Media e potere

by Noam Chomsky

L'opera in questione, è una raccolta di saggi, scritti dal filosofo americano nel corso degli ultimi anni. Una riflessione sul rapporto tra mezzi di comunicazione, potere e controllo sociale. Un'analisi critica sulle strategie di addomesticamento e massificazione dell'individuo. A partire da quelle che definisce "le 10 regole per il controllo sociale". Chomsky analizza storicamente e socialmente, le strategie che il potere mette in atto per manipolare la società.
Un piccolo libro introduttivo, verso quella che è la complessa opera di Noam Chomsky.

Genres: Nonfiction

79 pages, Paperback

Published November 1, 2014

About the author

Avram Noam Chomsky is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He is a laureate professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona and an institute professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Among the most cited living authors, Chomsky has written more than 150 books on topics such as linguistics, war, and politics. In addition to his work in linguistics, since the 1960s Chomsky has been an influential voice on the American left as a consistent critic of U.S. foreign policy, contemporary capitalism, and corporate influence on political institutions and the media.
Born to Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants (his father was William Chomsky) in Philadelphia, Chomsky developed an early interest in anarchism from alternative bookstores in New York City. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania. During his postgraduate work in the Harvard Society of Fellows, Chomsky developed the theory of transformational grammar for which he earned his doctorate in 1955. That year he began teaching at MIT, and in 1957 emerged as a significant figure in linguistics with his landmark work Syntactic Structures, which played a major role in remodeling the study of language. From 1958 to 1959 Chomsky was a National Science Foundation fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study. He created or co-created the universal grammar theory, the generative grammar theory, the Chomsky hierarchy, and the minimalist program. Chomsky also played a pivotal role in the decline of linguistic behaviorism, and was particularly critical of the work of B.F. Skinner.
An outspoken opponent of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, which he saw as an act of American imperialism, in 1967 Chomsky rose to national attention for his anti-war essay "The Responsibility of Intellectuals". Becoming associated with the New Left, he was arrested multiple times for his activism and placed on President Richard M. Nixon's list of political opponents. While expanding his work in linguistics over subsequent decades, he also became involved in the linguistics wars. In collaboration with Edward S. Herman, Chomsky later articulated the propaganda model of media criticism in Manufacturing Consent, and worked to expose the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. His defense of unconditional freedom of speech, including that of Holocaust denial, generated significant controversy in the Faurisson affair of the 1980s. Chomsky's commentary on the Cambodian genocide and the Bosnian genocide also generated controversy. Since retiring from active teaching at MIT, he has continued his vocal political activism, including opposing the 2003 invasion of Iraq and supporting the Occupy movement. An anti-Zionist, Chomsky considers Israel's treatment of Palestinians to be worse than South African–style apartheid, and criticizes U.S. support for Israel.
Chomsky is widely recognized as having helped to spark the cognitive revolution in the human sciences, contributing to the development of a new cognitivistic framework for the study of language and the mind. Chomsky remains a leading critic of U.S. foreign policy, contemporary capitalism, U.S. involvement and Israel's role in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and mass media. Chomsky and his ideas are highly influential in the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements. Since 2017, he has been Agnese Helms Haury Chair in the Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice at the University of Arizona.

Reviews

[charta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Partire dallo studio della lingua (espressione dei mondi individuali e di quelli sovrapersonali) per decostruire - e forse ricostruire - l'umano. Uno dei più grandi linguisti viventi, dai non addetti ai lavori è considerato un filosofo di enorme spessore.

[Rachele Vedovelli · Rating 3 out of 5]

✍️ Raccolta di alcune riflessioni di Noam Chomsky, grande linguista e politologo americano, sul rapporto fra i media - soprattutto la stampa - e il potere.

💡A mio avviso esagera un po' troppo i toni polemici sui classici temi cari alla sinistra, per cui si ritrovano le classiche lamentele, non troppo sviscerate e approfondite, per cui la società fa schifo, l'establishment e i ricchi sono nemici e di conseguenza anche la stampa è nemica della massa perché è ossequiosa ai potenti di turno.

🕯️Interessanti alcuni spunti e riflessioni sul ruolo della propaganda negli stati democratici, soprattutto in riferimento agli anni '30 e agli anni '60 negli Stati Uniti, ma in alcuni passaggi, a mio avviso, l'isteria prende il sopravvento.

[Gabriele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gli articoli che compongono il libro sono estremamente interessanti e, probabilmente, avrebbero meritato 5 stelle.
Il problema è che mancano le informazioni base su di essi: titolo originale degli articoli, anno di pubblicazione, traduttore...
Per questo ho assegnato solo 4 stelle.

[Sarah Cigna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interessante riflessione, seppur breve, sulla nascita della propaganda e lo scopo principale dei media, con un supporto storico e comparativo.
Penso che dopo aver letto questo libro passerò a "La fabbrica del consenso"!

[Alyssa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ho adorato questo libro.
Nella sua complessità ma al contempo stesso scorrevolezza fa capire e riflettere su molte cose della società

[Federico Arcuri · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of essays is a concise and clear introduction to Chomsky's theory(besides the linguistics part of his research). Here, we can find his idea of media as an oppressive institution that serves as a propaganda machine for the powerful elite. The audience itself is the product that journals sell to advertisment groups. The reason why this system works so perfectly is that all thos people who are part of powerful institutions, including journalists, have been "institutionalized" and indoctrinated during their education: they won't write anything which is radically against the system, because they are part of it.

A particularly thought-provoking concept is the comparison between Leninism and American Liberalism: in the same way as In the URSS the revolutionary vanguard was in charge of the masses afflicted by false consciousness, as they knew what was better for them, the insitutionalized and indoctrinated intellectuals and elite members of society "know what is better" for the ignorant population. And that's why we have seen multiple cases of powerful people passing from a Leninist creed to a comfortable American Life.

Lastly, the "boiling frog" metaphor is very powerful: beware of gradual changes, which can be a strategy to hide a huge transformation.