EN BG

Manufacturing Consent

Nobody forced you to agree. That's the whole point.

Manufacturing consent is the process of shaping public opinion so that people support policies that serve elite interests — without anyone having to use force. It works through repetition, framing, and the slow narrowing of what feels like acceptable thought. Over time, you don't feel controlled. You feel like you made up your own mind.

Walter Lippmann described it in 1922: the public doesn't experience reality directly. It experiences a version of reality constructed by media, experts, and institutions. When that construction is done well, people don't just tolerate the status quo — they defend it. They argue for it at dinner tables. They think the conclusions are their own.

The method is simple. Repeat a narrative across enough trusted channels — news, entertainment, education, expert opinion — and it stops feeling like a narrative. It starts feeling like common sense. Alternatives don't get debated. They get dismissed as extreme, naive, or dangerous.

This doesn't require coordination in some dark room. It only requires that media owners, advertisers, and political powers share roughly the same interests. Which they do. The consent you give was shaped long before you were asked for it.

References