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Wintonick and Achbar, 1994: 40). Lippmann recommended that the role of the
electorate – the ‘bewildered herd’, as he called them – be restricted to that of
‘interested spectators of action’ (Lippmann, cited in Rai, 1995: 23). Lippmann
predicted that the ‘self-conscious art of persuasion’ would eventually come to
preface every ‘political calculation’ and ‘modify every political premise’. Lippmann
stressed that consent engineering is not historically inconsistent with the overall
‘practice of democracy’. [...]
In 1947, in an article titled ‘The Engineering of Consent’, published in The
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Edward Bernays put
forth a similar argument in support of ‘the manufacture of consent’. Like Walter
Lippman, Bernays declares that the interests of ‘democracy’ are particularly well
served by ‘the application of scientific principles and tried practices’ to the ‘the
engineering of consent’. Bernays asserts that consent engineering is at the heart
of democracy and characterizes it as ‘among our most valuable contributions to
the efficient functioning of society’. [...]
Chomsky notes that the conception of democracy which underlies such
doctrines is relatively consistent with the fundamental principles and ideals of
America’s founding fathers.
In his various political works Chomsky (1988: 679) frequently cites a statement
made by John Jay – ‘Those who own the country ought to govern it’ – to
illustrate this. John Jay was the first chief justice of the Supreme Court and
president of the Constitutional Convention.
In translation, Chomsky remarks that ‘we’re subject to democracy of the
marketplace’.

It’s a game for elites, it’s not for the ignorant masses, who have to be
marginalized, diverted, and controlled – of course for their own good.
(Chomsky, cited in Wintonick and Achbar, 1994: 40)

According to Chomsky, the effectiveness of thought control in democratic
societies owes much to the fact that ideological indoctrination is combined
with a general impression that society is relatively open and free (Chomsky,
1982: 91f.). [...] The PM argues that because ‘thought control’ is virtually
transparent in democratic societies, the propaganda system is actually more
effective and efficient than it is in totalitarian states.
This view of dominant social institutions as autocratic, oppressive, deterministic
and coercive can be understood as the bedrock upon which the foundations of the
PM are constructed. Herman and Chomsky, in arguing that the mass media
mobilize support for corporate and state monied interests, contend that media
play a key role in engineering or manufacturing consent. Thus, it is important to
highlight their argument that media performance is ‘guided’ by dominant elites.
Media content is directly relevant to the manufacture of consent. Herman and
Chomsky (1988: 35) state that there is a ‘systematic and highly political
dichotomization in news coverage’ that is ‘based on serviceability to important
domestic power interests’. They maintain that the propaganda function of the mass
media is observable in choices of story selection, in the quantity and quality of
coverage, and in modes of handling some stories as opposed to others. The