Concision

Concision is the practice in broadcast journalism of ensuring that only contributors who are concise enough to make their point in a limited time, get the opportunity to appear. It is notably lamented by Professor Noam Chomsky is the film and book 'Manufacturing Consent'. Chomsky posits the view that concision is really an innate propaganda tool as it means that only conventional thoughts can be expressed.  Chomsky argues that more disruptive brands of dissent (such as his own) are automatically censored by the concise and precise demands of the space between two commercial breaks or about 600 words. The skills of the orator are limited therefore by the attention span of the medium.

 

Dictionary.com gives the definition of 'concision': –noun 1. concise quality; brevity; terseness. 2. Archaic. a cutting up or off; mutilation.

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