Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies is a 1989 book by United States academic Noam Chomsky concerning political power using propaganda to distort and distract from major issues to maintain confusion and complicity, preventing real democracy from becoming effective. The title of this book borrows a phrase from the …
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Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies is a 1989 book by United States academic Noam Chomsky concerning political power using propaganda to distort and distract from major issues to maintain confusion and complicity, preventing real democracy from becoming effective. The title of this book borrows a phrase from the writings of Reinhold Niebuhr. Nearly the entire first half of the book is based on Chomsky's five 1988 Massey Lectures on Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Radio from November 1988 and extends his and Edward S. Herman's propaganda model to a variety of new situations. The remaining appendices address criticisms of the work and provide additional detail. As a genre of political thought, parallels exist between Niebuhr's "necessary illusions" and the "noble lies" of Plato and Leo Strauss, "public relations" of Edward Bernays and "myth making" of Niccolò Machiavelli. Likewise, Chomsky's analyses in Necessary Illusions represent a refocus on the use of these patterns of power, which he implies to underscore the failure of populations – particularly in a representative democracy – to learn from history in this regard.
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OpenLibraryIdentifiers
- LibraryThing key:
- 9392
Editions of Media Control
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Necessary Illusions (Pluto Classic)
Paperback, 432 pages
Published July 28, 1989 by Pluto Press.
- ISBN:
- 978-0-7453-0380-2Copied ISBN!
Necessary illusions
422 pages
English language
Published Aug. 6, 2003 by House of Anansi Press.
- ISBN:
- 978-0-88784-574-1Copied ISBN!
- OCLC Number:
- 51495096
- Goodreads:
- 880501
Necessary Illusions
423 pages
English language
Published Aug. 6, 1993 by Pluto P..
- ISBN:
- 978-0-7453-0820-3Copied ISBN!
Necessary illusions
422 pages
English language
Published Aug. 6, 1989 by South End Press.
- ISBN:
- 978-0-89608-366-0Copied ISBN!
Media Control
Paperback, 112 pages
English language
Published Dec. 24, 2002 by Seven Stories Press.
- ISBN:
- 978-1-58322-536-3Copied ISBN!
- Goodreads:
- 12615
Necessary illusions
422 pages
English language
Published Aug. 6, 1989 by CBC Enterprises.
- ISBN:
- 978-0-88794-341-6Copied ISBN!
Necessary Illusions
English language
Published April 17, 2012 by House of Anansi Press.
- ISBN:
- 978-0-88784-868-1Copied ISBN!
Necessary illusions
422 pages
English language
Published Aug. 6, 1991 by Anansi.
- ISBN:
- 978-0-88784-519-2Copied ISBN!
Media Control
Paperback, 112 pages
English language
Published Dec. 24, 2002 by Seven Stories Press.
- ISBN:
- 978-1-58322-536-3Copied ISBN!
- Goodreads:
- 12615
Necessary Illusions
English language
Published June 30, 2005 by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC Audio).
- ISBN:
- 978-0-660-19387-8Copied ISBN!
Media Control
253 pages
German language
Published April 11, 2003 by Europa Verlag.
- ISBN:
- 978-3-203-76015-5Copied ISBN!
Necessary Illusions
English language
Published April 6, 2002 by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC Audio).
- ISBN:
- 978-0-660-18332-9Copied ISBN!
- OCLC Number:
- 49654376
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