Manufacturing Consent
Advertising is one of the main reasons modern social media is experiencing continued enshittification in this era. Noam Chomsky in his "Manufacturing Consent" wrote of three "filters" that determined which content would be presented to viewers, and while he wrote on the mass media in 1988, I believe this framework applies equally to social media in 2024: access to capital; the "advertising license to do business;" and a symbiotic relationship with government, who provides access to authoritative sources of news. Take X, for example: its access to capital allows it to eclipse most other…
What's become clear is we need to bring Section 230 into the modern era. We allow companies to not be treated as publishers for user-generated content as long as they meet certain obligations. We've unfortunately allowed tech companies to get away with selling us this idea that The Algoirthm is an impartial black box. Everything an algorithm does is the result of a human intervening to change its behavior. As such, I believe we need to treat any kind of recommendation algorithm as if the company is a publisher (in the S230 sense). Think of it this way: if you get 1000 people to submit…
Herman and Chomsky effectively disproved the notion that mainstream media gives "balanced" perspectives on news in Manufacturing Consent. The trouble is that media has a massive reliance on government institutions for sourcing information and advertisers for revenue. The way that information is withheld from government sources in the case of dissent from doctrine, or money is held back from corporations in the case of dissent from their interests creates patterns and frameworks of self-censorship and framing that twist information. None of this means our news networks are evil, but they are…
I understand what you're saying. But people who use the expression "manufactured consent" know that it comes from Chomsky and use it in the same sense as Chomsky did. It refers to the idea that the only debate that the media allows is that which doesn't challenge any actual power. Furthermore that expression also refers to the fact that this is achieved without anyone having to explicitly coerse the media. The individuals in it self-select to support with the agenda. You're allowed to be a revolutionary, but no one in the media will give you a job because they're all benefiting from the…
> the many incentives that exist for different parties Someone(s) should update the Five Filters models from Manufacturing Consent to account for social medias. Compare the social network media ecosystem to the prior broadcast and print medias. Here's my stab at it: The Five Filters are Owners, Advertisers, Sources, Flak, and War. Owners (social networks) took most of Advertisers' economic power for themselves, flipping that power relationship. With loss of status, Advertisers' power to control dialog and shape opinion largely disappeared. To reduce costs, prior Owners debased Sources by…
Great beginning, because this captures perfectly the feelings of so many, especially older, Americans. Even dissent feels like it was easier back then, when it was hippies vs. squares, a simple yes or no on Vietnam, yes or no on the Civil Rights Act. There are two glaring omissions from this article. First is any mention of Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent [1], which the author spends a lot of time loosely recapitulating. The other is a lack of sensitivity to the Boomers and the (non-geek) Gen Xers that were simply not exposed to online anything and so do not have immunity, and they generally…
"Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117293/ A group of young men are accused of murder because, basically, they look like goths and have the misfortune of living in a conservative Christian community. --- The "Seven Up" series: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058578/ A group of British kids from various socio-economic backgrounds are interviewed starting when they are 7 years old, and interviewed again every 7 years. --- "Manufacturing Consent" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104810/ Based on Noam Chomsky's book about the influence the mass…
> You don't actually have any definition of "alt right", it's a made up term used to mean anyone who isn't an extreme progressive. I will certainly not start wasting my time defining these terms - I'm sure most of us agree close enough who we mean here. Hint: it's not "anyone who isn't an extreme progressive", as for example Dick Cheney is not alt right. > They are very much being silenced by the government. See the Twitter Files for just one piece of evidence. This is nothing new. See Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky. However, everything that's being censored in Twitter is still…
I used to be a pretty big pedant, then I took a semester of a lingusitcs program and the point was hammered home that language really is relative. Right/wrong has very little place in the topic. I can't find the exact quote but in Manufacturing Consent, Chomsky makes some statement about how the ability for any person to speak, use, invent, modify, evolve language proves that everyone, not just a select few, are inherently creative and intelligent. We just don't always harness it. Of course, there are some limits to that statement (Chomsky would know that more than anyone else), but it rings…
Why do you believe everything the western media tells you as they lie about everything relating to Israel and Palestine? Your North Korea info. America is the one that didn’t allow free elections and invaded (yes I know you will say North Korea invaded. I know what people who repeat every western talking point say). — How do you think Africa turned out the way it did? Which people in the late 1800s decided to carve up Africa? Which people continue doing [neo]colonialism? Why is Sudan a country with its borders? It’s the west that did that. A country can’t be free when colonizers draw the…