Manufacturing Consent (film)

Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media is a 1992 documentary film that explores the political life and ideas of linguist, intellectual, and political activist Noam Chomsky. Filmmakers Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick expand the analysis of capitalism and mass media presented in Manufacturing Consent, a 1988 book Chomsky wrote with Edward S. Herman.

Overview

The film presents and illustrates Chomsky and Herman's propaganda model thesis that corporate media, as profit-driven institutions, tend to serve and further the agendas and interests of dominant, elite groups in the society. A centerpiece of the film is a long examination of the history of The New York Times' coverage of the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, which Chomsky says exemplifies the media's unwillingness to criticize an ally of the elite.

Companion book

Mark Achbar edited a companion book of the same name. It features a transcript of the film annotated with excerpts from referenced and relevant materials as well as several comments from Noam Chomsky interspersed throughout. Eighteen "Philosopher All-Stars" baseball cards (as seen in the film) are also included. On the back of each card is a short summary of the person, titles of their major works, and a series of quotations attributed to the individual. Chomsky is featured as a card in the set, as are René Descartes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire, Mary Wollstonecraft, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Sojourner Truth, Karl Marx, Sitting Bull, Rosa Luxemburg, Peter Kropotkin, Emma Goldman, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Bertrand Russell, and Michel Foucault. The book made The Globe and Mail's national bestseller list in Canada.