Media Manipulation In Barry Levinson's Wag The Dog

Political satire first became popularized in the early 2010s with the premiere of the Colbert Report, a satirical comedy that made political news more interesting to other demographics and made it more accessible. With this new influx of youth participation in politics, there was worry of the political satire swaying the opinions of the youth demographics; however, there was no causation seen when looking at the actual statistics of the active youth in the political conversation and those who are regular viewers of these political comedy programs. In response to the concern of these programs swaying the political opinions of youth brackets, the history of the single sided satire was necessary to understand how the political balance is functional. Finally, we were able to conclude that it was the democratic party in need of resurgence, prompting the creation of this modern news form, causing a boom in political participation from youth demographics. With this new influx of youth participation, the United States political scape has been thriving.

This leads regular citizenry to support the war effort, unaware of the truth: the other enemies may not even exist. Operation Northwoods (1962) was a proposed false flag operation aimed at creating public support for a war against Cuba by blaming it for terrorist acts that would actually be perpetrated by the U.S. Government. A recent example are the famous weapons of mass destruction never found in Iraq. Mass mind control: press and propaganda Winston works editing and rewriting historical records to support the INGSOC causes. He has to alter facts, fabricate false information, print it as war propaganda and destroy the evidence of his tampering without questioning his job.

It is basic psychology that people usually align themselves with news, friends, and sources that confirm their beliefs, which is confirmation bias. Political parties rely heavily on confirmation bias especially from the news because the media usually discuss issues related to a two-party system as opposed to issues based on merit. The political parties view this and use it to their advantage because it divides the debate into Republicans versus Democrats. As Kim from IVN mentions a study from the Pew Research

Ideology as common sense is forcing people to operate with a system of traces that they have no inventory for. His theory is that perpetuating an ideology works best when the people you are trying to control do not know what they don’t know. The people know part of the story, but they do not know the whole story. This theory of ideology explains why the ideology of toxic masculinity was able to spread so far and so deeply into our culture. The media uses the now mythic symbols of masculinity to enforce their ideologies.

Also, there was the video of the ruins of district thirteen, replayed every year, with a bird appearing near the end of the clip, which gave hope for a better life. The media was always a crucial part of the books as the citizens of Panem were brought to manipulate the public into thinking a certain way, and the protagonists had to learn to use the media to their advantage. Outside of the Capital, many of the citizens were not so easy to manipulate, but they only knew what was shown to them. If Katniss were to follow Coady’s advice in conformity based on the ideas people have, Katniss would have been more suspicious of what is shown to them, much more than just wondering why there is a repeated clip of the ruins of district thirteen. This too would have raised enough questions to start a

I think these governments did it either to badmouth another country or to tell the public what they wanted the public to know. It sparked an interest in me as the government's pride or nationalism which made them go to significant lengths to show the public what was right and what was wrong, labelling countries and letting the public know that enlisting to fight against this country was good as they were bad and if you fought against them then you would be a hero. Generally speaking the government would say that if you enlisted that your sacrifice would be rewarded. Due to the government's influence, people were buying books, newspapers, paintings and pictures of propaganda without a thought that the government were misleading them. Without the government controlling propaganda, the British public would have known what was happening, which would lead to people not wanting to enlist.

Murrow Political Bias in media is one of the most rampant examples of bias in terms of its influence on mindsets of people. The statement above by Edward R. Murrow makes total sense in today’s world. Political Bias is at its peak during elections. Public has to vote for candidates and much information about the candidates comes from media. Media, during these times, takes this advantage.

We have the social media to blame for many stories that aren’t told truthfully. The sad part is that some people believe if you read it on Facebook or twitter it must be true. Every day the media is tweaking stories to make their ratings go up so more people will watch them and bring in more money. There are many stories written in print that are true from someone’s point of view but more than likely another person who witnessed or lived through the same event would tell the story with a whole different twist. A major story that was reported with misleading information was a news story over "Fukusima 50".

Ideology as common sense is forcing people to operate with a system of traces that they have no inventory for. His theory is that perpetuating an ideology works best when the people you are trying to control do not know what they don’t know. The people know part of the story, but they do not know the whole story. This theory of ideology explains why the ideology of toxic masculinity was able to spread so far and so deeply into our culture. The media uses the now mythic symbols of masculinity to enforce their ideologies.

However, if we do not want to be like certain celebrities, we still want to look at these celebrities and think on how we would never want to be like them. Burr states that Hollywood made their actors and characters is movies more realistic so that we would want to either be just like them or become better than them. In the end of Burr’s excerpt, he asks many interesting questions to the reader. Why do we go through the obsession and who are we? What kind of people we are and why do we go through so much effort to see celebrities in their works, just to go home and talk about their flaws on social media?