Noam Chomsky belongs to an era of journalistic scholars who have been the witness to much of the changes in the world order that was conceived by the USA ever since the inception of Federal Reserve and the Capitalistic control of the US economy, which has in turn resulted in the Political and Public control of the whole of the American system by a few concentrated hands. They over a period of time, with shrewd planning and vision, have become the power centres of the world’s most powerful nation.
In his book, Media Control : The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda, Chomsky describes the power that Media can have, and its pioneering application by the US administrators since the regime of Woodrow Wilson, till date, wherein they have systematically used Manipulative propaganda to achieve their ends.
In the world, where these days the way of life emphasizes only the goals or the ends, and the means are no longer relevant or anything to be bothered about as long as you meet your deadlines and accomplish your objectives, he shows how the Government of the United States has influenced the psyche of the public by various methods of propaganda.
His austere style, critical and incisive, yet lacking luster clearly seems to be born out of emphasis on the content rather than the style. One never gets a sense of reading a most accomplished writer in his work, but the bounty lies in the content.
Amongst many of the examples which can be considered, he talks of the Federal US Government as being the most lethal organization which has used many styles and trends of propaganda to its advantage in the past century. The example of Nicaragua and Vietnam as depicted by Chomsky serve as most effective references of how US has manipulated the truth to achieve their strategic gains.
The case-studies as provided in the book like the Creel Commission, suggest the authenticity of the name of the age that we live in, Information Age; but the irony here lies in the fact that, the Information is the weapon, and one who holds and controls it seems to be at the top of the Darwin Pyramid, and thus seems to be have succeeded in systematically rising to the most powerful and thereby most monstrous level of evolution.
We see the news like Osama’s planned assassination in the covert operation carried out by Special Forces, we see the speech given by Obama and rejoice with the whole CNN or ABC driven world. But it is quintessential for the media students to understand the finer aspects hidden away in the multitudes propagated through the media, and to achieve that analytical ability, reading Chomsky is but the first and a very vital step, as reading his book on how Media controls the dynamics of public psyche enables any student of journalism or history to get the idea of a perspective wherein, the fourth pillar of democracy might actually be being used as the first weapon of its class to subdue the public and make them the ‘unthinking herd’.
This case-study of the control of public through the control of media definitely gives food-for-thought for all those who grew up believing whatever they heard on CNN or ABC.
And for a media analyzer, this is a compulsory source to figure into the bibliography of their thesis. No media theorist or critique of the US foreign policy can fail to miss the weight this book bears in the world of US politics and the world driven and guided by the US media.
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