A Superb Read on the Media and Propaganda Machine in Our So-Called "Democratic" or "Free" Society

This book is an outstanding exploration of the media and the propaganda machine that exists within our supposed "democratic" or "free" society.

It is meticulously researched and well-cited, providing a wealth of information and analysis. I spent about 6 months carefully working my way through it, and it truly gave my mind a workout.

In some areas, the book is accessible and easy to understand, while in others, it can be quite daunting. However, despite its challenges, it has a tremendous amount to offer.

This is not a book for the faint of heart. If you haven't read Chomsky before, I would highly recommend listening to his lectures and/or reading some of his shorter works first.

After finishing this book, I had a strange mix of feelings. On one hand, I felt smarter for having gained a deeper understanding of the complex issues it addressed. On the other hand, I also realized how much I still had to learn.

Overall, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the role of the media and propaganda in our society. It will challenge your thinking and expand your perspective.

This should be mandatory reading for any person before they are allowed to vote.

Voting is a fundamental right and responsibility in a democratic society. It is crucial that every voter is well-informed and understands the implications of their choices. By making this reading mandatory, we can ensure that voters have the necessary knowledge and awareness to make informed decisions.

This reading material could cover a wide range of topics, including the political system, the candidates and their platforms, the issues at stake, and the importance of civic engagement. It could also provide practical tips on how to research and evaluate information, as well as how to communicate effectively with elected officials.

By requiring this reading, we are not only empowering voters to make better decisions, but also promoting a more informed and engaged citizenry. This, in turn, can lead to a stronger and more vibrant democracy.

Neoliberalism is a significant threat to genuine participatory democracy not only in the US but globally. It was first introduced in 1988 in "Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media" by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky. This book examines how the US uses the media to shape the political ideology of the majority. It can also be considered as an excellent account of the post-World War II political history. However, some of the examples and data presented have become less relevant over time. Therefore, the authors added a new preface in the 2002 edition and another work in 2008, which briefly describes the role of the George W. Bush administration and the US mainstream media before and after the Iraq War.

Since 2008, historical evidence has been updated many times. Wikileaks has uncovered many unknown facts about the US genocide in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and the US intelligence agency has disclosed many secrets during the Vietnam War. In addition, social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube have emerged in the past decade, where ordinary people can post various information.

The propaganda model of manufacturing consent is particularly applicable in democratic systems. In an authoritarian regime, the government does not value the consent of the people because they do not rely on the people's votes to stay in power. There are five filters in Herman and Chomsky's propaganda model: media ownership by a powerful group, sponsorship by various corporations, source determination of information, suppression of those with different views, and creation of the concept of moral conflict.

Now the question may arise as to how effective this model is in the age of Facebook and Twitter. Although the mainstream media has lost some influence, they are still the most powerful and will remain so in the future. Because if the government, mainstream media, and large business groups work together, no internal resistance or rebellion can succeed.

It is important to remember that political campaigns are designed by the same people who sell toothpaste and cars. In a capitalist system, there are many enterprises under the ownership of a few large corporations. A parent corporation can own various media (television, newspapers, magazines, movies and TV series, books, online magazines). For example, AT&T is currently the world's largest telecommunications corporation, and its subsidiary WarnerMedia is one of the world's largest entertainment and media corporations. Their products include the television channel CNN, Cartoon Network, HBO, the film production company Warner Bros, New Line Cinema, DC Comics, etc. Recently, the Discovery Channel has merged with WarnerMedia. So, Tom and Jerry, Harry Potter, Bear Grylls' Adventures, Batman, Game of Thrones, and CNN news - all are products of a specific company. People of all ages from children to the elderly are customers of these media companies. These large corporations provide great financial support to American politicians in their election campaigns. For example, AT&T was one of the largest donors to former US President George W. Bush. Without sponsors, it is impossible for politicians to become big players in the political field. Therefore, when they come to power, the big players in the political field will not forget to express their gratitude to their sponsors.

