Gladys Engel Lang

Noam Chomsky and the Manufacture of Consent for American Foreign Policy

Few names of academic scholars are so well recognized all around the world as that of Noam Chomsky. He is listed as the author or coauthor of well over 1,000 items in the online database of the Library of Congress. The range of topics covered in these books, videos, and audiotapes reveals at least three different Chomskys: the linguistic scholar internationally recognized for his theory of transformational grammar and generative syntax, the political activist inspired by the writings of Mikhail Bakunin and Anton Pannekoek, and the analyst of media performance who (together with Edward S. Herman) promulgated a “propaganda model” as an alternative to the conception of the media as “adversarial,” the one to which journalists, jurists, and communication scholars typically subscribe. It is this third role, which accounts for roughly 80% of the Library of Congress items, that apparently moved the editor of this journal to suggest a review of work by or about Chomsky. Having dutifully absorbed the contents of what looms as an unceasing, still continuing, flood of books, pamphlets, articles, and interviews—including some on C-Span, public radio, and the Internet—we refrain from reviewing each individually. This becomes unnecessary inasmuch as, at least on the subjects of greatest concern to communication scholars, almost all make use of the same materials and dwell on the same themes with surprisingly little variation. Endlessly repetitive, they do, however, when considered in their entirety, confirm Chomsky’s contention that despite his academic preoccupation with language, he completely separates his role as linguistics scholar from those of media critic and political activist. It is in the two latter roles that he has expressed his anarchist creed and developed, in conformity with it, a communication model that concedes no legitimacy to state authority and certainly none to any kind of violence even when used to counter something far worse. The connection to ideology does not, of course, invalidate the model. Social science inquiry generally and the study of mass communication, in particular, have often been driven by meliorative impulses. They are not separated by an impenetrable wall. Be this as it may, Chomsky’s model, like any model, still has to be judged not just, or even primarily, on its suitability as a club for beating up on the media but rather on its theoretical adequacy, which is to say, on how closely it approximates how they actually function.

Personal Influence and the New Paradigm: Some Inadvertent Consequences:

An examination of the reception given Personal Influence when first published points to highly selective interpretations of the findings. The claims reviewers made for the influence of interpersonal communication relative to the mass media, especially in the political process, went even beyond those advanced by the authors. They overlooked not only the very restricted conceptualization of “effects” that guided the Decatur research but also previously accumulated evidence on multiple kinds of media influence. This article argues that the new conventional wisdom pitting personal versus mass media effects associated with this and previous studies in the Columbia tradition discouraged, however inadvertently, a coming generation of sociologists from researching the effects—particularly long-range effects—of mass communication. As a consequence, academic sociology came to cede much of the high ground it once occupied in media studies to political science and to more professionally oriented departments or schools of communication.

Racial Disturbances as Collective Protest

are together declared a riot when they are so concentrated in time and space that to cope with them requires an unusual show of force. Thus, the term riot especially in the present political climate is often used indiscriminately to refer to rather different events which constitute a single category only because they evoke a similar official response. In other words, the kind of disturbance that has become almost commonplace in the United States cannot be adequately explained or dealt with simply as a pathological manifestation or as an inevitable product (and symptom) of social change. In what follows, we present a brief outline of what

The Public as Bystander: Its Political Influence

Political leaders, advocates of reform proposals, persons speaking for special constituencies, and even “the man or woman in the street” continually invoke public opinion to legitimate positions they themselves favor. The press nowadays gives big play to opinion trends. Governments track these carefully and often commission polls tailored to their own needs. What the public thinks is judged important, since responsiveness to the popular will remains, after all, the cornerstone on which the edifice of popular government rests. Just what is ‘public opinion” and how does it influence the decisions of government? Was it more than rhetoric when Gerald Ford, on assuming the office of President of the United States, declared that “here the people rule”? Traditional doctrines of popular government start from the single premise, stated in one form or another, that sovereign authority resides with the people; their will is supreme. But if sovereignty is vested in so vague a collectivity as an “entire people”, the concept of public opinion loses much of its utility.1 For, if the will of the people is only what everyone agrees to, such unanimity is rare, and the supposed mandate the people hand to their government amounts to nothing more than a willingness to be ruled in accordance with custom and law. And even here people often disagree on which customary or legal practices they believe to be workable and of some benefit to all. If, then, public opinion as the will of the people refers to nothing more than an underlying consensus, the concept is of little use in explaining how it influences the particular laws passed, the actual decisions made, and the concrete policies pursued by the government faced with several options.

Televisione, politica e guerra: ieri, oggi e domani

La televisione fornisce una prospettiva unica nel senso che allarga il campo di visione dello spettatore, ma spesso fa questo senza fornire un contesto abbastanza ampio che permetta di interpretare cio che si vede. In particolare, nel caso dei conflitti politici e militari mostrati dalla televisione e importante studiare le modalita con cui cittadini, leader di partito e istituzioni politiche si sono adattati alla presenza ubiqua della televisione e della sua realta distorta. Allo scopo i due autori presentano un paradigma degli elementi principali da considerare nello studio degli effetti a lungo termine della televisione sulla politica: 1) gli attori politicamente rilevanti e i loro input; 2) le caratteristiche della televisione definite dalla sua specificita tecnologica e le prospettive delle persone che le gestiscono; 3) l’immagine della realta politica cosi come viene rifratta dalla televisione; 4) la prospettiva della televisione come gruppo di riferimento; infine, 5) la sua influenza sul corso degli eventi e sulle istituzioni politiche.