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A FREQUENT COMPLAINT in contemporary politics is that the media distort or fail to report on world events. In their groundbreaking book, Manufacturing Consent, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky extend the critique from what the media present to what the audience actually thinks: "If, however, the powerful are able to fix the premises of discourse, to decide what the general populace is allowed to see, hear, and think about, and to 'manage' public opinion by regular propaganda campaigns, the standard view of how the system works is at serious odds with reality."1 In the aftermath of 11 September 2001, many advocates for social change have denounced the media as hopelessly biased; sometimes these media critiques lapse into fanciful conspiracy theories, suggesting a state of defeatism, paranoia, and political paralysis.2 This essay challenges the view that power decides what people may think, despite the unprecedented consolidation and dissemination of mainstream media. Critiques of media power too often imply a passive audience, helpless to disregard or critically analyze propaganda. Such critiques of media production are incomplete without parallel critiques of media reception. I develop my reflections on the reception of media by analogies to biblical tradition and Edgar Allen Poe's story, "The Purloined Letter."
Diverse Perspectives on the News
Diverse perspectives and rich sources of information are more widely available to a larger segment of the population than ever before. Take the example of coverage of the Israeli incursion into Jenin in April 2002. During and after the conflict, a significant debate ensued on whether this was a massacre; after the lapse of several weeks and months, and significant Israeli resistance to the terms of an inquiry, a UN inquiry and mainstream media in the United States concluded that it was not.3 Complaints followed then and continue now that the media distorted and covered up the realities of the event. All this may be true, but there is no reason to conclude that alternative accounts are unavailable. In fact, an Internet Google search of the words "Jenin massacre photos" yielded over seven thousand entries in September 2002, some of which depict horrific human misery. There were cameras and eyewitnesses in Jenin, and from the comfort of your study you can see these images and consider the competing...