"Perhaps this is an obvious point, but the democratic postulate is that the media are independent and committed to discovering and reporting the truth, and that they do not merely reflect the world as powerful groups wish it to be perceived. Leaders of the media claim that their news choices rest on unbiased professional and objective criteria, and they have support for this contention in the intellectual community. If, however, the powerful are able to fix the premises of discourse, to decide what the general populace is allowed to see, hear, and think about, and to “manage” public opinion by regular propaganda campaigns, the standard view of how the system works is at serious odds with reality."
Divided into multiple, interlocking parts that themselves betray a lack of focus, Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media opens with a vigorous examination of Chomsky's ideas about the mass media, “Thought Control in a Democratic Society.” Chomsky posits that the mainstream media shapes, defines, and controls public opinion, often by excluding, marginalizing, or otherwise dismissing dissent, all in service of political and corporate elites. For Chomsky, the generally held belief in the conventional role of the media, that of enabling the public to assert substantive control over the political process (based on the underlying assumption that representative democracies function best with a well-informed public, and therefore a free press unencumbered by government control or influence), is a false, misleading one. The mainstream media is driven by the pursuit of profit, is often owned and operated by corporations, and manipulated by their own desire for continued access to the corridors of power on the local, state, and national levels. The mainstream media sets the general agenda, selects the appropriate topics, determines emphasis and the framing of issues, as well as careful filtering of information and the “bounding” of debate, all in the service of dominant interest groups.