The media also needs to express gratitude. What do sponsors get from the media for providing so many interesting TV series, movies, games, and entertainment opportunities almost for free? The media gives them the "consent" of the customers. There is a saying: "If you're not paying for the product, you are the product." The media will not tell or show us what will harm the business interests of their sponsors. For example, during the war, will those who do business in chaos tell you about the brutality of the war? No, they will only tell you statistics. "A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic." This is the words of Joseph Stalin, who is responsible for millions of deaths. When reading "The Diary of Anne Frank," we can feel the love for the child Anne. Because an emotional connection has been established between the reader and her. How many of the other millions of Jews killed in the Nazi concentration camps in Germany have we thought about? Maybe no one else, or only two or three people whose stories have been made into movies; the rest have become statistics.

Movies!!! Everyone's favorite form of entertainment. And a powerful medium for educating people indirectly. Not everyone reads history books, and not everyone has the patience to watch documentary films. Many people learn about the horrors of war only from movies. In movies like "Life is Beautiful," "The Pianist," and "Schindler's List," we have seen the tragic images of Jews being massacred. But we have never seen the cries of the people of Vietnam in Hollywood movies. Instead, in the movie "The Deer Hunter," the Vietnamese are shown as barbarians, and we have not seen the cries of the people of Iraq in movies. Even if we don't talk about the genocide of the US, have we seen any Hollywood movie about the famine in Bengal in 1943 (fifty years ago, for which the British were responsible)? Or any movie about the genocide in Africa by France?

Russia has invaded Ukraine, and I hope we will soon see a movie about the war-torn lives of the helpless people in Ukraine. We can learn about the plight of the people in Ukraine in detail from the US media, but we only know the statistics about the people in Iraq. Herman and Chomsky call this classification of victims as "Worthy Victims" and "Unworthy Victims." In the eyes of the US media, if the victims are from the US or its allies, they are "Unworthy Victims." For example, during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, Pakistan was an ally of the US, and the innocent people of Bangladesh were "Unworthy Victims" in the eyes of the US. Although the US media was busy with Vietnam at that time. When it came to reporting the actions of the Pakistani regime, which was committing genocide, where was it? A few days before the defeat of Pakistan in December, the US's attempt to stop the war in the UN was a breathtaking chapter in the history of Bangladesh.

Of course, the US mainstream media did report a few things. Newsweek called Bangabandhu the "Poet of politics," and that word is still hung around the neck of the people of Bangladesh like a garland of flowers.

However, in the eyes of the US, "WORTHY VICTIMS" can sometimes become "UNWORTHY VICTIMS." Under the leadership of Cambodian communist leader Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge party killed 1.5 to 2 million people between 1975 and 1979. The US government and media described him as "another Hitler." On the other hand, Sidney Schanberg, a journalist for The New York Times, won the Pulitzer Prize for writing about the horrific genocide of the Pol Pot regime. Later, when the Vietnamese government overthrew the Pol Pot government, the US, which believed in the principle of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," began to support Pol Pot. They helped Pol Pot seek asylum on the Thai border and provided military assistance for him to regain power in Cambodia. President Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski said in 1979, "I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot. I encouraged the Thai to help D.K." [Democratic Kampuchea, Pol Pot's forces]. The New York Times, which had previously made a fuss about the genocide in Cambodia, completely forgot to report the remarks of the National Security Advisor.

On March 20, 2003, the US and its allied forces invaded Iraq. Then-US President George W. Bush claimed that there were Weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Saddam Hussein's regime. The US provided Saddam with the raw materials for manufacturing WMD during the Reagan presidency in the 1980s. Later, the Saddam government destroyed the raw materials for manufacturing WMD. The UN and IAEA investigations proved that there were no WMD in Iraq. However, The New York Times published a false report on the front page in support of the existence of WMD in Iraq in late 2002. Then, George Bush showed the urgency of US security and the need to establish democracy in Iraq and invaded Iraq. In the next ten years, nearly six lakh Iraqi civilians were killed.

The New York Times and The Washington Post, which served as the propaganda machine for the Iraq War, "expressed regret" for the genocide that occurred due to the wrong reason in Iraq.

