Politics, Media, and ManipulationCurrent events often entertain the minds of producers in Hollywood. This eventually causes them to produce a fictional movie depicting what really goes behind the scenes of political figures. The movie Wag the Dog is an excellent reference to use for theory. It emphasizes the power of media on public, power of political figures, and dependence of people on media. "Wag the Dog", although a fictional plot can manipulate and puzzle our minds and the way we think of politics today.
As discussed both in class and Patterson's text, the role of media in politics is by far one of the most important factors of our politics today. As Robert DeNiro said in the movie "It's over, I just saw it on TV," we can all agree that if a news is cast on media, most people will consider it as true facts due to the fact that we trust the media.
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politics in universityWe see in this movie how the president took advantage of media and deceived the public quite easily. This alone can cause a great discomfort in public for the fact that it can be done in real life. Today, many of us rely on media for information that we can trust and consider "true", however, if this media information was to be tampered with by the involvement of government, it will lead to the public questioning of the democracy and trust of our government.
Wag the Dog not only showed the power of media, it also conveyed how political officials have the power to completely sway one's attention from one subject by creating a whole new false issue. It showed how the president with his sex scandal was willing to go to any measure to shift the spot light off of him. He hired...