Noam Chomsky: Media and Mass Manipulation 

Lecture series: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-A9hRJ88BqmM.html&ab_channel=CarefreeWandering

I used to think chomsky was a mathematician, because i studied some of his theorems in my computer science course

Babe wake up, professor hans just uploaded.

Of course like most I love noam Chomsky After watching a Canadian documentary regarding media - I emailed him - while working at a university in Switzerland - he emailed mr back !!!! He replied within 1 hour- and naturally schooled me / This event has led to lifelong respect and support- for most part agreement

Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media. -Noam Chomsky

The 1996 consolidation of media led to death of local newspapers and narrowed the public discourse dramatically. It included television, radio, newspapers, magazines and monthly publication. It concentrated the advertising dollar into the hands of a few giant corporations who shape the national narrative to their interest and not the public's.

A quick comment on media diversity in the US: you mentioned that the US at least has corporate media for each party, so it is "more diverse" in that sense compared to Germany. However, since these two parties only disagree on a very small subset of issues (relative to all possible political issues), it certainly FEELS like there isn't any functional mainstream media diversity.

I've gone from a teenage watching Chomsky on RU-vid to a 20s yr old watching a video about Chomsky on RU-vid

I'm really enjoying this series. Thank you for taking the time to produce and upload them!

This is one of the best corners of the Internet. Thank you!

I am really looking forward to the next lecture, i hope it's at least 3 hours

Jordan Peterson is nowhere near Noam Chomsky.

So many familiar Chomsky quotes. Takes me back to my early 20s.

Love the channel. I don't think you've understood the meaning of 'the propaganda model' though. “The media companies primarily serve the interests of the advertisers, not the consumers”. This is a very mild version of what Chomsky is saying. 'The propaganda model' says that the function of the mass media is to serve passive, obedient audiences to corporations for exploitation, just as media in totalitarian regimes do for their governments. The reason Chomsky calls it 'the propaganda model' is due to the function, not the form of mass media. It is the corporations in the propaganda model that are the consumers. As for us - and I can't find who coined this phrase but - 'if it's free, you're the product'. This is an especially egregious error on your part given the Warning you end your videos with. I also think you're less coherent on 'sources' than you could be. You focus on 'facts' verses 'opinion' which seems to be a non-sequitur. Looking forward to your video on Niklas Luhmann, whom I know nothing about. Will he be the same happy-go-lucky barrel of laughs that Chomsky is? Only time will tell.

A number of well adduced points on clashing schools of social thought and N Chomsky's contribution to dissect some of those long standing axioms of social sciences.

I'm loving this series of media thinkers. Thank you so much. Any plans to cover Northrop Frye, a Canadian media theorist? I find very little discussion of his ideas online. From what I've read, it seems to take a bit of a Joseph Campbell approach for archetypes and a bit of Alan Bloom for literature, but I would greatly appreciate someone smarter than me doing some analysis.

It's strange to say 'propaganda' is terminologically imprecise when it's also being done by departments that used to have it in their name. Calling it 'manipulation' would be imprecise because it'd be omitting the means.

Chomsky obviously has had a huge impact on media discourse and linguistics. Media discourse is more and more important as social media becomes an integral part of society. Thanks for the video!

love this video, you explain chomsky accurately and easy to follow. thank you!

you somehow held my attention o a topic I'm well versed in, for 7 min, enough time for me to catch myself and write this comment

Chomsky does not consider the role of the media as analogous in totalitarian societies, where the threat of force has not been forsaken, and democratic societies, where thought control is crucial, since the threat of force is more remote. He has made this clear in may times and places.

BTW, it is apparent by a recent interview given in Hungary, that Noam Chomsky has caved to the neoliberal establishment. As someone who used to have a left-of-center orientation, I've seen everyone now who inspired me abdicate the left libertarian orientation.

Thank you for the amazing content. Please make an episode about Marcuse, really curious what are your thoughts about him and his work.

I love your work!

The Chomsky Foucault debate had me just grabbing my head about how Chomsky doesn’t recognise that he holds a perception of a political goal which he considers good. I was as stumped as Foucault. While the debate between the two was more focused, the two philosophers didn’t even reach common conceptual grounds to show disagreement in. Its not very different from the Peterson-Zizek debate in that way.

