Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky

Published 1988 · 464 pages · 120,000 words · about 8 hours at an average pace · Media & Technology, Nonfiction, Politics & Society

How hard is Manufacturing Consent to read?

Manufacturing Consent scores 36 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 38 out of 100
Political science and media theory vocabulary.
Sentence structure: 35 out of 100
Abstraction: 42 out of 100
Systemic analysis with concrete case studies.
Information density: 55 out of 100
Dense with statistical analysis and media comparisons.
Narrative indirection: 100 out of 100
Model presented, then tested with cases.
Symbolic density: 12 out of 100
Analytical rather than symbolic.
Ironic distance: 18 out of 100
The irony of a 'free press' that isn't.
Resolution withholding: 100 out of 100
The model is clearly stated and defended.
Structural complexity: 28 out of 100
Theoretical framework followed by paired case studies.

How Manufacturing Consent is regarded

Manufacturing Consent holds a literary regard score of 65 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

About the author

Noam Chomsky