In the 1960s, almost every American family have a TV. As the Vietnam war started, watching the news and learned about the war become a necessary part of Americans’ life. As a result, The war is no longer fight in a far away land, but it’s a war in the living room of every American's home in very night. The Vietnam war also called “first television war.
TV and other media greatly influence the American public view of the war and even change the war itself. As the development of the TV technology, any family in 1960s could afford a TV, and TV become a main source for American’s to knew the news. Meanwhile, the development of the photography technology and audio recording technology, journalist could take more photographies and videos.
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All the News report was been motived by profit. So cover the war makes it more dramatic and more popular among citizens. And this also made the news report no longer objective. At the first stage of the war, most covers about the American soldiers were very positive. The major news television networks, such as CBS and NBC, they covered the war as the “good guys shooting Reds” stories.(Media Role in The Vietnam War Ronald H. Spector). But after the turning point of the Vietnam war, Tet Offensive in 1968, the television network describe this as the American’s military failure. Before “Tet Offensive, journalists described 62 percent of their stories as victories for the United States, 28 percent as defeats, and 2 percent as inconclusive. After Tet Offensive, 44 percent of the battles were deemed victories, 32 percent defeats, and 24 percent inconclusive (Hallin, 1986, p.161-162). This harmful the appearance of the American military a lot. After that, more and more negative news have been publicized to the public. cover “Most of these negative references included increasing drug use, racial conflict, and disobedience among the US soldiers”(Television Coverage of the Vietnam War and the Vietnam Veteran, Erin McLaughlin). With this, most of the American citizens began to think if this is a war that worth to
Beginning in the early 1960's American journalists began taking a hard look at America's involvement in South Vietnam. This inevitably led to a conflict with the American and South Vietnamese governments, some fellow journalists, and their parent news organizations. This was the last hurrah of print journalism, as television began to grow in stature. William Prochnau's, Once Upon A Distant War, carefully details the struggles of these hardy journalists, led by David Halberstram, Malcolm Browne, and Neil Sheehan. The book contains stories, told in layers, chronicling America's growing involvement in South Vietnam from 1961 through 1963.
The Vietnam War has become a focal point of the Sixties. Known as the first televised war, American citizens quickly became consumed with every aspect of the war. In a sense, they could not simply “turn off” the war. A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo is a firsthand account of this horrific war that tore our nation apart. Throughout this autobiography, there were several sections that grabbed my attention. I found Caputo’s use of stark comparisons and vivid imagery, particularly captivating in that, those scenes forced me to reflect on my own feelings about the war. These scenes also caused me to look at the Vietnam War from the perspective of a soldier, which is not a perspective I had previously considered. In particular, Caputo’s account of
The Vietnam War was a vicious conflict predominately between the United States and Australia against The Viet Cong and The North Vietnamese. Initially the public supported the war, however the American president of the time, Lyndon B. Johnson, exaggerated how easy and worldwide the war was to attract further support. When he called for “more flags” to be represented in South Vietnam only the Philippines, the Republic of South Korea, Thailand, Australia, and New Zealand indicated a willingness to contribute some form of military aid. By doing this “it enabled Johnson to portray the developing war as international to show it must be dealt with and gain support,” (Hastings, 2003). The outcome of the Vietnam War was ensured because the governments of the United States and Australia could not maintain their publics’ support due to the popular culture of the time. This was because much of the war was shown on television or other popular culture, so events like the Battle of Long Tan could be seen by families and people of all ages in their living rooms; this was the first time they could see how bad a war can actually be.
Vietnam was a highly debated war among citizens of the United States. This war was like no other with regards to how it affected people on the home front. In past war’s, the population of the United States mainly supported the war and admired soldiers for their courage. During the Vietnam War, citizens of the U.S. had a contradictory view than in the past. This dilemma of not having the support of the people originates from the culture and the time period.
People, who previously supported US intervention in the war, now see the consequences of participation. Despite support in the beginning, the polls quickly switched sides and showed that public opinion disapproved of the war. This was implemented to end American involvement in the Vietnam War. They transferred troops to South Vietnam and strengthened South Vietnam’s military ability so they could withdraw their troops.
1968, the year of the Tet Offensive, was the peak of US involvement in the war. The Tet Offensive was a series of battles between the Communist and Anti-Communist forces in South Vietnam. Although it was a victory for the United States, public support decreased due to the number of casualties and struggle to win the offensive. President Johnson, in his comments on the Tet Offensive, bashed the public opinion (doc 4). He pointed out that in terms of numbers, the US and South Vietnamese had a huge victory. His point of view was simply from a statistical standpoint. But the public saw that many Vietnamese civilians were harmed and affected by the war. The Tet Offensive was the beginning of the decline of public support for the war, as well as decline in US involvement in the war due to the public opinion. In addition, President Johnson was losing support because of his stubborn foreign policy outlook. Robert Kennedy, the Senator of New York, was contemplating a presidential run to oppose the President 's Vietnam policy. In addition, Johnson was losing democratic primaries to Senator Eugene McCarthy, who also opposed Johnson’s Vietnam policy. The public support for McCarthy showed that the American people were now against participation in the Vietnam War. Soon after the Tet Offensive, President Johnson announced a slow decrease in bombings of North Vietnam, started to
The Vietnam War certainly left a distaste in the lives of many who have been affected by the war; scholars have become increasingly interested in the interaction between war and public opinion. There have been many scholarly works published on the Vietnam War, but the issue that will be analyzed here is how public opinion changed the course of the war. The first article by Scott Gartner and Gary Segura is titled, “Race, Casualties, and Opinion in the Vietnam War,” it examined how the diverse races within America in combination with the atrocities in the war led to the formation of opinions that were similar in one race but were different in another race. The second article by Paul Burstein and William Freudenburg titled, “The Impact of Public Opinion, Antiwar Demonstrations, and War Costs on Senate Voting on Vietnam War Motions” takes a closer look on how as the war became a prolonged affair, representatives from both the Senate and the House became more influenced about the angst from their constituents regarding the war. The third article by Sidney Verba and Richard Brody is titled, “Public Opinion and the War in Vietnam,” which takes a similar approach to the first article but asks, how do the informed differ from the less-well-informed on their attitudes toward the Vietnam War? If demonstrations were credited with bringing about these changes, presumably an argument could be made that demonstrations had converted public opinion which in turn encouraged the administration to change its Vietnam policies. That is the focus of fourth and final article by E. M. Schreiber titled, “Anti-War Demonstrations and American Public Opinion on the War in Vietnam.” Central to all of these articles is how individuals consider casualties when d...