Currently, with the development of the Internet, the one-sided influence of the US media has decreased somewhat. We can learn the statements of the three global superpowers, the US, Russia, and China, at the same time. It is easy to understand that everyone is making statements with a mixture of partial truth and partial falsehood. But in the end, the majority of people believe their country's TV, online newspapers, or magazines in the case of war. That's why the influence of the mainstream media remains. Although there is an opportunity to have a two-sided discussion with the mainstream media on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, if the establishment faces any hostility on social media, the accounts of status quo destroyers are blocked, or their accounts are suspended, their statements are described as rumors, and attempts are made to socially disgrace them by leaking personal information. We must remember that Facebook, Twitter, and Google are also part of the establishment. It is up to the individuals to decide where to draw the line of personal freedom and where to allow hate speech. The role of Facebook in the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar has been recognized by the international media. (Here, I also rely on the mainstream media for this validation).

Since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the US media has been calling Russian President Vladimir Putin an enemy of humanity. In the 2000 Russian presidential election, the US's favorite candidate was Putin. Some words about that election are quoted here from the book under discussion:

The same bias was evident in reporting on the March 2000 Russian election, won by Yeltsin’s anointed heir and former KGB operative Vladimir Putin. Putin had built his popularity by conducting a brutal counterinsurgency war against Chechnya, and his electoral success rested heavily on the fact that the powerful state TV and radio stations campaigned furiously on his behalf and denigrated and gave no broadcasting time to his opponents. A September 2000 exposé of the Putin election campaign by the expatriate Moscow Times, based on a six-month investigative effort, uncovered compelling evidence of election fraud, including ballot stuffing, ballot destruction, and the creation of 1.3 million “dead souls” inflating the election rolls. The U.S. mainstream media, however, never found any evidence of fraud at the time of the election, and they have been reluctant to report the findings of the Moscow Times study. Putin is another “reformer,” like Yeltsin, supported by the West, so that it follows once again that for the mainstream media a flawed election—hardly admitted to be flawed—remains better than none.

(The review will be edited further later. Keywords: ecocide in the Vietnam War, and the use of dioxin + agent orange + napalm, NATO attacks in Serbia... the comparative response of the media to Russia's invasion of Ukraine)

Smart people undoubtedly penned this book.

I don't make this assertion merely because it was at times difficult to understand (and indeed it was), which was mainly due to its verbosity.

Rather, I say it took intelligent minds because the vast amount of data collected and the astute analysis used to tie it all together was truly remarkable.

The essence of the book is as follows: The US media functions as a controlled information relay system, or in other words, propaganda.

The authors present a "propaganda model" that they believe has been in use within our media for decades.

This is not accomplished in a secret room with a man smoking a cigarette in a dark corner.

Instead, it occurs through a series of very public filters, each of which is named and described.

These filters make sense to me, and I find myself in agreement with the authors.

Most of the filters stem from the fact that each media organization is a business and must be profitable.

For example, FOX, CBS, NBC, and others all have advertisers.

Which of these organizations do you think would air a documentary criticizing the business practices of GE?

None, of course, as GE is a massive company that would immediately withdraw its commercial support.

Another example is the high cost of news gathering.

Most news outlets rely on the government and military as news sources, which often leads to a conflict of interest.

Nevertheless, for the sake of cost, news organizations regard these sources as "authoritative" simply due to financial considerations.

Moreover, negative reporting on the US government's activities abroad could result in a drying up of their access to "sources."

There are a few more filters, but you'll have to pick up the book to discover them.

Overall, it was a so-so book.

I've listened to videos of Chomsky, and as time goes by, I've managed to understand the nature of propaganda in numerous aspects. The disintegration of Indian TV media over the past decade has been truly eye-opening, which has driven me to strive for a better understanding of this phenomenon. In today's era, when there appears to be a new disinformation war among superpowers, it serves as a compelling reason to read and reread this book. The systems of power have not undergone significant alterations.

Such clarity is crucial in this complex and ever-changing world. It allows us to see through the fog of misinformation and propaganda, and to make more informed decisions. By studying the works of experts like Chomsky, we can gain valuable insights into the mechanisms of power and how they operate in the media and society. This knowledge can then be applied to our own lives, helping us to become more critical consumers of information and more active participants in the democratic process.

In conclusion, the importance of understanding the nature of propaganda cannot be overstated. It is essential for us to be able to distinguish between truth and falsehood, and to resist the attempts of those who would seek to manipulate us through misinformation. By reading and rereading books like this one, we can arm ourselves with the knowledge and tools we need to navigate the complex and often confusing world of modern media.