The documentary on Manufactured Consent that our host mentioned was produced by CBC - the Canadian Broadcast Corporation a.k.a. the Canadian BBC.

I think a quote from Edward Bernays will help you understand Chomsky's use of the term "propaganda". "The first use of public relations was to change the name of propaganda to public relations, after the Germans gave propaganda a bad name" Prior to ww2, "propaganda" was synonymous with marketing, PR and media in the west as well. So Chomsky uses the term to refer to more "honest times" when they just called what it is they do now in media, openly, propaganda. That is why the term "propaganda model" is correct. Also, the main distinction Chomsky makes between dictatorships, versus the west, is dictatorships don't really need good propaganda, because they can just force people to do what they want. In the west, you can't force people, you instead, have to control their thinking. So the only distinction Chomsky makes between the propaganda of dictatorships and the west, is western propaganda is far more sophisticated and well developed, as it necessarily has to be, them being unable to rely on the stick.

That warning at the end 🤌🏽

This is really good. Big Noam, almost everyone recognises him as a titan but he has also largely been ignored in the mainstream.

The target of the PR is the collective mind which is unconscious due to a lack of individual self awareness/ psychological development. Particularly an awareness of emotional affect and it's role in our perception and in how we identify with each other and as groups. This is where fear based propaganda functions and that's why it works. It's essentially the realm of CG Jung's collective archetypes.

great presentation, and important too.

Chomsky's is perfect when descriptive. When normative, he is a bundle of hope. Hope is the unfounded expectation of an unlikely outcome. What he describes is simply how a modern democracy ends. Wonderful rendition. Thanks!

great video mr georg can you talk about philanthropy and charities ( do people actually care or is it merely for the profile ) knowing that mostly celebrities and influencers get involved in these acts and you can take the sideman charity match or mrbeast as a subject because they are relevant and trending these days

You should do one on John Zerzan. His critique of media is totalizing.

Anticipating the last episode :)

Regarding China, you miss the massive fact that CHINA'S VIEW OF THE WEST has changed enormously in the last decade. As someone who has lived extensively in China, when I arrived in 2004 the CCP promoted goodwill and curiosity towards foreigners living in China. For the last decade they have encouraged their citizens to view us with at best suspicion, at worst contempt. I think Chomsky's model doesn't sufficiently account for this, somehow locating the locus of US outlook purely within American elites.

Great content...thank you!

Fantastic video!

Chomsky has been a major inspiration for my own thinking. Your critique at the end is very interesting, but I think you should follow up on that. I'm already familiar with his work (which you did a great job at summarizing), but I have never really heard a substantial criticism of him that didn't come out of circles you'd dismiss out of hand.

imagine haveing the choice between manipulating, or being manipulated

Love the burnout Warning at the end. Thank you!

Thank you for introducing me to Chomsky! I have binged much of his work and aside from his last 5 years, he has made sense of so much that is wrong with the world today.

Don't know much on Chompsky, interested in that film. Propoganda is a very interesting topic.

I think that Chomsky's Linguistics background, particularly his research and breakthroughs on the biological bases of language, is a potential explanation for his humanist tendencies.

Very hyped for the ultimate Luhmann episode

Great video, well done to the maker.

Love the Indiana Jones themed thumb 🎥

This was very good! Thank you! Two points: I would be careful do discern between "woke" as in being able to see systemic inequity, and "wokism," the appropriation of that liberatory exercise. Second: your attempt to differentiate between "government propaganda" and some other kind implies they are different. For anarchists, they are the same. Chomsky calls corporations "private tyrannies," and his only positive acknowledgement of even partiallly accoutable goverents is that they restrain private tyrannies like Corporations. That it is private interests brainwashing us with the support of the US/western system doesn't make it any different or any better.

Also, I appreciate the characterisation of Chomsky as an American (to wit, estadosunidense) thinker, and 'not a European' (or, one might add, universal one). In my own studies, I have made the same distinction for critics of the U.S., like John Mearsheimer who has become a consistent reference point for non-US critics of US international politics. While I have great respect for Mearsheimer, align with him on many broader points, theoretical and practical, and am in fact myself a realist when in comes to politics and international relations, I frequently have to remind not only my students, but also myself, that Mearsheimer's concern is US primacy and US supremacy, and his critique touches more on the methodology and choices, rather than the principle. So it is with Chomsky who is making more and more sense to me the more I look at the world (and through a realist perspective), but who, ultimately, begins and ends with the US reality.

