"Whether they’re called “liberal” or “conservative,” the major media are large corporations, owned by and interlinked with even larger conglomerates. Like other corporations, they sell a product to a market. The market is advertisers—that is, other businesses. The product is audiences. For the elite media that set the basic agenda to which others adapt, the product is, furthermore, relatively privileged audiences.
So we have major corporations selling fairly wealthy and privileged audiences to other businesses. Not surprisingly, the picture of the world presented reflects the narrow and biased interests and values of the sellers, the buyers and the product"

How the World Works - Noam Chomsky (via noam-chomsky)

"The public relations industry, which essentially runs the elections, is applying certain principles to undermine democracy which are the same as the principles that applies to undermine markets. The last thing that business wants is markets in the sense of economic theory. Take a course in economics, they tell you a market is based on informed consumers making rational choices. Anyone who’s ever looked at a TV ad knows that’s not true. In fact if we had a market system an ad say for General Motors would be a brief statement of the characteristics of the products for next year. That’s not what you see. You see some movie actress or a football hero or somebody driving a car up a mountain or something like that. And that’s true of all advertising. The goal is to undermine markets by creating uninformed consumers who will make irrational choices and the business world spends huge efforts on that."

Noam Chomsky (via noam-chomsky)

(Source: chomsky-must-read.blogspot.com, via noam-chomsky)

"From a comparative perspective, the United States is unusual if not unique in its lack of restraints on freedom of expression. It is also unusual in the range and effectiveness of the methods employed to restrain freedom of thought. The two phenomena are related. Liberal democratic theorists have long observed that in a society where the voice of the people is heard, elite groups must ensure that that voice says the right things. The less the state is able to employ violence in defense of the interests of elite groups that effectively dominate it, the
more it becomes necessary to devise techniques of “manufacture of consent,” in the words of Walter Lippmann over 60 years ago, or “engineering of consent,” the phrase preferred by Edward Bernays, one of the founding fathers of the American Public Relations industry."

Noam Chomsky (via noam-chomsky)

"Anyone who has had any dealings with children knows that they’re curious and creative. They want to explore things and figure out what’s happening. A good bit of schooling is an effort to drive this out of them and to fit them into a mold, make them behave, stop thinking, not cause any trouble. It goes right from kindergarten up … People are supposed to be obedient producers, do what they’re told, and the rest of your life is supposed to be passive consuming. Don’t think about things. Don’t know about things … Just do what you’re told, pay attention to something else and maximize your consumption. That’s the role of the public."

Propaganda and the Public Mind - Noam Chomsky (via noam-chomsky)

(Source: thirdworldtraveler.com, via noam-chomsky)

"

The real mass media are basically trying to divert people. Let them do something else, but don’t bother us (us being the people who run the show).

Let them get interested in professional sports, for example. Let everybody be crazed about professional sports or sex scandals or the personalities and their problems or something like that. Anything, as long as it isn’t serious.

Of course, the serious stuff is for the big guys. “We” take care of that.

"

What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream - Noam Chomsky (via noam-chomsky)