Blog 2 – Manufacturing Consent

In the film “Manufacturing Consent” there were many visual techniques which illuminated the ideas that were said in the film. One of my favorite visual techniques was when the twenty three organizations that own fifty percent of the total media was being shown on the screen just like the credits you see at the end of a movie. It was shown during the topic of ownership and completely got me to understand Chomsky’s “Propanganda Model”. They showed that there are thousands of different companies that represent the forms of media like newspapers, radio stations and television but when we seen these companies names on the screen is made me feel overwhelmed and made me think that these companies are controlling me. For example, when I see the credits in the end of the movie I like, I usually remember their names and often see many more of their movies in the future but in this sense I am surprised but also scared to see that all the movies or TV shows I like are owned by these corporations that own everything else. It makes me feel like I just some source of profits and makes me not want to become just another person that is controlled by these companies.

My other favorite visual technique was when they showed Chomsky on the big screen of this football stadium and he talked about how sports are used to distract people from the real world. I love sports but this actually makes a lot of sense to me to. There are more important things going on in our lives than watching football and see these two hundred and fifty pound men hit each other and catch a ball. There are people in this world that are starving and dying of diseases that are easily cured, that should be way more important that a person catching a ball and beating another team. In the film, Chomsky alluded to the idea that there is no western concern of death, abuse, etc unless profit could be made. It reminds me of the whole section of the newspaper that is all about sports and the scores of different teams, how does that trump what was happening in Indonesia which the genocide? It makes me understand what he is saying more because there is just way to much evidence to just let this go. This goes with another visual from the movie when the surgeons were taking out parts of an article and published it. It reminds me of a person undergoing plastic surgery, the only reason they are doing it is to make themselves feel better and to feel “perfect.” It is what I feel the newspaper companies are doing to the articles to make themselves feel good or at least the readers. It is not right because it sets out these news that are biased but people will never know. It makes me question which news stations are telling me accurate stories.