The film Wag the Dog showed the audience a humorous interpretation of the powerful tools and techniques public relations can use.

It’s scary that the American people could believe a war was happening that wasn’t happening.  It shows what great control and power the mass media has over the American people.  It would be incredibly difficult to deceive the American people now due to the invention of the internet.  People can communicate instantly from around the world.  It would be easily discovered that a war was not really happening.

When the short film was made showing a girl running away from the war, it presented another scary thought.  When the media airs small clips of something, it can be easily taken out of context.  The lighting, sounds, and other affects could easily be altered to make something look worse than what it really is.  The raw emotion of the scene could easily cloud the perception of many people.

People are prisoners of the media.  We can easily fall for convincing schemes and propaganda.  We should strive to stay well informed, research information ourselves, and use the tools like the internet to help us in making our decisions.