Dissent on Manufacturing Consent

Abstract

Particularly because Robert Entman's review of my (and Noam Chomsky's) book, Manufacturing Consent uournal of Communication, Winter 1990), stresses the books allegedly dubious claims, lack of nuances, and emotionalism, the strong language, strained reasoning, and minimal evidence provided in Entman's own review are striking. For example, he states that we damage our case by alleging that media coverage of the 1973 Paris Accord on Vietnam "was consciously 'designed by the loyal media to serve the needs of state power'. . , [which] comes close to endorsing a conspiracy theory, which the authors explicitly disavow early on." The word "consciously" is Entman's, and he neglects numerous statements on the media's treatment of the Paris Accords that don't fit his effort to bring us "close to" a conspiracy theory (typical: "the media accepted the Kissinger-White House version unquestioningly"). To say that we "disavow" a conspiracy theory is also misleading: We went to great pains to show that our view is closer to a free market model, with independent entities operating on the basis of common outlooks, incentives, and pressures from market and organizational forces.Entman says, "If memory serves, not even leaders of the antiwar movement called U.S. policy in Vietnam an invasion, even if they labeled it immoral and criminal." Entman can't be bothered to investigate the point; he relies on his powers of recall. In fact, Chomsky has used the word "invasion" in his writing from 1966 onward, and in a book published in January 1966 (America's Vietnam Policy) I had an appendix entitled "Aggression by Whom?" More important, Entman's point is not sensible. He implies that if even the antiwar movement didn't call the U.S. assault an invasion, then how could we expect the mainstream media to do so? It doesn't occur to him that if the establishment view is so powerful that it defines the discourse boundaries even for dissidents, this shows an overwhelmingly powerful propaganda system.In fact, Entman actually admits the validity of the propaganda model, stating that, "as the Herman-Chomsky propaganda model itself suggests, media discourse will reflect quite precisely [sic: we never go this far] the boundaries and contours of elites' public discourse." He then argues that "rage" "is more properly focused on U.S. elites than on journalists." Our critique, however, is not focused on journalists but on a system of propaganda generation. We believe that it is important to show that there are elite-defined boundaries and to describe in detail the forces that tend to keep the media within these bounds. We also believe it is important to show that these pressures and constraints cause the media to participate in propaganda campaigns that involve systematic misrepresentations of reality and other forms of serious bias.Entman's view that we must hold the "elites" responsible for any such biases and propaganda constitutes a denial of the legitimacy of any media criticism and provides a generalized form of apologetics for the media. If the me...

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