"Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media" is a seminal work by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky that analyzes the media’s role in shaping public opinion and the mechanisms behind mass communication. The authors propose the "propaganda model," which suggests that major media outlets serve the interests of elite groups in society, rather than functioning as independent entities that serve the public interest.
The book outlines how economic interests and political agendas converge through the media, arguing that the concentration of media ownership limits diversity in viewpoints. Herman and Chomsky discuss how advertisers, government entities, and powerful corporations influence content, thereby marginalizing dissenting voices and alternative narratives. This creates a uniformity in media representation, which in turn shapes public perception.