**"The Propaganda Model of the Media"**

The book by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman is extremely popular worldwide and has a significant impact on the thoughts of the media. These two have presented the true history of the media in the United States, which is a flag-bearer of liberalism, in front of the people.

Basically, the propaganda model of the media has challenged the so-called "good" ideas related to the media around the world. In five steps, all the partisan and so-called neutral media in a country make the people blind followers and always keep their own interests supreme. The history of that fraud has been written in this book from the perspective of the United States. Let's know the eternal steps of the propaganda model described by Chomsky -

1. Size, ownership, and profit considerations of the media: Whether the media is large or small, which group the owner belongs to, and what the government wants - these three overall issues determine which news will be published. And which important but anti-owner interest news will be buried is also decided. Just because of this, the news of the fraud of the owner of the Jugantor group of the Yugantar newspaper was not published. That's why the New York Times or Bangladesh never writes about the occupation of the land of the Bashundhara group!

2. Advertising: The domestic media can never speak out about the high price of the Internet of mobile companies, the fraud of the crore taka of the king or the snow, because they run on the money of these advertisers. So the media cannot promote any event or news that can have a negative impact on the market of these big companies or their misdeeds.

3. Generation of news: You think you are reading in the newspaper and seeing on the TV screen what is happening in the country. But it's not like that at all. The media sees and reads every day exactly what they want. That's why Hiron Alam got the hero coverage. But the media did not cover the incident of Tanu's murder until it was raised on social media. The source of the news of "Crossfire" is the law enforcement agencies. The story of the victim's family is not there in that news. The true truth of "Crossfire" does not come.

4. Threat, fear: After the threat of "You know what will happen if you report", the news has to be thought about for the second time whether it will see the light of day. When the state machinery closes newspapers and TV channels without notice in various pretexts, then all the owners and employees of those media have to be afraid of the declared threat of "If you report, you will be closed". The responsibility of the state is to ensure the independence of the media. But when the state suppresses the mouth of the media through black laws, then the hope of getting "true news" surely ends.

5. Red scare: The last step of Chomsky's propaganda model was to "kill" the true news by showing the people the fear of communism. But after the fall of the Soviet Union, the enemy has changed. Earlier, the media in the country spread the fear of socialism under the prescription or pressure of the Western press or created a culture of fear in the name of anti-communism. But now the common enemy of the media has changed. It is clear by reading Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations". The main opposition of the media is no longer socialism. Fortunately, it is now Islam. This truth can be understood by looking at the coverage of the Western media.

Now in the country, the wind of the eleventh national parliament election is blowing. What do our Western godfathers say, which is what all the neutral intellectuals want to hear. If they speak well, the intellectuals will say in unison, "The election was good." If they speak badly, the slogan will be, "The election was not free, fair and neutral. There was widespread rigging." For those who consider the opinion of these Western observers as the word of God, Chomsky has taken the examples of the elections of three countries in the Third World. El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. According to Chomsky, after observing the elections of these three countries, the Western godfathers consider the election of the military dictator in their own interest as free and fair. As Guatemala and El Salvador did. Again, even if the election is relatively fair and neutral, the election of Nicaragua does not seem good in the eyes of the Western observers. So after Chomsky's analysis, it can be easily said that it is not right to trust the words of the Western godfather observers. Their observation depends on give and take. Not in favor of democracy or freedom of speech.

One of the often overlooked advantages of picking up an old book to read is that it can have a remarkably 'contemporary' feel. This is because history has a tendency to repeat itself, and human behavior has not changed as much as we might think.

Take this particular book, for example. It was published in 1988, following the Vietnam War and the Reagan years. Herman and Chomsky, with academic precision and an extensive collection of references, demonstrate that the mass media in the US serves merely as a propaganda tool in the hands of a powerful elite, whether it be the wealthy, corporations, or even the government. Vested interests effectively and convincingly suppress the truth. Even the so-called 'independent' media is not as independent as they would have us believe, promoting convenient misinterpretations, misleading suggestions, and outright falsehoods to support the 'official' stance.

