We normally think that the press are cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in its search for truth. InManufacturing ConsentEdward Herman and Noam Chomsky show how an underlying elite consensus largely structures all facets of the news. Far from challenging established power, the media work hard to discover and mirror its assumptions. The authors skilfully dissect the way in which the marketplace and the economics of publishing significantly shape the news. They reveal how issues are framed and topics chosen, and contrast the double standards underlying accounts of free elections, a free press, and governmental repression. The authors conclude that the modern mass media can best be understood in terms of a 'propaganda model'. News and entertainment companies dedicate themselves to profit within the established system. Their interests require that they support the governing assumptions of state and private power. The propaganda model provokes outrage from journalists, editors and broadcasters, but twenty years after first publication,Manufacturing Consentremains the most important critique of the mass media.

Edward S. Herman is Professor of Finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Among his books areCorporate Control, Corporate Power;The Real Terror Network: Terrorism in Fact and Propaganda;Demonstration Elections: U. S.-Staged Elections in the Dominican Republic,Vietnam and El Salvador(with Frank Brodhead) andThe Rise and Fall of the Bulgarian Connection (with Frank Brodhead). Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston. A member of the American Academy of Science, he has published widely in both linguistics and current affairs. His previous books includeAt War with Asia,Towards a New Cold War,Fateful Triangle: The U. S., Israel and the Palestinians,Necessary Illusions,Hegemony or Survival,Deterring DemocracyandFailed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy.

An updated, twentieth anniversary edition of the classic dissection of modern mass media, reissued to coincide with Chomsky's 80th birthday.