Media Manipulation in The Hunger games vs. current election

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Media Manipulation in The Hunger Games
Propaganda is the spreading of misleading information with the purpose of promoting a particular point of view in a community. Prolific writers like Suzanne Collins never write literature materials just for entertainment purpose. The content of their materials has a deeper meaning that reflects the issues in society. The hunger games demonstrate the role of media in spreading propaganda and conceal the most important political issues affecting society. In today’s society, the media has its way of manipulating information to influence the behavior of civilians towards some political regimes. Hunger games political development is embedded on propaganda spread by the press.
The media can use propaganda to shift the attention of the public. Even though the media is supposed to be “the public’s eyes and ears” by providing reliable information to the public, the game of hunger presents a scenario where the media would only provide information that favors one side of the whole story. The media succeeds by giving a piece of information that would change public opinions or cause rebellion. Furthermore, they make the missing piece of information to appear rather irrelevant to the citizens. For example, people in Panem exclaim that they wonder why social information about people in the districts was restricted even though they seem harmless (Collins, 246). Furthermore, citizens have regarded such information useless, as it would not contribute to their income (50).

Similarly, the media influences public concerns I politics. For instance in the most recent presidential nomination way before the elections, the media diverted public attention towards Republicans by giving so much of attention to Donald Trump. By then the public considered it irrelevant to question why candidates like Ben Carson were unpopular. The media psychologically shifts the attention of the public to the candidate they deem deserved attention. Similarly, no one would think it was important to ask on the frequency at which candidates as if Sanders and Carson appeared in the newspapers and television compared to Clinton and Trump (Stray, N.P). To date, nobody thinks that it was important to give all the candidates an equal amount of media attention. Media that diverted American attentions towards Clinton and Trump even before official presidential debates began.
The role of media in creating mistrust
A population divided over the ideas is less likely to reason together and listen to the two sides of the story. Divided groups are easily manipulated into playing the tricks of a political regime. In the hunger games, the media employed various methods in dividing people. One of the methods used was framing and framing. According to Iyengar and Kinder (136), priming is a tool utilized by media to concentrate on a particular way of life while ignoring the other. The media had perfected the art of manipulating audiences to rate some issue more important than main problems. The provided images suggesting that Katniss and Peeta were lost in romantic concerns to convince the crowd that no one could be held responsible for their attempt to eat toxic berries (Collins, 135). This trick was used to divert public attention given romance rather than rebellion.
Just like in hunger games, the media magnified minor political agendas of presidential candidates to create some level of mistrust among citizens. Ideally, the line that Americans view Democrats and Republican does not exist. Even before the party nominations, the media had forged a way to make Americans think about a presidential candidate based on the party a candidate represents. American had a chance to analyses on the achievement of the previous presidents and point at the missing political idea that the next president should place focus. Instead, people turned the argument into gender and party mode of reasoning. Furthermore, after the American elections a few statistics covered media houses on the beliefs of outside countries on American presidential election. To this moment, I believe outside world statistic, is a minor issue instead of reminding citizens that despite whom they voted, every American citizen remains an American citizen?
One common platform for propaganda in hunger games is the social network. The described system in hunger games comprises of individuals and groups who were termed as opinion leaders. The propagandist propagated rumors either deliberately or innocently (Collins, 215). Evidently, the social network also acted as a source of information for the main media and institutions of government. The primary function of the social network was to scale the public feelings and sometimes manipulate people using feelings. Katniss and Peeta were vital participants of district 13-capital network. Propaganda spread very fast in the District 13 social networks. Individuals who give attention to rumors spread through the networks and take sides.
Likewise, today, social media websites dominates most of the current issues in the United States and many countries around the world (Tremayne and Minnie 143-159). The most heated debate over ideologies takes a course on the social media. Like in the Hunger games, people argue based on feelings and not objectivity. Most the discussions on the social media are speculations. For instance, people used Facebook and Twitter to try to predict the social-economic outcomes of America if one candidate wins. Out of these speculations, people engage in heated debates that creates disagreements. Apparently, media house present these statistics to t6he public. The media houses participate in enhancing propaganda over the social media by asking hypothetical questions inform of bid questions. All these media stations are aware that there must be varying views in public yet they still present the statistics. The media has learned the trick of manipulating feelings in the social networks, and they are maximizing its fruits.
Use of entertainments and games
The media has glorified entertainment at the expense of security. The hunger games that citizens watched for entrainment caused more harm than good. However, presenters made it appear much of entertainment than the loss of life in the arena. Every district offered two young participants who were bound to either kill someone or die in the process. The Mayor of District 12 says that it was both times of mourning and a time of thanksgiving (Collins, 19) after the death of children. In other words, the mayor was not embarrassed to admit that it was fun watching the kids kill each other. The comments are meant to reduce the gravity of mistake and magnify the non-existing importance of rules mistakes.
America and the entire world are not immune from this dirty trick. People use cartoons and animations to make fun of highly risky matters. For example, the media presented funny photos of Michele and Melania over plagiarism speech (Thompson, N.p). The public found it funny and entertaining like the media wanted. However, Americans ignored the feelings of Melania as a private citizen with emotions.
Suzanne Collins mirrors our society today as victims of media propaganda. Like the hunger games, these propagandas trap and controls public thoughts in our society. Suzanne Collins wishes to remind the public that the only way out this manipulation is uniting and identifying the common enemy.

Work cited
Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. New Delhi: Scholastic Press, 2014. Print
Iyengar, Shanto and Donald R. Kinder. “More Than Meets the Eye: TV News, Priming, and Public Evaluations of the President.” Public Communication and Behavior. Vol. 2. Ed. George Comstock. Orlando, 1986. 135-171. Print
Stray, Jonathan. “How Much Influence Does The Media Really Have Over Elections? Digging Into The Data”. Nieman Lab. N.p., 2016. Web. 3 Dec. 2016.
Thompson, Krissah. “Michelle Obama Addressed The Melania Trump Plagiarism Mess On Colbert Last Night”. Washington Post. N.p., 2016. Web. 3 Dec. 2016.
Tremayne, M. and M. Minooie. “Using Social Media To Analyze Candidate Performance During Televised Political Debates”. Electronic News 9.3 (2015): 143-159. Web.