Chomsky is American with his heart and mind. His doesn't come to the conclusion democracy and capitalism are two sides of the same coin. While the Chinese government is defining it 's legitimacy by economic success, the democracy doesn't need success. The citizen is patriot and is looking at the state as a service provider and thus is lamenting about the state all the time, because the state has it's own goals and purposes. Chomsky is one of those citizens, which is the reason he is talking about a criminal Russia (Global Policy, 4/22/2022) while demanding a policy of saving lives. He is woke, because he is disregarding the goals and purposes of government, as when they acting as a contractor for the people while at the same time governments using people in the meat grinder of the war as means to gain a success. The success of the democracy is the unconditional patriotism of the citizen, powered by allowances such as freedom of saying an opinion or human rights. The contradictions of such a mindset doesn't bother him. He is the liberal who is stating many opinions like in a pub but in public. When he then talks about media as manipulated, he is insisting everything is alright, only bad people are in power. This is the talk of conspiracy theorists. Society is based on property which needs the power of a government to avoid expropriation by the poor. Property is the foundation of for influence on media, by owning media or by being a paying advertiser. Capitalism is promising of having the chance of having influence, but it is not the same as having the foundation for a debate. Those who haven't property don't get much influence. It is just according to the majority of patriotic citizen. Some remarks on BS terms like equality and unjust. The measure for such terms can be chosen arbitrary. Equality in it's worst form can mean the right to starve to death like others. When liberals are talking about just and equality it means mostly a politically compatible minimum of existence. The age of enlightenment was at least talking about the educated personality making a contribution for society. This is the past and is dead for ever. The demand for equality is an idea of an eternal capitalism,making people to individuals being compatible with the next job interview. This is what N. Luhmann not wanted too see, because his research had to be compatible.

Noam Chomsky went to the dentist, and the dentist asks him if he has a gnashing problem. Noam is confused but clearly says no. So the doctor asked Noam's wife to keep an eye on him for the health of his teeth. After a few weeks of "Noam watch", the couple returns to the dentist and reports that Noam does not have a gnashing problem. Except for about twenty minutes each morning as he browses the NY Times.

Just thinking and writing at same time so, not in english.. siempre me impactó mucho el optimismo humanista de los estadounidenses… irónicamente (o capaz no) cuanto más aprendo sobre su visión menos humanista me vuelvo… cuando si pienso en cómo veía las cosas antes de conocer las visiones de estos pensadores (y en muchos casos grandes referentes e influenciadores de opinión y agentes sociales), solía pensar más como ellos o ellas. Cuando lo escucho desde afuera me resulta completamente incompatible con la realidad. Sobre todo cuanto más atrás en el tiempo vamos parecieran tener una proyección a futuro (probablemente expresión de deseo) muy diferente de lo que terminó sucediendo… por lo que me pregunto, la filosofía o la sociología tiene que predecir? Yo creo que no

Michael Parenti could be another great subject for Media Thinkers (Inventing Reality)

Thank you for an intelligent analysis pf Chomsky's ideology and the American system for information controlled by capitalism and the government.

This video is very concise, intelligent, and unbiased. Thank you. I have subscribed. I have shared this and will be sharing your other videos.

Well done !

His lectures and ideas about what language actually is ...

I like how you used the Indiana Jones font for preview pic.

Such a great video. I've watched the documentary 'Manufactering Consent'. It's well worth watching.

I refuse to feel guilty for indulging in entertainment. It's perfectly reasonable and healthy to enjoy things that can allow you to relax everything, even your mind. Much like everything else, there's balance. It's not good to have all of one or all of the other. At least we can all agree that modern life is wrong and sad.

Al Jazerra has made a nice video summary of Manufacturing consent.

Would be very interesting to hear an analysis by you of American Gods

Came to hear Chomsky talk about media manipulation &…? Feeling the bait & switch.

My question is, how can you be an anarchist and a leftist at the same time? Those are two opposite points of the political spectrum

When our goverment is agaisnt the interest of the environment we live in and the people...what can be done?

