Essay #2: Write a two-page, double-spaced (800+ word) film review essay. You can certainly write more than two pages.
Wag the Dog
Due by the end of week #8 (May 26, 2024)
Late submission is not acceptable;
Email submission is not acceptable;
Put your EOU ID number on the paper. Your real name should NOT appear on the paper anywhere.
The question to be addressed in this essay is related to the course content covered in Chapters 5, 6, and 7: The presence of mass media in our political life has profoundly altered how we conduct our democracy at the peril of civic disengagement.
Prompt:
George Orwell once outraged modern society by asserting that all art is propaganda. Granted, our democracy is still fortunate enough to have a free press hinged on objective journalism instead of propagandistic art (like the USSR’s). We can safely assume that our democratic conversation thrives on staunch objective journalism. The “Great Wall” between news and propaganda (art) is simply insurmountable.
But Wag the Dog/Don’t’ Look Up tells a different story. Political insiders quietly employ public relations techniques (or propaganda art if I may) to sneak into the sanctuary of objective journalism. The “Great Wall” is broken, now we see journalists can be seduced to the bed of publicists and the general public is so gullible. The dog can be wagged. Our government is so addicted to media spin to the extent that the entire nation becomes delusional.
Both films were intended to be political satire (like Network). Yet, sadly, the handling of the Lewinsky scandal, the Kosovo War, 9/11, Iraq WMD, the “China threat,” Covid-19, and the Ukraine “war” unfolded almost exactly as predicted in the film. So, can I give Orwell’s assertion a little twist: Whilst not all art is propaganda, all propaganda certainly uses state-of-the-art arts.
Why? Isn’t it because misrepresentation and ideology must be wrapped in a fabulous package so as not to stink?
What do you think?
Please employ the theories/concepts you learned from this class to analyze the dystopian future of our mediated democracy.
Follow the instructions for essay #1 to format your manuscript.
Category: MEdia theory
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“The Manipulation of Media in a Dystopian Democracy: A Review of Wag the Dog and Don’t Look Up”