The Manufacturing Consent documentary focuses on Noam Chomsky's critical policies and views on American politics. Chomsky states that the media complicates democracy and only shows events if they benefit society in some way. Chomsky thinks that corporations manipulate the media to show what they want and gain power. These problems demonstrate social theories such as conflict theory and functionalism. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Conflict theory is an objective perspective supported by Chomsky. Since the mass media functions as a hierarchy, those at the top of the structure are wealthy and in charge of creating a belief system for those further down the hierarchy of society. While the rich and corporations work together, society is manipulated through the media into believing that everything corporations do is not just for their interests, but for the interests of everyone else. However, the reality is that ideology is created through branding. In general, Republicans are known for being wealthy, while Democrats are known for being middle class and working class. So, as these political parties are formed, the political parties have their own news channel to express their opinions on the news. For example, FOX News is part of the Republican Party. Since their wealth coincides with education, there is a big difference in presenting bullet points and expressing one's opinion as a Democratic Party. NBC is part of the Democratic Party, and while they have the same goal of expressing pro-Democracy opinions, they are not very good at presenting them. Another example where conflict theory plays an important role through the media is the war that breaks out in East Timor and Cambodia. Comparing the news columns published by the New York Times, the columns written about Cambodia exceed the height compared to East Timor. The reason why more was written about Cambodia is because when the United States fought against them, they could take advantage of it. However, East Timor has no benefits and nothing is improved when you help them. Because the people fighting in East Timor fight with allies, while functionalism is also present as a sociological theory in this documentary. Because war broke out around the time this documentary was filmed, those who didn't specialize in this topic were distracted by watching sports. If genocide were presented to democratic citizens in the media, many of those citizens would try to prevent things from happening, such as protests. As functionalists, their job is to distract those who are not specialists in a type of situation involving genocide. When class separation emerges, a certain tranquility is created for society. When citizens are distracted and specialists are working, both work together in some way to create reconciliation. The newspaper also uses a Red Dot system. The Red Dot system consists of a map of some areas that subscribe to a particular newspaper. There are green, yellow and red dots. The green dots represent places that already subscribe, the yellow dots represent places that are on the verge of subscribing, and the red dots are places that do not subscribe to the paper. The plan for newspapers using the Red Dot system is to replace red dots with yellow dots and replace yellow dots with green dots. In order for the newspaper to thrive, this is used.
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