Propaganda and Manufacturing Consent: first in a series on mass psychology
Good afternoon lads. Hope its as hot where you are as where i am. Can’t be the only one dealing with this heat, would be utterly unfair.
I debated today about what book to send, or rather, what topic to take on: get into vaccine history? Continue on the corrupt nature of global heathcare and the pharmaceutical industry? Decides instead to continue with the podcast i shared last week and expound on mass psychology. Desmet doesn’t yet have any publicly available book or paper that i am aware of on Mass Formation, but the topic of mass psychology has been explained by many individuals, most notable Gustave Le Bon. We'll get to his seminal work next week sunday, today, i want to begin an introduction to the concept of propaganda and how mainstream opinion is created and molded, with a focus on the role of the media. Of course we've seen this so clearly play out with the furor, responses to the COVID pandemic by both the media and the general public. Last 2 years been a media blitz and smorgasbord of opinions and reactions and it would be great to put them all within some context.
The book i'd use to achieve this would be Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky, an old classic still very relevant in our time. Ignore his politics, ignore the bias of some of his examples and just pay attention to the propaganda model he and his coauthur expouse. Would be a lovely read, i assure you
If you'd like something to watch and listen to, here is a documentary titled on the book. Doesn’t go indepth into the model of the book, more of a focus on Noam Chomsky himself, so you'd still need to read the book.
Manufacturing Consent: Naom Chomsky and the media
Remember to share to everyone you know and love.
Have a hot sunday.