light on that foible of the US. And maybe we all have these discussions in the mainstream (biased though they are) because of the way this book has been read, appreciated and denounced in all measures over time.
Something shorter, something lighter, something less taxing next.
We'll see what falls into my hands.
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