This paper examines the 1997 film Wag the Dog as a lens for exploring violations of public relations ethics and the mechanics of political propaganda. Drawing on the PRSA code of ethics, the paper argues that the fictional PR firm crosses a fundamental line by manufacturing news rather than merely presenting it. The analysis identifies five propaganda devices at work in the film — appeal to emotion, astroturfing, bandwagon, the big lie, and card-stacking — and connects the film's satirical premise to real-world media dynamics, including the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the Affordable Care Act debate. The paper concludes that a mutually reinforcing relationship between politicians and the media tends to prioritize simple, emotionally resonant narratives over substantive policy coverage.
Perhaps the clearest violation of the principles of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) in Wag the Dog is its essential premise: the PR firm works to create the impression that the United States is at war in order to save the reputation of the sitting president, even though the country remains at peace. The PR firm deliberately deceives the American public by manufacturing falsehoods to serve the needs of its client. Beyond suppressing truthful information, the firm actively stifles open communication by covering up the president's sex scandal through the production of false footage depicting a supposed war in Albania. The firm also collaborates with a movie producer to create fake film footage of the conflict, specifically designed to appeal to the emotions of ordinary Americans. What the public should actually be focused on — the politician's credibility — is completely displaced and reversed.
PR professionals are not supposed to lie; rather, they are expected to present information in a favorable light suited to the needs of their client. They are not supposed to manufacture war heroes who do not exist or manipulate the public with fabricated facts. There is a meaningful difference between presenting information positively and becoming directly involved in creating news from whole cloth. In the film, the PR firm becomes an enabler of presidential dishonesty. PR firms are not supposed to be the news — they are supposed to report and present it. In Wag the Dog, PR crosses the line from "spinning" stories to actively creating and managing them.
The manipulation in the film operates on multiple levels. Not only does the PR operation manipulate the media; it also manipulates ordinary people's emotions into accepting untruths, as seen when fabricated support is whipped up for the fake war hero. Through this direct PR manipulation, election results are directly affected. While PR campaigns have certainly influenced electoral wins and losses, the field's proper focus is on the presentation of a message — the message itself should not be a lie, nor should it be built on a distortion of history.
In the film, the dog's "tail" is the PR coverage, while the "dog" represents the actual substance of policy-making. In this instance, PR coverage dictates the behavior of the electorate rather than concrete, verifiable facts. In theory, the news media should encapsulate real events, with PR staff then attempting to "spin" those events to the president's best advantage. In this case, however, the spin initiates the cycle — it creates a story that the news media then picks up and reports as genuine. The media is effectively reporting the spin rather than the underlying story, and the manipulation itself becomes the news.
Ironically, the spin grows so powerful that it becomes difficult to identify which story is truly the less important one — the fake war or the sex scandal. By making the fabricated war, its invented heroes, and its manufactured songs appear so significant, the "wag" — the issue of secondary importance — becomes all-important. In this world, spin and media influence are what matter, not the material impact of events on people's lives.
Although the scenario depicted in the film is deliberately absurd, there are clear echoes of truth in its portrayal of how the media shapes what we consider newsworthy. A useful early example is the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The relentless barrage of reporting on this "sexy" story eventually generated a genuine political crisis when the president's dishonesty was investigated by an independent prosecutor. Yet the importance of the story lay not in its policy implications — the story itself, and the question of who was lying, drove the coverage. With virtually every major celebrity story, the media begins by effectively telling audiences that something is newsworthy through sheer volume of coverage, causing people to invest emotionally in events — such as the deaths of Michael Jackson or Whitney Houston — far more than they might have otherwise. A story gains appeal and urgency simply by virtue of its simplicity and the overwhelming scale of media or PR attention directed at it.
Another instructive example is the coverage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) debate. Regardless of one's position on the issue, healthcare reform is a serious matter deserving reasoned, substantive discussion. Instead of examining the law's potential impact or the reasons it was passed, the news media focused on the political "football" it generated between the administration and a Republican-dominated Congress. The story became centered on who would "win" the political struggle rather than whether the law was sound policy or would accomplish its stated goals. It was simply easier — and more compelling to audiences — to frame a highly complex piece of legislation as a partisan contest.
Even if the media has never been manipulated into covering a wholly fictitious war, it is ultimately in the business of selling journalism rather than disseminating facts. This means that reducing issues to simple terms and gravitating toward emotionally resonant stories are in the media's commercial interest, and politicians are all too willing to accommodate this dynamic. The result is a mutually beneficial arrangement: politicians emphasize partisan talking points — invoking concepts like freedom or class warfare depending on their affiliation — while the media frames debates in similarly black-and-white terms. No one's views are changed by this exchange; they are merely reinforced.
"Appeal to Emotion:" To rally support for the war, the PR operative creates a scene in which a young Albanian refugee girl rescues a beloved kitten from the rubble. Not only is the scene entirely fabricated, but even were it real, there is no inherent reason the United States should intervene in Albania simply because a girl's kitten was endangered. The image tugs at the heartstrings and accomplishes little else.
"Astroturf:" This common technique is used in politics to simulate grassroots popular support for a program — support that is actually manufactured by corporate or political interests ("Propaganda — all devices," 2014). In Wag the Dog, the supposed horrors of the war in Albania are used to generate public sympathy for the president, and an image of widespread popular support for the war is created by PR staff rather than by ordinary citizens.
"Emotion, astroturf, bandwagon, big lie, card-stacking"
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