Manufacturing consent

Manufacturing Consent’s most worthwhile visual technique was the use of the televisions in the mall. The film opens in a mall—the dwellings of the average American consumer and victims of said “propaganda model.” Broadcasted on a grid of several televisions is a giant Noam Chomsky. Shoppers look up, mere ants relative to the linguist.

It is these shots that I find visually exciting, spliced between other shots to make interviews more interesting, in addition to capping the beginning and the end. They are very well spaced as well, always coming at a time in the movie when the viewer could use some perspective. It is a way to separate oneself from the information coming at them, often representative of “media” itself. When we zoom out to view both the media and the audience, then we can better analyze than when we ourselves are not filtering.

I took this technique to be representative of Chomsky’s “propaganda model” in several ways:

1. Chomsky presents his views as truth, much the way other media outlets present their views. By projecting him on a screen, we are faced with the fact that there are no exceptions, we must be critical of all the information we’re faced with.

2. These scenes felt very reminiscent of the Wizard of Oz in both their appearance and meaning. Everyone is just a little man with a microphone, pretending that they know what they’re talking about.

3. Chomsky describes the media as salesmen and the consumers as the product. There is no better encapsulation of this metaphor than an American mall, which is all about buying, selling and consuming.