The media is manipulated in all manners – for example, through professional public relations (PR), and covert and overt government propaganda which disseminates propaganda as news. Thus, what are often deemed as credible news sources can often knowingly or unknowingly be pushing political agendas and propaganda. Media management may also be used to promote certain political policies and ideologies. According to Anup Shah (2006), when it comes to propaganda for purposes of war, for instance, professional public relations firms can often be involved to help “sell” the war. Some techniques used by governments and parties as well as individuals with hidden agendas include; disinformation or partial information reported as news or fact without attributing sources that might be questionable, or public relations firms feeding stories to the press without revealing the nature of the information with the intention of creating a public opinion, for example, to support a war.
In the movie “Wag the Dog”, the above mentioned tactics to “sell” the war successfully managed to whip the nation into frenzy – in order to distract the people of the United States of America from the sexual misdemeanor of their President with an underage girl, Winifred Ames (Anne Heche), one of the President's top aides, calls in spin doctor, Brean (Robert De Niro) who decides to fake a war against Albania. It is extremely disturbing that his motto, in the movie, was “Change the story, change the lead,” implicating that the Agenda-Setting Theory was very much in play. Soon, carefully-controlled leaks to the press make it to the news, and everyone is reporting about the outbreak of hostilities between the US and Albania, even though no troops have been moved and no gun shots have been fired. Actual battles don't matter, however, because, as the attitude goes: if it's on television, it must be real.
...
No comments:
Post a Comment