Blog 2: Manufacturing Consent

In the film Manufacturing Consent, two of the visual techniques that stood out to me were the use of propaganda and small snippets of history. Noam Chomsky talks about how media can persuade the public's belief on society. When editors include propaganda in this film, it presents to the viewers supportive evidence on Chomsky's perspective.Most of the snippets that were used was either what happened when Chomsky grew up or history that connected and supported his theories. For example, when they showed how he came up with name "Manufacturing Consent" from a book called Public Opinion by Walter Lippmann which talked about the "revolution in practice of democracy" was a "technique of control". Noam Chomsky criticizes the media of editing certain aspects from the people in order to persuade the public on the editor's views. Like how he refers back to the New York Times on how they have an archive of clippings and how they shape clippings on "what should appear and what should not appear and how issues were to be framed in a particular fashion". I also like how they used the interview of Karl E. Meyer on how he says that "legislature is like how you make sausage. The less you know about it, the bigger the appetite." I think since this film has many clips that support Chomsky's thesis, it makes it seem like his ideals are correct.