REVIEW: “Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda”

In “Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda,” Noam Chomsky examines the development of propaganda in the United States.

He begins by asking his readers what kind of a democracy they want to live in (Chomsky 9).

His first definition of a democracy is one in which citizens can “participate in a meaningful way in the management of their own affairs and the means of information are open and free” (Chomsky 9).

But his second definition of a democracy is one in which the majority of the population are reduced to passivity and information is controlled in a narrow ideological framework (Chomsky 10). This latter definition is the result of a successful propaganda campaign, which has only strengthened in recent years.

Chomsky writes that the “first modern government propaganda operation” took place under the Woodrow Wilson Administration (11). Wilson was elected president on a platform of “Peace Without Victory.” During the First World War, the American population was mostly pacifistic and didn’t want to be involved in a European war. In response to this, the Wilson administration established the Creel Committee to turn a “pacifistic population into a hysterical, war-mongering population” (Chomsky 11–12).