A Critique of Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of Mass Media

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.