Chomsky is for anarchy. Not chaos. Not lawlessness Of crime. He is for morality.

Chomsky has long been at pains to point out, especially regarding language, that human biology defines the limits and scope of human behaviour (and therefore why should language be any different?). This results in ‘universals’, i.e., stuff which all humans have or do in common. An example would be how languages divide up the colour spectrum. Cross-linguistic studies (eg. Berlin and Kay), show that this follows a strict pattern, not explicable via contact between human groups, but rather by shared biology. Yes - we certainly construct the universe we inhabit, but how we do this is limited by our biological structure and how this interacts with the biology of the universe we inhabit. Our on-board visual apparatus limits our perception of the electro-magnetic frequencies of light, and our languages reflect this. This applies equally to social organisation. For example, there are a limited, quite small, number of human kinship systems. Once again this is not explicable by contact between groups, but rather by biological constraints such as the duration of human pregnancy and childhood, incest avoidance, etc. I don’t agree with everything Chomsky claims (for example, I think much ‘common sense’ is culturally defined and that one person’s ‘common sense’ can be, and frequently is, another person’s ‘utter madness’), but I agree that we can’t understand social systems, such as the media, politics, the law, etc, without understanding how they are limited, and how their scope is defined, by human biology. BTW, I note that you point out how this ‘universalist’ approach is something shared by both his linguistic analysis and his analysis of geo-politics and the media. Strange that he himself claims not to recognise this. Thank you for your channel. Great stuff! I’ve been a subscriber for 18 months or so now.

Surpluses are limited. Buy what’s Left while supplies last. Now!

I read Manufacturing Consent and wrote an article on McCarthyism years ago as i gradually realised 99% of the news put out to the public are not to provide needed information. In Vietnam we say "then you read news on newspapers to gain knowledge, now you gain knowledge first in order to read news on newspapers"

Did he get to visit the island?

I agree with Chomsky.

What is the practical difference between manipulation and propaganda? I think you are saying the same thing but differently.

That ending was a bit too abrupt

Some time left in this era .What will you find after the war .only the distruction of the war .?

I still adore FOUCAULT

A perceptive & succinct résumé. And Barbie Dolls are for Dick Braynes. 🤔 (Green Fire, UK) 🌈🦉

Yesss!

Too bad Chomsky never learned the most important lesson of Walter Lippmann: that of "cognitive humility". The insight that we cannot help but see the world through stereotypes / pseudo-environment / "pictures in our heads". Chomsky always acts like he has elevated himself to the status of a dispassionate judge of facts themselves, inevitably reaching the only true moral conclusion. However, when he expounds on some topic you happen to know better, you suddenly realize that he is a myopic ideologue with selection and interpretative biases, just like everyone else. A good recent example would be his statement that Russia is fighting "more humanely" than the US did in Iraq.

Mankind vs Asteroid the thinker and very intelligent Noam Chomsky.

This was over my head , what is guy talking about?

You're point about propaganda not being terminologically precise is not true. What Chomsky describes follows the definition of propaganda. If I own a newspaper and make it say what I want. that is just straight propaganda, it's no different than a state controlled newspaper.

30:54 Very interesting. Do you think that Chomsky’s humanist assumptions and Peterson’s sovereign individual are linked to the notion of rugged individualism, which like Chomsky v Peterson, appears to have its own duality as it is often associated with the laissez-faire but was a term coined by a Republican, Herbert Hoover? That is to say, how do we untangle, or affirm, MLK’s remark, “This country has socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor” (1968)?

Excellent research and narration.

Nice book shelves 🤓

It is because Chomsky as well as Peterson is idealist. In philosophical meaning of term. But weren’t anarchists always like that? Yes they were idealists, believers of “common sense” power since Proudhon, or even earlier.

Prof. Chomsky and J. Peterson? A slender thread, I would say, that this comparison is drawn by. Interesting and thoughtful analysis on the whole, though.

