Mercurial

As media critic Robert McChesney says in the film, it is much easier to propagandize a public that believes in its own freedom, and does not expect propaganda, than it was in a Soviet-style system where people were always suspicious of official pronouncements. In that context, it's no longer accurate to haul out the tiresome leftist chestnut and refer to a development like the rise of Fox News as "Orwellian." It's subtler, lusher, more sweeping and far more effective than anything Orwell ever imagined.