Chomsky: Media Control


"The picture of the world that's presented to the public has only the remotest relation to the reality" (Chomsky, 32)

As a student of media theory, I have read and re-read Noam Chomsky's pamphlet "Media Contrhol: The Spectacular Achievements of Propoganda".

I have never felt that it was more important to heed Chomsky's words and act with vigilance in order to maintain a democratic state.

We must remember that before September 11, 2001, the media darling and the ratings King was Mr. Gary Condit. News programs reported on his every move, his sexual prowess, his shaving habits. Any woman who ever slept with him could become a star on 20/20, tearfully speaking with Barbara Walters.

Mariah Carey's breakdown was worthy of days of press coverage. In the midst of the Mariah and Condit spectacle, I asked anyone who would listen if the media dominance of these two banal figures disturbed them. We live in New York City, a complex and active place, and yet the only news worthy details were Condit's housecleaning and what puppies were available at the pound. What is being kept in the shadows?

The mainstream media had built itself into such a vapid spectacle, it was beginning to trap us into maleable, drooling consumption-crazed fools.

The attacks on Tuesday have viciously popped the "feel-good" balloon of American culture. No more should celebrity liposuction top the news. The world has grown infinitely large and complex. And we are left with a clean slate upon which to rebuild metaphors and media fantasies.

In New York, we now receive only one broadcast station (CBS), the others broadcast off the World Trade Tower. I have tapped much of the coverage, since I came running home on Tuesday morning. What we are able to witness, like never before, is the construction of an American ideology. Much like the German people, who were vulnerable after World War I, we are witnessing the swaying of a country towards War.

What I beg of every thoughtful person is to beware of the spectacle, of the numbing and dumbing down that occurs when you watch the planes strike the Towers again and again.

The easy answers of flag-waving patriotism are just that, an over-simplification of a perverse and complex tragedy.


We are being persuaded towards a:
""manufactured consent" that is, (the bringing) about (of) agreement on the part of the public for things they didn't want by the new techniques of propoganda " (Chomsky, 10).

We all must wash our eyes of the violence, and move our energy from emotions into logic. Only with hardened clarity can we save our own safety, privacy, and peacefulness.

We have the oppourtunity to emerge from our capitalistic-haze and re-evaluate everything, from how business is conducted to America's history of paternal Imperialism.

Catastrophe gives us the gift of a new beginning, which we must direct towards positive betterment and compassion.


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