Media Manipulation In Barry Levinson's Wag The Dog

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Reality has become not what we all see for real but what is shown to us by media; in which it is manipulated or shown in a point of view to make us believe what the media want us to follow and believe. I believe that the media takes advantage of the people and their naivety. We all need to be more aware of the media and its power and its ability to manipulate the news and the way it is presented. Wag the Dog directed by Barry Levinson emphasises these things and makes it clear that the main population would be naïve to realise that. Politics influences the media in a positive and negative way but most strongly in a negative way, since media manipulates the news and informs us what sometimes is not even necessary it influences us and our opinion, …show more content…

When people vote to elect leaders they often rely on the mass media to persuade them, which sometimes the politicians and media take advantage of this fact. Media can reach out to people by radio, advertising, mailing, pamphlets, television most often these days’ social media. A large amount of money is spent by politicians on media when they are campaigning, just to persuade voters who are unsure. Some politicians use television commercials and sometimes newspaper advertisements to point out the negatives in the opposition party while presenting themselves better. Another way media can influence politics is by deciding what news should be delivered to the people therefore, they chose stories that are most sensational and interesting for the people to hear and ones that can lift their ratings. “You remember the picture. Fifty years from now, they’ll have forgotten the war” (Wag the Dog). This quote said by Brean means that what the people see now they remember but after a few weeks or months they forget the whole story since everyday the media introduces new stories and information to the people, which they get more interested in. In the movie Brean and Motts constructed reality and made media believe in their story. They created a false war for the people to be diverted and it does work and the peoples’ mind is diverted. The team make everything look so original even the song which they created sounded older than it actually

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