Višeslav Kirinić: MANUFACTURING OF CONSENT IN THE HYPER-INFORMATION AGE
Scientific paper
Višeslav Kirinić, University North in Varazdin
DOI: https://doi.org/10.59014/CFVB1742
Keywords:
hyper-information, media environment, manufacturing consent, power, propaganda
Abstract
Almost 35 years since the publication of Herman and Chomsky’s Manufacturing
Consent, the world has undergone significant transformations. For the authors,
power appears in an interaction between the (media) corporate and state-political
structures, which maintain the status quo, promote desired changes, or limit the undesirable
aspirations in the public sphere. Power no longer has a unique possessor in
the form of a state-political repressive apparatus. Rather, results from the interaction
of multiple forces, while truth is a thing of this world, produced by means of multiple
forms of limitation, as Foucault wrote in “Power/Knowledge”. Manufacturing
of consent is attributed to the mass media and the propaganda model within which
media create a partial picture of open issues, prevent the availability of alternative
approaches, and select materials for publication in accordance with the dominant
political structure. Such a model of power functions under the condition of control
over mass media and publishing in general. This paper contributes to the understanding
of changes caused by the technical and digital shift that has (potentially) enabled
each individual to become a publisher and directly participate in shaping the public
sphere. With the flood of publishing on social networks and portals, the issue of control
over published content and availability of alternative approaches has turned into
its opposite. The problem is no longer how to break the media-corporate blockade,
but how to block the entry of “alternative facts”, fake news and obscene attitudes
into public sphere via algorithm. The review of the relevant literature, research results
from secondary sources, and quantitative indicators of modern electronic media
usage reveal the extent of the transformation of modern society. Results show that,
with information coming to the fore, meaning slips into the background, and the
intrusion of the private into public space results in gradual dissolution of both private
and public spheres.
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