• Home
  • News
  • Top Picks
    • Movies & Films: Top 25
    • Documentaries: Top 25
    • Films For Students: Top 10
    • Music Videos: Top 10
  • Categories
    • Film
    • Documentary
    • Shorts
    • Blog
    • Calendar
    • Links
    • About

Miss Liberty's Film & Documentary World

Libertarian Movies, Films & Documentaries

Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky & the Media (1993)

Tagged: Propaganda

Noam Chomsky explains his theory of media bias and institutional control of the masses. Biographical. [ Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky & the Media credits: Dir: Mark Achbar, Peter Wintonick/ 166 min/ Biography, Documentary-Educational/ Canada/ Propaganda]

“Chomsky is a much discussed person. If you want to know what his ideas are all about, this would be a good place to start.”

You’ve probably heard of Noam Chomsky. He’s a prolific writer, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a hero of the libertarian Left. This lengthy documentary paean to Chomsky, based on the book Manufacturing Consent, gives both a biographical overview of his life and a comprehensive forum for his ideas.

As told here, Chomsky is skeptical of government to the point of advocating anarchy or near anarchy, but at the same time he’s a harsh critic of capitalism and private property. He seems to be suspicious of institutions of any kind, for the coordinated power they wield. What kind of world he’s for isn’t gone into much here, and it’s a topic on which even he seems to be a bit tentative; but what he’s against could fill volumes, and in fact has.

This film focuses mainly on Chomsky’s view that the media control the masses for the benefit of the privileged few. Those familiar with the degree to which media outlets define “the news” will agree with much of what he has to say, but mainstream advocates of liberty will find the class conflict angle of his theory harder to swallow. Yes, the media are biased. Yes, they are concentrated. Yes, they move in a herd. But that doesn’t mean that the media are the intelligent, controlling evil he suggests them to be. In particular, how are the media supposedly coordinated? Who exactly does it? Those questions aren’t answered here.

Secondarily, the film also covers Chomsky’s heroics, in particular his speaking out against the Vietnam War at a time when it was unpopular to do so, and his ongoing efforts to expose imbalances in media coverage of important events.

Chomsky is a much discussed person. If you want to know what his ideas are all about, this would be a good place to start. Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky & the Media is thorough, professional, and even artful. But it’s also a lovefest that goes on for nearly three hours, with so much praise it seems at times to embarrass even Chomsky. It’s worth watching, but you may occasionally want to use fast-forward.

How to See It

Amazon (DVD)
Amazon (Instant Video)
YouTube Video Search
Online Video Search

Links

IMDB
Wikipedia
Book: iManufacturing Consent

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

Related

Featured Post

The Onion: Should the Government Stop Dumping Money Into a Giant Hole?

It's one of the great economic questions of our time. Does dumping money into a giant hole create jobs and stimulate the economy, or is it simply a waste? Paul Krugman has suggested that even faking an alien invasion would be good for the economy, the idea being that any activity, with or without production … Continue Reading

maos great famine

Mao’s Great Famine (2011)

Mao Zedong's "Great Leap Forward," a far-reaching program of forced modernization intended to transform China into a socialist paradise, instead results in the greatest holocaust in human history — with a death toll of 45 million. Also listed as La grande famine de Mao. [ Mao's Great Famine credits: Dir: … Continue Reading

South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut

South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut (1999)

WINNER: TOP 25 LIBERTARIAN FILMS In the name of saving the children from obscene language, the parents of the South Park kids go to all extremes—including censorship, mind-controlling implants, executions, and finally war on Canada. [ South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut credits: Dir: Trey Parker/ (voices … Continue Reading

Themes

Abuse of power American revolution Anti-draft Anti-regulation Anti-slavery Anti-socialism Anti-taxation Anti-war Ayn Rand Corrupt government Creator as hero Democide Econ 101 Eminent domain Equality & law Escape from socialism Freedom of speech Free press as hero Government as bigot Government as torturer Government enforced morality Government healthcare Government schools Incompetent government Individualism John Stossel Law & liberty Legalize Drugs Libertarian heroes Libertarianism 101 Power corrupts Power worship Pro-capitalism Pro-immigration Propaganda Psychiatric coercion Resistance to tyranny Right to secede Search & seizure Second amendment Sexual liberty Social tolerance Unions & monopolies Voluntarism Working for government

Genres/Categories

Action-Adventure Animated Biography Blog Comedy Documentary Drama Family Featured Film Foreign History Horror Music-Dance Netflix News Romance SciFi-Fantasy Shorts Thriller Upcoming Western

About Miss Liberty

This site is a collection of films and documentaries of particular interest to libertarians (and those interested in libertarianism). It began as a book, Miss Liberty’s Guide to Film: Movies for the Libertarian Millennium, where many of the recommended films were first reviewed. The current collection has grown to now more than double the number in that original list, and it’s growing still.

  • RSS

© 2023 Miss Liberty's Film & Documentary World. All Rights Reserved