The basic premise of this classic of political analysis is simply that even in a non-totalitarian society like the US, the political elite control the flow of information and institutionalise significant biases in the ideological and operational basis of mainstream media. Thus, propoganda in a democratic society is orchestrated in a much more subtle and invidious manner, thereby circumventing the potential backlash of free society. To explain this phenomenon of political consensus generation, the authors propose a propoganda model and carry out a devastating analysis of the tacit and overt complicity of media sources in creating the aforementioned consensus.

The propoganda model is characterised by a set of filters of information that take on various institutional forms but always can be seen to be subservient to powerful interest groups. Significant factors in such a filtering process is the monopolisation of mass media by a handful of corporate conglomerations, the huge infrastructural investment by the Govt towards feeding and generation of what it deems to be news (eg. the propoganda machinery of the Pentagon), unquestioning acceptance of such information by the media etc. On the other hand are other more subtle forms of control through groups or think-tanks (typically right-wing) that serve the dual purpose of presenting an extremely conservative viewpoint under the garb of independent expertise on an issue and also generating "flak" against voices that question the legitimacy of this consensus. The degree of subversion of the media and the distortion of the "real" news is a function both of the nature of the crisis or the extent to which such disinformation can be pushed without serious opposition. Another major filtering mechanism is the American paranoia of communism and the strong perception in American society of its unredeeming, dark character. The thematic categorisations used in this analysis are "worthy and unworthy victims", "legitimising vs meaningless Third World Elections", "the KGB plot to kill the Pope" and "the Indochina Wars". The authors use these themes to efficiently illustrate their propositions regarding the propoganda model and its nature.

In almost all cases, American elite interest is propogated under the garb of "protection or propogation of democracy" or the nurturing of American (and by inference, morally upright) values as "free market principles" or "human rights". Thus, as the authors point out, in the case of Latin American countries, compliant client states like Guatemala and El Salvador which were ruled by despotic right-wing juntas are portrayed as protectors of democratic rights. The slaughter of citizens or groups clamouring for their rights in such states is seldom reported to the fullest extent in the media and is explained away, often by laying the blame at the door of leftists or socialist organisations that are engaged in a battle with such puppet regimes. Quite often, this conflict which essentially reflects the great social crises that plague such societies is depicted as a battle between benign democratic forces (ie. the junta blessed by the US) and dark and evil communists   (ie. the guerilla groups fighting for their rights or in many cases, survival). Herman and Chomsky go on to analyse this distortion in great detail and buttress their arguments with clear analysis of the record of media giants like the New York Times, CBS, Time magazine etc. With characterisitic lucidity, the authors also show that in cases whenever the establishment is unable to deal with the essential political dichotomy, the US has a clear record of quickly transforming the matter into a military conflict and forcing the opponent to engage in such an artificially generated crisis. The Vietnam War is a prime example. With the hapless and often unwilling enemy engaged in a war, the moral indefensibility of the US elite's stand disappears and the matter is analysed purely in logistical terms. That's when the US emerges the unquestioned winner, given its immense superiority in military terms, its often easy for it to pound its victim into submission. The later half of the book is devoted to examining the record on this issue viz, the indefensibility of the US position in Vietnam and its ghoulish role in the decimation of Laos and Cambodia before Pol Pot took the matter to a logical end. In this context it is interesting to contrast this viewpoint with the commonly held view on Pol Pot's notoriety without any appreciation of the US's responsibility in generating a situation that lead to one of the worst holocaust's the world has witnessed.

The use of the bogey of anti-communism as an abiding virtue is analysed and explained in different contexts in this book. From the genuine aspirations of Nicaraguans fighting for a decent life to the attempted assassination of the Pope by a Turkish mercenary, the main stream media finds no problems in hallucinating the hand of Reds behind every event. Thus, the constant barrage of propoganda of its inherent evil, or the selective emphasis of atrocities commited by communist regimes is used as an effective mechanism of reigning in genuine socialist aspirations. Cuba is an example that comes to mind.

The authors do an admirable job in clearly delineating their arguments and emphasising the validity of their conclusions with extensive quantitative comparisions. The meticulous nature of their analysis should serve as an example of how to cogently present an argument, especially when its against an entire establishment waiting to pick holes in it. Yet, for all its edifying qualities, Manufacturing Consent has some weakness in its principal conjectures. The US establishment and media comes in for very strong criticism for their roles and views on the Vietnam war. The authors demonstrate how an invasion of South Vietnam by the US, is blatantly characterised as "protection of democracy" against the Communists of the North. They analyse the unwillingness of these institutions to see, let alone acknowledge the inherent immorality of US involvment in Indochina and the evil nature of its "bomarding the place to pieces". The whole gruesome episode is examined thoroughly and the genuine cause of the North Vietnam groups is explained. But Herman and Chomsky fail to provide a satisfactory explanation of the exact nature of Soviet and Chinese involvment in the whole sordid episode of the Vietnam war or the Laos/Cambodia killings. Its hard to imagine that through the long, devastating war in Indochina, these Communist giants had only a marginal role to play. And if indeed their role was insignificant, an explanation to that effect would have significantly improved the validilty of the arguments of this book.

But a more serious flaw in the logic of this book is its failure to analyse the role of the average American in the perpetration of such propoganda in the media. While a lot of it can be explained in terms of the nature of the propoganda and the relative naivete of the average consumer of such news, in the opinion of this reviewer, the complicity has deeper roots in the American middle class. As things stand today (and have been so for most of this century), American hegemony has dominated world politics. In short, the outcome is that most Americans draw undue benefits from such a state of affairs.
A brief survey of American society and lifestyle would show that the extent to which this society enjoys undue privileges (essentially underwritten by access to artificially cheap energy procured from the client regimes in the Middle East and
corporate interests perpetuated under the garb of "free market principles"). That the average person is a beneficiary of such an iniqutious relationship and his consistent refusal to see it as such can at best be characterised as tacit complicity. Thus, while the authors rightly point out, the distortions of the media definitely serve elite interests the most, but the easy acquiesence of the vast majority to such a charade is equally important. With the relative ease of access to the dissenting view (Chomsky himself being a stellar example), the steadfast refusal of this society to examine its views and its record is not indicative of a healthy, vibrant and free society that is willing to examine its fundamental premises. Thus, it can be argued that to a large extent the media reflects the views of its consumers. The staunch, unquestioning, commonly held belief in the virtue of American nationalism, its inherent sense of fair-play and moral moorings are views that the elitist media feeds on and helps perpetuate.

All in all,  this book is a very engrossing read (and quite disturbing too), penned by some of the sharpest intellects of America.  Moreover, what makes this book particularly interesting to me is that it also sheds light on perhaps a universal characteristic of people and their relationship with modern mass media. The propoganda model can be easily applied to the Indian media (at least the English version of it) since it caters to similar needs of the elite in Indian society. An interesting analogy would be the portrayal of the Kashmir issue, our relationship with our neighbours or the nature of public discourse on notions of free market policies and the pressing need (or the lack thereof) of social imperatives to address the extreme inequities of Indian society.

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