Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky is an American linguistic, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an institute professor in the department of linguistics & philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years.

Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (1992) is a documentary film that explores the political life and ideas of Noam Chomsky. It expands on the ideas of Chomsky's earlier book , Manufacturing consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, which he wrote along with Edward S. Herman.

The film presents and illustrates Chomsky's and Herman's thesis that corporate media, as a profit-driven institution, tend to serve and further the agendas of the interests of dominant, elite groups in the society. A centerpiece of the film is a long examination of the history of the New York Times' coverage of the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, which Chomsky says exemplifies the media's unwillingness to criticise an ally of the elite.

Chomsky's response to the film was mixed; in a published conversation  with Achbar and several activists, he stated that the film simply doesn't communicate his message, leading people to believe that he is the leader of some movement that they should join. In the same conversation though, he criticises the New York Times' review of the film, which mistakes his message for being a call for voter organising rather than media critique.