Wag The Dog Analysis

Words: 773
Pages: 4

“If you tell a lie long enough, loud enough and often enough, the people will believe it” (Joseph Goebells). In a time where news media and mass media entertainment has grown to be a large part of American’s everyday lives, it is often forgotten that not everything that is presented is fact checked and one hundred percent unbiased. News media manipulates every aspect of information that is given out to the public. The news utilizes propaganda and American’s ignorance in order to manipulate viewers into perceiving the news the way the company wants Americans to perceive it. News media relies solely on the fact that a majority of the population is ignorant of the topic and too brain washed thinking “the news is never wrong” to research further than that sole news source. Wag the Dog by Barry Levinson is an exaggerated portrayal of how perception doesn’t equal reality and how the media is used to manipulate American’s opinions to fulfill the news media’s personnel agenda. In comparison, Sandy Hook: Creating Reality by Sofia …show more content…
Although Wag the Dog is grossly exaggerated it shines light on the media’s power and control when it comes to manipulating people’s opinions. Many Americans have become accustomed to accept what is set in front of them as fact. In Wag the Dog, Stanley Motss and Conrad Brean create a war to distract from a recent presidential scandal, the country becomes enthralled with the news that is being set in front of them and with the help from the Fad King, an entire movement is created around a series of manifested events. Wag the Dog isn’t far from portraying the actual relationship between the government and mass media entertainment; in the 1940s, at the start of World War II, the Federal government required that every production made in Hollywood must have a war message and could not show the Americans as losing