Dr. Hamid R. Nemati

Information Systems and Supply Chain Management
Bryan School of Business and Economics
Professor, 2019

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media
by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky

A truly democratic government cannot exist without the consent of the governed. However, as Thomas Jefferson prophesied in 1821, "... people may acquiesce, they cannot approve what they do not understand." Without a sufficiently informed citizenry that can exercise oversight, a government of the people will cease to be for the people. We live in the age of social media and extreme connectivity, where advances in information and communication technologies and their pervasiveness in our daily lives bring us closer by making free flow of information effortless. Paradoxically, the same technologies that bring us closer, have the potential to erode our democratic values as never before. In Manufacturing Consent, Herman and Chomsky uncover a propaganda model that explains how democratic values can be subverted by manufacturing consent among the governed creating a "bewildered herd" that readily acquiesces to policies that benefit the few at the expense of the many. Understanding and combating the ways in which consent is manufactured for subverting democratic values are discussed masterfully in Manufacturing Consent by Herman and Chomsky.

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