A film about the noted American linguist/political dissident and his warning about corporate media's role in modern propaganda.
Nov 1992
Beginning with Noam Chomsky's response to a college student who role-plays "Jane U.S.A."--someone who naively believes she lives in a democratic society in which she can create her own destiny--the viewer is presented with a cross-section of typically lively Chomsky encounters. Central to a functioning democracy is the necessity of free access to information, ideas and opinions. But what should be our democratic right turns out to be limited and shaped by the biases of insitutions and ideologies within the mass media. Chomsky shows how governments, corporations and other elites manufacture the consent of the public to serve their interests.
Jan 1994
What do the Japanese see in Canada? What's the magnetic pull from the Far East? And what's our take on this land of ours? Bolstering our feeling of national pride comes naturally after watching the Japanese embrace the country. The film follows Masaaki Kagami, a Japanese transplanted in Alberta. He specializes in making souvenir videos for Japanese tourists. HO! KANADA is an investigation of national stereotypes. The film records the way the Japanese see us, and how we see them and ourselves.
Sep 1995
In this video, Noam Chomsky concentrates on the contemporary institutions and powers which have set limits on human progress and offers us some concrete ways of challenging them; in effect, he presents a vision of a future society. Chomsky's work is directed at developing intellectual self-defense for "ordinary people" who are often isolated in their struggles. States are seen to be violent through such strategies as the near-genocide of aboriginal peoples. Ultimately, Chomsky feels we must move beyond the myths of modern industrial civilization and the privileged elites who dominate mass communication, and instead foster the interests of a truly global community.
This video focuses primarily on the implications of the structure and format of television, especially the consequences of concision, and how these factors can shape the messages of the medium. In addition, other issues, such as how democracies handle dissenters, and how the mainstream media have treated the challenges of Noam Chomsky's media critiques are explored. The media construct reality, and in the conclusion we see the author participating in that very process.
This video focuses on the formative influences in Noam Chomsky's life--those factors which enable him to become a politically engaged intellectual. Starting out as a linguist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where his work revolutionized the study of language, Chomsky was radicalized by the 1960s anti-war movement and became a major critic of American policy. We learn about the important Jewish intellectual influences of his family, as well as those defining incidents in his early schooling that made a lasting impression.