The afterword added to the 2008 edition, after 9/11 and the war on Iraq, further emphasizes this point. The media's amplification of the WMD chorus drowned out the voices of the naysayers and skeptics, even when they were credible and reliable sources. The US had not changed, and the rest of the democratic West simply followed suit.

Reading this book now, it seems to be an apt description of the situation in India! In addition to raising disturbing questions about whether it is ever possible to know the 'truth', it also makes me wonder if there is such a thing as 'democracy' anywhere in the world. More likely, we are all governed by a vast plutocracy.

This is essentially a thesis that delves into the manner in which the American capitalist (both political and economic) agenda has permeated every aspect of the media.

It aims to explore how this infiltration has been used to manipulate the general cultural perception of the United States and its foreign conflicts.

The thesis contains a wealth of interesting information. However, its length makes it a bit of a chore to get through.

On one hand, its thoroughness is a positive aspect as it leaves no stone unturned in its analysis.

On the other hand, the laborious nature of reading through it can be a deterrent for some readers.

Perhaps a more concise and streamlined version could be created to make the information more accessible without sacrificing its depth and significance.

This would allow a wider audience to engage with and understand the important concepts presented in the thesis.

EDIT: I should note that I read the original version of the book, not the updated version, so I didn't see all the examples from the 2000's. However, I feel that the book was useful and relevant even in its original form.

In this book, Herman and Chomsky do an excellent job of quantitatively demonstrating the various biases that are present in the American news media. They show that mainstream news, despite its claims of transparency and a commitment to the truth, often exhibits the same types of biased fact reporting and narrative manipulation as can be seen in less respected echo chambers, especially in the area of geopolitics. The authors' description of the market forces that drive ideological consolidation is interesting, although I think it could have been more developed compared to the rest of the book. Nevertheless, the examples of clear and systematic bias that they present are extremely convincing.

The reporting techniques that the authors have identified, such as the selective amplification or neglect of developing stories, the use of biased sources, the use of emotionally charged framing words, and even the promotion of factually unsupported narratives, are still very evident to a critical observer today. The rise of social media has not changed this dynamic, as Chomsky has noted in a recent interview. This is because while social media can contribute to the repetition, amplification, and exaggeration of emotionally charged narrative lines, independent reporting rarely begins or reaches a large initial audience through these channels. I also think that recent sociological modeling provides additional support for the idea that large media organizations have a significant controlling effect on public opinion.

The examples chosen in this book are mostly geopolitical, for reasons that I will speculate on later. The authors do a good job of making a scientific case for bias by presenting numerical comparisons of various topics. For instance, they show how many articles and lines of reporting are dedicated to an event that can be used to criticize an enemy country, compared to when the same event occurs in a friendly country or in America itself. They also look at how often certain negative phrases are used to describe an event, compared to neutral or positive phrases. There are also qualitative comparisons of standards of proof, and multiple instances are shown of media narratives that gained momentum and were pushed for long periods of time with essentially no evidence.

One example given in the book, from the 1980's, concerns extrajudicial killings by police officers. In one case, a religious worker was killed by police in Poland (at that time a communist country), but the officers responsible were immediately put on trial, the trial was transparent, and there was no evidence suggesting any government connection beyond the officers themselves. In another case, in El Salvador (a US-supported state at the time), multiple religious workers were killed by police, very clearly at the request of the highest levels of the government, after months of escalating protests and clear death threats from government leaders. The government refused to investigate for a long time and only put together a mock judicial investigation under increasing domestic pressure. This investigation ended when the presiding judge pointed a finger at government officials, had an attempt made on his life, and fled the country. The book shows that in terms of coverage, the killing in Poland received a hundred times as many lines in the newspaper, and these articles were often front-page news. The articles about Poland were also extremely critical, often suggesting dishonesty and conspiracy on the part of the Polish government. In contrast, the cases in El Salvador were covered in positive terms, with reporters neglecting to report on protests, taking quotes only from government officials, praising the government for maintaining "law and order" against "violent extremists", and generally upholding the official investigation as proof of good governance in a democratic society.

