Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media

Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (1992) is the nearly three-hour documentary to watch online on iFILM if you want to see how the news really gets made. Filmmakers Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick trailed linguist and dissident Noam Chomsky for almost three years.

The spine of it is the "propaganda model" Chomsky and economist Edward S. Herman laid out in the book of the same name: mass media rarely lie outright, they filter — through advertisers, owners and a rotation of approved experts. The film doesn't just lecture the theory. It puts it to work, contrasting how the press covered the killings in East Timor versus Cambodia, splicing in Chomsky's archival sparring with TV anchors, and catching the audience in its own reflexes.

This is dense, demanding work, built from talks, debates and footage into a deliberately non-linear collage. Wintonick invented dozens of visual tricks to make an abstract argument something you can actually watch. It's for people who'd rather argue with the screen than nod along. Stream Manufacturing Consent (1992) online on iFILM.