Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda (Open Media Pamphlet) [Paperback]

Noam Chomsky (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1888363495 | ISBN-13: 978-1888363494 | Publication Date: April 1997 | Edition: 1st

Beginning with the Creel Commission, the Woodrow Wilson-appointed committee that turned isolationist America into a war-hungry machine, master political analyst Noam Chomsky traces the history of American propaganda. Part of the Open Media Pamphlet Series.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"Propaganda," says Noam Chomsky, "is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state"--in other words, the means by which leaders keep the masses in line. In this slim pamphlet, he looks at American propaganda efforts, from the warmongering of Woodrow Wilson to the creation of popular support for the 1991 military intervention in Kuwait, and reveals how falsification of history, suppression of information, and the promotion of vapid, empty concepts have become standard operating procedure for the leaders of the United States--both Democrats and Republicans--in their efforts to prevent citizens from raising awkward questions about U.S. policy.

Product Details

• Paperback: 64 pages
• Publisher: Seven Stories Press; 1st edition (April 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1888363495
• ISBN-13: 978-1888363494
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 3.8 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,767,239 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

110 of 133 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Validation at last!, November 15, 2002

By 

Christopher B. Valenti (Richmond, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda (Open Media Pamphlet) (Paperback)

A co-worker, who used to listen to me rant, recommended that I read Chomsky. I ignored the advice for several years thinking no one could understand or even know what it was that I was so positively enraged about in our so called 'free' country. I went on hunting for validation that never came. Until finally, I picked up this little gem! Ah! The fact that I felt isolated in my 'subversive' views is even a part of Chomsky's little essay. This little book is pure concentrate.
Chomsky's focus is on the foreign policies of the US, but one can easily extend his thesis to simple domestic uses of propaganda. In other words, the ways in which a person will champion certain rhetoric to gain support which in so doing gains power from people who willingly give up freedoms.
Remember three things:
1. All art is propaganda
2. Propaganda is to the free society what the iron fist is to the totalitarian society.
3. A free society is not necessarily defined by what one is free to do, rather what one is free NOT to do.
I have been a Chomsky-ite for years, but never knew it. This is an outstanding starting point to his other works.

58 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great analysis of corporate/government propaganda, January 21, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda (Open Media Pamphlet) (Paperback)

Chomsky does a masterful job of analyzing the development of propaganda as used by corporations,the government and the media. The book is concise, extremely interesting and well thought out. If you have never read Chomsky, be prepared to read into the mind of a genius. Great stuff. He charts the history of propaganda and makes sense of government and corporate actions that on the surface don't make sense. A must read.

34 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Primer, October 2, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda (Open Media Pamphlet) (Paperback)

An excellent little primer on propaganda in America, its origins, rationale, and uses. Readers may be surprised to learn that propaganda techniques have their origin in America's public relations industry. Specifically, in the need of modern democratic governments to shape perceptions and direct popular hostility. Lacking cruder coercive measures of totalitarian states, elected governments depend on managing information and creating popular conceptions to achieve their aims. These can then be exploited to carry out policies which may benefit only a few to the detriment of the many (attacks on Vietnam, Central America, et. al.). America's intellectual elites, as Chomsky makes clear, have historically supported such techniques, believing the common herd too ignorant to rule themselves. The task is best left to those elites, who, as Chomsky also makes clear, go on to serve the interests of the country's highest elite, the business and corporate sector where real power lies. Thus in the past 75 years, propaganda has become a standard tool of governance in the US, subverting the dictionary definition of what democracy is supposed to be. Many Americans feel the truth of this in their bones, so to speak, but have trouble admitting it. Patriotism's first allegiance, however, should be to truth, comfortable or not. And in that very necessary sense, Chomsky's is a solidly patriotic book indeed, pleasant reading or not.