Many more examples are provided in the book, but I think another topic that is still relevant today is the concept of "legitimizing" vs. "meaningless" elections. The book gives multiple examples of elections that took place in third-world countries during the Cold War. In terms of the transparency and fairness of the electoral process, the conditions varied widely, but in terms of positive vs. negative coverage, the reporting language was always divided depending on whether the country was friendly or an enemy of the United States. In elections that favored parties that the US didn't like, the elections were described as "fraudulent" and "non-democratic", and any possible problems were emphasized, regardless of the truth. In contrast, favorable countries had elections that were "fair" and "a move towards democracy". These latter descriptions were especially ironic in cases where the US had helped overthrow actual democratically elected governments and was supporting military dictators. It was also interesting to see several cases where leaders who were once called "dictators" and "murderers" would suddenly become "fairly elected" and "a force for stability" after their countries became allied with the US, or vice versa. Even in recent memory, there have been several occasions when a country has suddenly received a barrage of very positive or very negative press. I believe that this type of press behavior is not new and has been noted in the past by authors such as George Orwell in the line "We have always been at war with Eastasia".

This type of bias extends even to cases where the media is thought to be "critical" of US interests. A case study is made using the coverage of the Vietnam War. Herman and Chomsky point out, quite reasonably, that if an enemy country had done what the US did to Vietnam, no media outlets would have seen it as anything other than a war of aggression. The actions taken by the US would have undoubtedly prompted accusations of genocide if they had been perpetrated by another country such as the Soviet Union or China. Yet even in critical reporting, these terms were never used. Instead, criticism focused on the fact that the war was too "costly" for the US, and sympathetic stories focused on US soldiers, who were portrayed as the victims of these events. Even the My Lai massacre, the most well-known example of criticism of the Vietnam War, was only a single relatively minor incident among multiple larger massacres that went unreported. And even then, newspapers neglected to report on My Lai for over a year and a half after its details were first disclosed, despite the extensive efforts of one of the soldiers involved.

I think one reason why so many geopolitical issues are included in this book is that these are topics that are of interest to most of the American public. It is well known that conservatives accuse left-wing media of bias and dishonesty, and liberals accuse right-wing media of the same thing. Many people will talk about disreputable reporting from either Fox News or CNN, depending on their ideological stance. However, when it comes to foreign countries, the public becomes less critical, and even the most untrue stories can gain mainstream coverage due to a lack of domestic push-back. Here, the media is able to publish inflammatory, attention-grabbing articles without much difficulty. In fact, in several instances, I have noticed that major media outlets such as the New York Times have purposefully mistranslated foreign documents and videos. Regardless of what you think about the media, it is rare to see this level of bias when it comes to domestic issues.

Furthermore, as I mentioned earlier, I don't think the authors spent enough time discussing which groups receive preferential ideological treatment in the media. They make a good case that reporting is biased by market forces towards certain groups, particularly those with more money to spend on media consumption or advertising. However, they don't explore this in much depth, and from the examples they show, one might get the impression that the media is always biased towards the government, which I think is clearly not the case. Instead, I think there are significant ideological divisions even among the wealthy in America, and the situation is more that any large coalition, whether inside or outside the government, is able to support its own media consumption patterns (although market forces will still push towards consolidation with a minimum number of different viewpoints). Sensational stories get the most views, but when it comes to internal reporting, such stories often only appeal to half the population. In contrast, the media can appeal to a larger base by writing sensationalized stories about foreign powers. This is where I think the pro-US bias found in the book's examples comes from, not from any particular powerful group deliberately pushing its agenda.

In any case, I think the important thing to note here is the need to read primary sources. At this point, I consider essentially all political issues, especially geopolitical issues, to be full of misinformation. If a particular viewpoint becomes loud enough on social media, I sometimes look into it, and the reasons given for believing stance X or Y almost never hold up under scrutiny. I believe that reporters fall into echo chambers for the same reasons that the general public does, and the factors cited by Herman and Chomsky, namely the consolidation of media companies, the need to appeal to a broad base of readers, the need to not alienate advertisers, and the need to maintain connections with official sources, push newspapers to promote certain types of reporting. However, I believe that the fifth "filter of editorial bias" that the authors mention, anti-communism (the war on terror in recent updates), is not a force on its own, but rather a general bias against enemy countries that results from the other forces due to the reasons I have given above.