Personally I think it far to neat and simple narrative to say that it is the US and allies that are bad and actually China and and Russia are nice helpful countries that want peace. I always found a realist framework for international relations is the most compelling although makes you feel like a heartless psychopath for proposing it. To me the USA is trying to renegotiate its relationship China and vice versa, the USA pretty shocked at the speed that China sent from a partner to a competitor. I also not convinced that anarchism of any variety will ever work, both right of left anarchism. I think the state is essential for societies above a level of size and complexity.

Any thoughts on the Chomskyites getting linguistics rival Daniel Everett banned from visiting the Piraha people in Brazil? Those people lived in a very free society and have/had a language/culture that was reflective of that. I don’t know if Chomsky ever addressed the effect his MIT cohorts had getting the Brazilian government to affect those people by state intervention setting up schools to teach Portuguese and the electrifying of their villages etc. To me and maybe I’m narrative building here but: there is a competitive linguistics theory that has empirical evidence in the daily lives of a people group, whose main proponent was a peer of Chomsky’s (Daniel Everett). And that same people group is about as close to anarchism as you can find in the whole world. And from MIT the state is called on to intervene to prevent contact between Dan Everett and those people. It seems to unravel both side of Chomsky: his linguistic theory and his anarchic side. It makes me think he is mostly a liberal professor with wokist pretensions and when the real deal anarchists (the Piraha) get in the way of his theory well too bad for them as they get assimilated into modernity.

“Fantastic” video, I like how it explains Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent, which most fifth graders can easily wrap their heads around, and then just launches into tankie talking points

The US is about the fine print, manipulation and deceit. That's why we're always going on about "law & order," "rules-based system," "upholding the law," etc.

Chomsky's great brain. THANKS NOAH FOR YOUR REFLEXIONS !!! 🌐👎🏿🐱🎇🎇🎇

Finally

23:14 Here would have been a good time to include (in the interests of continuity) mention of the "pivot towards Asia" that was announced under Obama's administration.

I thought the systems theory video was amazing. much better than Chomskys theory

It Is interesting the WARNING at the end of this video. I ask myself: why so many available videos, obviously trying to manipulate us, fail to finish the same way? why so many available videos, obviously trying to make profit from us, are failing to finish the same way? Who is allowing us to see this video? To see it with this recommendation but putting it in specially in one of many videos, obviously trying to manipulate and make profit? Just for this and before We would be absolutely unable to listen, to feel, to think… to develop our intellectual capabilities or to listen our intuitive nature We should watch this video

The desire and ability to communicate is innate to being a living being. All living animals have this desire. The language we speak is learned behavior influenced by the ENVIRONMENT we live in. Kids adopted as toddlers will adapt to the environment they are RAISED in. Genetics has nothing to do with that. That’s just the argument educated bigots used to try to ignore circumstances and common sense to define certain groups as being born inferior or superior. Some of the dumbest things are said by the “smartest people”. The most bigoted viewpoints come from those who appoint themselves as ‘saviors’. Never mind the times Noam Chomsky has played the role of faux opposition as he’s advocated doing things he said he was against. Like ‘manufactured consent’ that pushes voting for the lesser of to evils right before telling people to vote for Biden because he’s not Trump.

well I value Chomsky's work alot and I think he is very important, I dread the day he and his vast knowledge isnt around anymore. Thankfully we have videos and books. however I harshly disagree on the topics of how to deal with fascists and cancelling, by deplatforming them is very important, they thrive when they are seen as "normal" enough to appear on regular television and can spread their poisonous ideas. and empirical facts prove that deplatforming is effective and discussing their ideas is useless and works in their favour, cause they don't care about convincing you or even convincing the majority of the audience. they only care about getting their message out and to occupy space in the public concsience, to make themselves visible, to gain power. which is kind of what we want and why I dont understand why he attacks "wokeism" so harshly, its about marginalised people getting visibility and a voice. anyway, we shouldnt take anyones word as gospel, not even Chomsky's. he's incredibly rich of knowledge and a sharp thinker, but even he can only speak from his perspective, however vast his horizon may be. so I'd say listen to this man, learn from him and thank him, don't blindly follow him or anyone else for that matter.

I love the video, but Anglo-continental philosophy is alive and kickin in the Netherlands...

Chomsky is based as hell. The only problem with Chomsky is once you understand his ideas you'll never think about the media the same way again.

Good video... One thing I wonder is why Chomsky has been getting negativity lately from people on the left.