Manufacturing Consent

One of the visual techniques that I noticed to be very interesting within the movie was when they showed a “doctor” taking apart an article that was written in the London Times about Timor. They started by having a full article being shown on the screen, and then took scissors to cut up certain paragraphs in the article. They visually showed a “doctor” taking the cut paragraphs and discarding them into a “not fit to print” bucket. The pile kept getting bigger and bigger while the article was being “white washed” down. The doctors proceeded to “sew” the article back together for it to run in the New York Times and Newsweek, but now with a completely new cast. The way they were able to visually show a doctor cutting up the article and re-sewing it together with different paragraphs allowed me to realize how much the newspapers change stories to produce a different type of news. To visually see the large pile of “not fit to print” words that are taken out of the story produces a much more meaningful reaction than just hearing they somewhat alter the stories. This visual technique helped contribute to the understanding of Chomsky’s “Propaganda Model” by demonstrating that the newspapers can take out a lot of what is truthful information and replace it with what they think is better for there ratings.

I also thought another visual technique that they used in Manufacturing Consent is how throughout the movie they played parts of it off mega screens in malls or on busy streets. This contributed to me understanding Chomsky’s “Propaganda Model” by demonstrating that our society is surrounded by media everywhere we go, and that it is hard to find alternative media in a world where we are all presented much of the same media.