Manufacturing Consent

I'm not going to lie, the majority of this documentary was hard to understand and went right over my head. The part of the documentary that I do understand though is Noam Chomsky's views on corporations controlling the media. There are just a handful of large corporations out there that basically have a monopoly of the media in our country. This makes it difficult for americans to develop their own opinions on any world issues because of all the bias put into our news stories. As viewers, we can't find an objective viewpoint, because it's already been found for us. This makes me really angry because there is a concentration of power in the large companies of our world that basically control our minds. They decide not only what information can be shared in the media but the way it's shared. They pick the point of view that the stories come from and how in depth the information is. Take what they were saying about East Timor and Cambodia for example. Though the U.S. had much more involvement in East Timor, no one heard about it because it would have a shed a negative light on the U.S. for playing a role in the Indonesian invasion. I believe that even though some citizens would have been angry at the government for our involvement, as Americans, the people had a right to be informed about the things that our government, the people we elect to represent our best interest, are doing in the rest of the world.

http://www.globalissues.org/article/159/media-conglomerates-mergers-concentration-of-ownership
This link tells about how some countries have the power to control the media, as do some large corporations. This is definitely the case in the United States. This site also says that it's crucial for citizens to be able to control thier own minds and make informed decisions to have a functioning democracy. It's hard to make informed decisions with all of the bias present in our media today. All we get is the opinions of the large companies that control the news. We only hear what they want us to hear.

This post is probably rambly (is that a word?) and redundant but that's just because I'm so annoyed! The media is supposed to keep us up to date and informed on the things that are happening in our world but it's hard to get the facts if all we hear is opinions and major bias coming from large corporations that by controlling our minds, basically control the world.

Even though I didn't understand half of what he said, Noam Chomsky's a pretty cool dude. He makes a lot of sense with his views on the media. Hopefully the corporate monopoly will be broken up at some point and we will start hearing the raw facts with no bias (not likely). I want to hear about the East Timor's of our time and be aware of what our country is doing in other parts of the world.