In today’s digital environment, we encounter an endless flow of information—advertisements, political commentary, lifestyle videos, brand messages, and influencer posts. While these messages look harmless on the surface, they carry subtle power: they guide how we think, what we value, and even what we consider “normal.” Two important theories help us understand this process: Herman and Chomsky’s “Manufacturing Consent” and Stuart Hall’s “Encoding/Decoding” model.
- Media as a Silent Filter: The Logic of Manufacturing Consent
“Manufacturing Consent” argues that mass media do not simply reflect reality; they filter it. These filters—such as corporate ownership, advertising interests, reliance on governmental or elite sources, and dominant political ideologies—shape what becomes visible to the public.
The result is subtle but powerful. Instead of forcing people to agree with certain viewpoints, the media create an environment where some ideas appear reasonable and natural, while others seem marginal or unthinkable. In other words, consent isn’t demanded—it’s quietly constructed through repeated frames, selective narratives, and the absence of alternative perspectives.
This theory helps explain why public discussions often revolve around a narrow set of viewpoints: our sense of what is “common sense” is shaped long before we even begin to form our own opinions. - Audiences Are Not Passive: Hall’s Encoding/Decoding
While “Manufacturing Consent” highlights institutional power, Hall’s Encoding/Decoding model focuses on what happens when the audience interprets a message. According to Hall, producers “encode” meaning into media based on assumptions about culture, values, and ideology. But audiences “decode” these messages in ways shaped by personal experience, social background, and belief systems.
This process leads to three types of readings:
Dominant reading: The audience accepts the intended message.
Negotiated reading: The audience partially agrees but also questions parts of the message.
Oppositional reading: The audience rejects the producer’s intended meaning altogether.
This explains why one person may see a luxury commercial as inspiring, while another sees it as superficial or manipulative. Media may attempt to guide interpretation, but individuals ultimately form meaning for themselves. - Why These Theories Matter Today
In the age of algorithms and personalized feeds, the combination of these theories becomes even more relevant. Platforms filter what we see, reinforcing “manufactured” norms, while our backgrounds and identities shape the way we decode every message we encounter. The interaction between structural power and individual interpretation makes today’s media environment both extremely influential and surprisingly unpredictable.
