Customer Reviews
A really excellent short exposition - By: G. D. Atkinson, 04 Jun 2008 
Unlike many of Chomsky's other political books this one is somewhat easier to read & the points it gets across are lucidly put
It is also short & would make an excellent introduction to his work & ideas
Nothing much surprising in this book - By: Chris, 13 Nov 2007 
Overall an interesting little book, but the topic is much too complex to adequately coverin such a small book/pamphlet.
In my opinion it is also lacking examples from Nazi Germany, which would much better highlight the achievements of propagandain media.
Also, from a European perspective, where there are much broader & more independent sources of news reporting, US propagandain media form is pretty much "old news".
Chomsky - By: Spider Monkey, 10 Feb 2007 This is a great place to start if you're new to Chomsky & political books. It is one of his most accessible books, with a lots of varied information to whet your appetite. You are left with a feeling of shock, but also a desire to go out & learn more, which this book points youin the right direction of. Well worth a read.
How is Internet going to impact the Media Control? - By: Kivanc Emiroglu, 15 Jan 2007 This is another book from Chomsky that makes you look at the American political life from a critical point of view. He has a certain stylein writing his books; he makes an hypothesis & builds the book around it. The hypothesis of this book is that American democracy developed towards a system (which he calls "spectator democracy") during early 20th centuryin which there is an elite group that basically "figure things out" for the rest, i.e. "bewildered herd". For this system to work, the elite group engineer others' opinions by using propaganda orin other words by using public relations. As you would guess, once the elite group recognize the power they have, they start abusing the system for their own benefit but not for that of the public (the herd). He gives many examples, including First World War, labor union laws, Vietnam War & The Gulf War to prove his hypothesis.
What I found unsatisfactory is the lack of his ideas about how Internet is going to impact the propaganda tools that the elite group use. With only TV, newspapers & radioin place, engineering others' opinions were easier because it was enough to own or cooperate with few media channels. With Internet getting more available for the masses, it is a totally different ball game. An individual or a group gets the power to produce or share content to inform & influence others. So, his analysis fails to explain what role Internet will playin this whole argument of "media control".
Having said that, I respect Noam as an honest & smart intellectual & highly recommend this book to everyone who would like to understand how media can be & was used as an evil tool. His analysis is powerful yet not totally contemporary.
The bewildered herd must be tamed - By: Luc REYNAERT, 12 Sep 2006 Noam Chomsky explains perfectly how propaganda spectacularly achieved to turn `real' democracy, where the public participates meaningfullyin state affairs, into `spectator' democracy, where the public is occasionally allowed to elect one or another member of a specialized class.
Spectator democracy is based on the assumption that the stupid masses (`the bewildered herd') are too dump & incompetent to really understand their own interests. Only a small elite, the decision makers, can understand the common interest. The bewildered herd must be tamed by, among other means, propaganda.
But who benefits? How get the decision makers into their position? The answer is very simple: by serving people with real power, by defending the interests of private power & the state-corporate nexus.
Noam Chomsky dissects brilliantly the propaganda machine with its use of disinformation, falsification of history, & marginalization of dissident opinion.
He gives perfect examples of propaganda, like the Creel commissionin WWI, which turned a pacifist majority of the people into a warmongering crowd, or the battle against the `Vietnam syndrome' (`the sickly inhibitions against the use of military force'), or the use of fear of enemiesin order to hide real domestic problems (health, education, homelessness, joblessness, crime, soaring criminal populations, jails, deteriorationin the inner cities).
Ultimately, the bewildered herd will never be tamed completely. It will have to choose between a real free society & a self-imposed totalitarianism where it will be marginalized.
A brilliant essay by a superb free mind.
We need Noam Chomsky's loud & clear voice.