In fact, Stone sends the message that the media’s depiction of the Vietnam War was unrealistic, contrary to the real situation that was characterized by constant struggles by US soldiers and later, returning veterans (Hanley, p. 338). The perception and thesis developed by Stone about the Vietnam War is also built by his narration of the experiences and trials of individual participants in the conflict. According to Stone, these individuals suffered directly and indirectly from the war and are thus best placed to give the real picture of the happenings during and after the war.
16,000 United States service mean were killed in 1968, some criticized the government handling of the warned said that they didn't do enough. The government had said that according to body counts the United States were winning the war, but that really wasn't the case. At the end of January was marked the Tet the Vietnamese new year, and on the night of January 30th 1968, the north Vietnamese army and VC launched a countrywide attack against the United States and South Vietnamese controlled posts, villages, and cites. The attack was known was the Tet Offensive. North Vietnam expected the Tet Offensive to bring down South Vietnam government by causing South Vietnamese to rally behind them as liberators. But it FAILS! Military Tet was a failure but politically it was a huge success.
The Vietnam War was the longest and most expensive war in American History. The toll we paid wasn't just financial, it cost the people involved greatly, physically and mentally. This war caused great distress and sadness, as well as national confusion. Everyone had that one burning question being why? Why were we even there? The other question being why did America withdrawal from Vietnam. The purpose of this paper is to answer these two burning questions, and perhaps add some clarity to the confusion American was experiencing.
The Vietnam War was one of the most prolonged wars in US history. Although there were no exact dates, it is believed that US involvement lasted for around 20 years. The US went into this war hoping they could stop the spread of communism and defeat the northern Vietnamese. The battles were like nothing they had seen before and it was very difficult for the soldiers to differentiate between the enemies and civilians. To make it even more difficult for the soldiers, their “information was based on faulty intelligence”. Võ Nguyên Giáp, a northern Vietnamese general, believed that the US and the southern Vietnamese had an unstable relationship. He hoped that through the Tet Offensive the US would believe they were no longer worth defending. Fighting was done using guerrilla warfare which blurred the lines of legitimate and illegitimate killings and this had effect of bringing peoples morales down. Support for the war had always been split but this battle caused even the government to reconsider their involvement. The Tet offensive changed the US's attitude towards the Vietnam war by leading to further anti-war protests, a credibility gap in America, and for President Johnson to negotiate peace and not seek reelection.
The Effect of Mass Media on Americans during the Vietnam War When the war initially began, Dean Rusk, US Secretary of State, pointed out that: "This was the first struggle fought on television in everybody's living room every day... whether ordinary people can sustain a war effort under that kind of daily hammering is a very large question. " The us administration, unlike most governments at war, made no official attempt to censure the reporting in the Vietnam war. Every night on the colour television people not only in America but across the planet saw pictures of dead and wounded marines. Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America--not on the battlefields of Vietnam."
For nine years, the United States were hell-bent in achieving their rightful victory in Vietnam, however, destiny had different plans for them. The Tet Offensive is considered the turning point of the Vietnam Conflict because of the fact that the Vietcong and North Vietnamese Army surprised the U.S and South Vietnam with several sporadic attacks. Consequently, many effects from these attacks were expected, not only for America, but for North and South Vietnam as well. With U.S citizens’ opinions quickly turning against U.S. involvement in Vietnam, South Vietnam faced much disaster. Its government was stricken with humility because of the increased abandonment of their army, leading to the inability to protect its citizens. On the other hand, North Vietnam began accepting great amounts of land along with the power to frighten the rural population.
Argument Rather than being explained through political theories, as has been done up until now, the question of why did media scrutiny of the Vietnam War contribute to the end of that conflict by eroding domestic support for the war, yet greater media scrutiny during the War on Terror has not led to a similar outcome can be answered through historical fact. The role of media in outbreak news played a vital role in dramatic shifts of opinion during the Vietnam War. In the beginning of the war, the U.S. media was not interested in covering stories out of Vietnam with only the most breaking news covered. Elite opinions were in support of war efforts, and little attention was paid to the situations occurring in Vietnam beside the outbreak and containment
During the Vietnam War, a rift between government officials and journalists emerged. The American government felt the need, for various reasons, to censor many war developments. In an attempt to act ethically, the press fought the censors, trying their hardest to report the truth to the general public. Despite claims of bias and distortion by several prominent government officials, these journalists acted completely ethically, allowing the general public to obtain a fair, informed opinion.