Su Ann: Tagline!

"Wag the Dog" has three taglines!

1. A comedy about truth, justice and other special effects.
2. Why does a dog wag its tail? Because a dog is smarter than its tail. If the tail was smarter, it would wag the dog.
3. A Hollywood producer. A Washington spin-doctor. When they get together, they can make you believe anything.

my favorite is the first one.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

good luck for presentation tomorrow!

:)

Su Ann: More about the Art of Media Manipulation

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.

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Su Ann: Movie Quotes!

Motss: The President will be a hero! He brought peace.
Brean: But there was never a war.
Motss: All the greater accomplishment.

Brean: What's the thing people remember about Gulf War? A bomb falling down a chimney. Let me tell you something, I was in the building where we filmed that with a 10-inch model made out of Legos.

Motss: Is that true?

Brean: Who the hell's to say?

Ames: Why Albania?

Brean: Why not?

Ames: What have they done to us?

Brean: What have they done for us? What do you know about them?

Ames: Nothing.

Brean: See? They keep to themselves. Shifty. Untrustable.

Brean: We're not gonna have a war; we're gonna have the appearance of a war.

Motss: I'm in show business, why come to me?

Brean: War is show business. That's why we're here.

Brean: ... and it's (the President's prolonged stay in China) certainly NOT about the B3-Bomber.

Levy: There is no B3-Bomber.

Brean: I just said that! There is no B3-Bomber! I don't know how these rumors get started!

Su Ann: "Wag the Dog"

cover of the movie's DVD.

(lifted from Google, obviously i didn't buy the DVD. i download-ed it. HAHAHA. what! i couldn't find a copy at the stores! don't give me the whole "oh-you-wouldn't-download-a-car-now-would-you?" guilt trip. i would if i could.)

this is Kirsten Dunst. in the movie, while in the process of "faking the Albania war", Brean and Motss filmed fake footages of a helpless Albanian girl running away from the chaos. in the above picture, they couldn't find a white cat to act, so they replaced the cat with a packet of chips, and later digitally edited it to insert the white cat. if you can't tell yet, this movie is filled to the brim with sarcasm and satire, poking fun at nearly everything from the abuse of power by political leaders, to fickle public belief and most importantly, the art of media manipulation. the most alarming thing about "Wag the Dog" is that it shows how easy it is to whip up the American populace into a frenzy using patriotism as a dangling carrot.

:)

Su Ann: The Reason Behind The Title

'Why does a dog wag its tail?

Because a dog is smarter than its tail.

If the tail were smarter, the tail would wag the dog.'

Barry Levinson's film Wag the Dog' thus begins with these opening credits. As usual, there are various interpretations as to what it means. Some suggest that the dog symbolises public opinion, and that the tail represents the media; others suggest that the dog is the media, and the tail is political campaigns. But the most likely opinion is that the dog is the people and that the tail is the government. In short, the expression “the tail wagging the dog” refers to any case where something of greater significance (such as a war) is driven by something less (such as a sex scandal).

http://www.philipcoppens.com/wagthedog.html

there you go! everyone stop laughing at my title!

kay bye.

:)

#1 Su Ann - Proposal

TITLE:
MEDIA MANIPULATION: A CASE STUDY OF “WAG THE DOG”.

PROBLEM STATEMENT:
The movie “Wag the Dog” illustrated the power of media manipulations of certain political issues and its’ implications and society’s acceptance.

BACKGROUND:
Media communication value is seen as an exploitation of the people’s fickle public opinion, and unquestioning absorption of media propaganda. By employing the use of the 1997 movie, ‘Wag the Dog’, the paper analyses media manipulation methods previously identified in the industry as being an important contribution towards political spin. The movie “Wag the Dog” revolves around a political spin doctor who enlists the help of a movie director to distract the American public from the President’s sex scandal by manufacturing a war against Albania. The movie portrays and reflects the abuse of power by the media and politicians; most importantly, the movie show casts the art of media manipulation and fickle public belief and opinion.

OBJECTIVES:
1. To identify the agenda and key elements prevalent in the movie, “Wag the Dog.”

2. To analyze the implications in the movie economically and socially due to the agenda as stated above.

3. To investigate the media ethical representation of the movie.

RESEARCH QUESTION:
1. What are the agenda and key elements prevalent in the movie “Wag the Dog”?

2. What are the economy and social implications due to the agenda in the movie?

3. What are the media’s ethical representations of the movie?

METHODOLOGY:
Qualitative Research
- Case Studies and Interpretive
Intensive inquiries about single events, people or social units – movie “Wag the Dog.” Attempts to look for themes of media manipulation that are helpful to interpret and understand the case.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK:
Kalyani Suresh (2003), “this theory puts forth the ability of the media to influence the significance of events in the public's mind. The media set the agenda for the audience's discussion and mentally order and organize their world. The theory is consistent with a "use and gratification" approach.” That said, the movie “Wag the Dog” is very much related to my chosen theory because the government and media worked together towards decreasing the significance of the President’s affair with an underage girl, and shifting the public’s attention to the so-called war in Albania. McCombs and Shaw assert that the agenda-setting function of the media causes the correlation between the media and public ordering of priorities. The people most affected by the media agenda are those who have a high need for orientation.

LIMITATION OF RESEARCH:
The scope of the research is limited due to time-constraints; it discourages the further expansive search of information for this topic. Accessibility of information regarding this topic is hard to obtain because not much research has been previously conducted on it.

...

okay bye :P