Research Article
A Critique of Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of Mass Media
Asegedew Shemelis*Journalism and Communication, Arba Minch University, Ethiopia
- *Corresponding Author:
- Asegedew Shemelis
Lecturer, Journalism and Communication
Arba Minch University Ethiopia
Tel: +251 46 881 4986
E-mail: aselovee@gmail.com
Received date: September 19, 2016; Accepted date: September 22, 2016; Published date: September 26, 2016
Citation: Shemelis A (2016) A Critique of Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of Mass Media. J Archit Eng Tech 5:176. doi: 10.4172/2168-9717.1000176
Copyright: © 2016 Shemelis A. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
This review is a critique of a masterpiece “Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of Mass Media” written by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky. The paper entirely attempts to critique the paradigm of Propaganda Model (PM) applied as a framework to criticize the performance and structural behavior of U.S mainstream media system. The review relies entirely on the book. Greater emphasis is given to the framework of the book-Propaganda Model. Herman and Chomsky adapted it into Manufacturing Consent, as it suggests that ‘consent’ or shared understanding is cooked (manufactured) by elites “specialized classes” as the authors name them. The big media are controlled by few profit-seeking owners; therefore, they do not encourage free flow of news and analysis that are solely against the other end of their interest. Due to this reason, ‘realities’ are preferred to be fabricated and disseminated to the mass. For such solid justification, the authors developed the propaganda model to evaluate the performance of media in U.S. in exploring the main print and broadcast platforms, they used the model as a framework; and the writers of this review article sought the model from that perspective and exerted effort to critique arguments.