Edward Said: Framed: the politics of stereotypes
About Are we sure that the perception that we have about the East (and about the Middle East and the different struggles it is going through) is neutral and unbiased? The Palestinian academician Said advanced the hypothesis that the European perspective on the East, that has been shaped throughout the 18th and 19th centuries by Orientalism, a mystified vision of an exotic Elsewhere, symmetrically different from and characterised by the Irrational (as opposed to the West as cradle of civilisation and rationality), continued to be heavily influenced by this ideal. In his view, [...]
Noam Chomsky, The Consent Factory
About Are we really sure that concepts such as propaganda only apply to countries like North Korea or China, and that Western civilisation is, on the other side, the gatekeepers of freedom and democracy? The truth is that, even in the absence of a state media apparatus, phenomena like propaganda are present and very much alive. One of the core concepts of Noam Chomsky’s theory, explored in this video, is that the media manufactures consent in dictatorships as well as in liberal democracies. And the process is very much the same. Media not [...]
Ways of Seeing – John Berger, BBC 1972
About Ways of Seeing is a 1972 BBC series which later became a book. It is a seminal work of art criticism for the postmodern age. John Berger explores the ways in which we view art with a critical eye and challenges traditional art criticism. Credits Created by John Berger Produced by Mike Dibb
Manufacturing Consent | Noam Chomsky and the Media (1992)
About Manufacturing Consent is a documentary about Noam Chomsky's ideas and activism. However, it is his ideas regarding the media that take centre stage in the film. Namely, that the mass media operates as a form of thought control in a democratic society, with major news organizations systematically bending the truth to support the status quo. Governments have used both 'big lies' and 'big sticks' to captivate the responsiveness of ther people and attire their endorsements. Propoaganda is to democracy what explicit violence is to dictatorships, and in both cases these two instruments are so [...]
