Manufacturing Consent: Mechanisms of Control in Consumer Society

This article presents an analysis of the mechanisms of manipulation of individual and mass consciousness in modern capitalist society. It consistently explores how theoretical concepts from sociology, psychology, and philosophy (Edward Berne, Friedrich Nietzsche, Vladimir Bekhterev, and Georg Le Bon) find practical application in political and economic technologies of control. The central theme is the phenomenon of consumer society, examined through the prism of the ideas of Eduard Fromm and Jean Baudrillard, where consumption is transformed into a system of signs and simulacra that replace reality. Particular attention is given to William Lippmann’s model of consent production and Noah Chomsky’s mass media filters, demonstrating how the state and business, as beneficiaries of the status quo, shape the “natural” picture of the world through the media and entertainment content. Ultimately, the authors conclude that the main feature of modernity is the controllability and manageability of society, achieved through the exploitation of unconscious impulses and the creation of hyperreality, which threatens human cognitive security.