manufacturing consent
Noam Chomsky defines manufacturing consent as system-supported propaganda by which authorities and media agree on a simplified reality, and it becomes the assumptive truth.
Core to any imperialist project is the dehumanization of the people who are displaced, colonized, and oppressed.we have centuries of such dehumanization to prime us for the propaganda we see today.
Orientalism is the process by which one is otherized into an “Oriental,” a term used to dehumanize those perceived as outsiders to what is often referred to as Western civilization Whether otherized into Orientals, savages, or terrorists, they are deemed outsiders who are morally and intellectually inferior.
In turn, Westerners are not only able to create and impose “improvements” on outsiders but are always justified in doing so through colonial and even genocidal means.
Isr**l’s leaders systematically propagate otherizing language to refer to Palestinians. this cycle of dehumanization is reinforced by western media coverage, especially photos and headlines, fueling biases in readers’ minds.
These language patterns become a system of knowledge about those people, and without critical pushback, that knowledge becomes justification for violence.
It is specifically policymakers, journalists, and academics who have the power to reinforce a framework that transforms violent atrocities into “what is necessary” or what is “common sense.”
Indiscriminate bombardment, cutting off food, water, and electricity; and killing thousands of civilians become acceptable through the lens of security culture, self-defense and realpolitik–an approach that values power and material factors over ethical or humanitarian concerns.
To dismiss or deny the historical violence in Palestine in news coverage of the current genocide is a form of propaganda. It is an active manufacturing of consent for Palestinian genocide.
S O U R C E S
We are grateful to the works of Rooney & Keramati (2023) Why are newsrooms manufacturing consent for Palestinian genocide?, Prism; Schulman (2023) Explanations are not excuses, New York Magazine; direct excerpts of which informed the content for this blog post.