Naoum Chomsky looks at the hypocritical American policies represented by several slogans such as "the war on terror" and "control of the media" and how the simplest concepts are manipulated. But it's okay with a popular mind controlled by an elite that deliberately hides awareness. "Let's leave them to watch TV and make the value of life boil down to having quality purchases." When you control the media and the educational institution reflects the views of the elite, you can pass your means. It's not a method invented by the United States. In the 1930s, Hitler was afraid of the Jews and used incendiary words like "you must crush them to defend yourself." Nearly half a century after World War II, the United States used phrases like "the Russians are coming to invade the world and spread terror." In the frenzy of the media and the press, it became impossible for those who are morally weakened in the East and West to provide a definition of "what does Clinton mean by the war on terror? What is the concept of terror? What is the response to terror? And whatever the answer to the last question. Will the response be in accordance with the moral standards of Muslims? Why does the United States side with Israel in the Arab-Israeli conflict? Why does America breed terror and use the pretext of the war on terror to escalate terrorist operations in the Middle East? The misled segment is a problem for businessmen and the elite. They are entrusted with their affairs to the media, which keeps them watching violent films and gambling competitions. And in the meantime, the elite must call on them to repeat phrases like "support our troops" out of fear of internal and external demons. Because overcoming fear leads to thinking, and the public must be pushed to blindly express and obey. In the end, glory to the free. Glory to the exiles. Glory to the enemies of confusion. Glory to all those who approach God by denouncing injustice and calling for respect for human rights regardless of gender, color, or religion.

Wow, what a truly abysmal book!

It presents a baseless conspiracy theory, alleging that the "mainstream media" conspires to control people's lives. The authors attempt to support this wild claim with case studies, yet case studies are the weakest form of evidence for such a theory. They focus on specific instances rather than providing a comprehensive framework to explain the supposed conspiracy.

The authors seem to have done minimal, if any, relevant research. They ignore political science research, game theory, and the Prisoner's Dilemma, which undermines their entire thesis. The book offers few, if any, valid arguments to support its claims. The supposed reason for the conspiracy is buried in a paragraph around page 200 and is never mentioned again, lacking any supporting facts or research.

The book appears to be designed to inflame the reader's emotions. There are chapters filled with analysis of what is newsworthy, but these do little to support the thesis and may be there to distract from the lack of substance. The authors, who are not journalists, offer a one-sided critique of the media, complaining about its failure to report certain items without defining "newsworthy." They critique journalists from a comfortable, after-the-fact position, assuming that journalism is easy and ignoring the fact that journalists may not have access to the same information they do.

The book actually highlights an alternative explanation for the behavior it complains about that does not require a conspiracy. Journalists, like anyone, may simply do what is easy. They cannot investigate every story, and even if a story becomes important in the future, there is no way to know that at the time. Another possible explanation is racism, as many of the examples in the book involve media outlets not reporting on stories related to people of color. The authors do not consider these simpler explanations and instead focus on the supposed evil of the media.

This type of argument, which is emotional, hides its flaws, and complains without a basis, is characteristic of propaganda. Ironically, the book reads like a propaganda outlet such as Fox News. The authors come across as racist towards the US government and the media, using circular logic, rage, and hatred to try to prove their point. Additionally, a simple question completely dismantles the thesis: if the media is so evil and won't allow the truth to get out, how was this book published? The authors provide no valid explanation for this.

The chapters are long rants against some of the more egregious special cases in modern American history, ending with empty statements that give the appearance of having said something when nothing of substance has been added. Chomsky should stick to linguistics, as he clearly has no talent for politics.

I abandoned this book at 30% but I firmly believe that the message it conveys has already gotten through.

The media, unfortunately, often functions as a propaganda machine. It is of utmost importance to critically examine who is being portrayed as a worthy victim, whose interests are at stake, and who stands to benefit from the overall narrative.

This book has been an incredibly insightful and timely read during my time involved in organizing around healthcare reform. As journalists attempt to cover multiple sides of the same story, it becomes evident that there are hidden agendas and biases at play.

By being aware of these factors, we can better understand the true nature of the information being presented to us and make more informed decisions.

It is essential to question the media's portrayal of events and not simply accept everything at face value. Only by doing so can we hope to see the full picture and work towards a more just and equitable society.