Media played a vital role in changing the views of pro-war Americans to anti-war views by giving death counts, setting the stage for the anti-war movement to perform on, and publicizing leaked government information. The Vietnam War was known as the first televised war (“Vietnam Television”). Americans could watch as United States Troops fought, and the nightly news updated Americans on the death count and progress of US Troops in Vietnam (“Vietnam Television”).
While clips of brave Americans fighting in the Vietnam War were constantly being televised and politicians tried to swindle Americans into believing that the United States’ involvement in Vietnam was for a just cause, the press and media often showed the negative effects of US involvement in Vietnam through death counts. In fact, many historians feel that the total death count was around 850,000 (Siegel et. al.). Every
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This is why the anti-war movement was so successful. Everything that the anti-war movement did was broadcasted by all of the major news companies (“Vietnam Television”). One such example of the media unintentionally helping the anti-war movement was the Kent State Tragedy. Kent State, a university in Ohio, was home to a large group of anti-war student protestors (“Kent”). On May 4, 1970, while protesting the decision to invade Cambodia, 28 National Guardsmen opened fire on a group of protestors (“Kent”). Four students were killed and nine were wounded (“Kent”). The National Guardsmen had been dispatched because protestors had set the university’s ROTC (Reserve Officers' Training Corps) building on fire (“Kent”). Journalists flocked to the scene, and what followed was a nation wide furor over the unjust shooting (“Kent”). Local student-activist leaders were suddenly in the spotlight to share their views, and in a time of revolutionaries, the anti-war protestors took center
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 aftermath — No More Vietnams — is well-covered in Appy’s work. The No More Vietnam mantra is usually presented as avoiding quagmires, focusing on quick, sharp wins. Instead, Appy shows politicians have manipulated No More Vietnams into meaning greater secrecy (think Central America in the 1980’s), more over-the-top justifications (“You don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud”) and an emphasis on keeping American deaths inside the acceptable limits of the day to tamp down any public anti-war sentiment.
The Vietnam War was the most publicized war during its era; moreover this was the most unpopular war to hit the United States. All over the country riots began to raise, anti-war movement spread all over the states begging to stop the war and chaos overseas. This truly was a failure in the political side of things. For the public, all they saw was a failed attempt in a far away country. Events such as the Tet Offensive where the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong established an all out attack on key locations around Vietnam, and although the Viet Cong was virtually wiped out, this still had a large affect psychologically on the troops as well as the populist back in the United States. Another atrocity that occurred during this war was the My Lai Massacre. This was the mass murder on unarmed civilians in South Vietnam during March 16,1968. Around November 1969, the world saw this and was outraged with the killings of innocent civilians prompting and giving the public more reasons to stop the war. Although the war was very unpopular, men and women were still fighting and dying for America. Heroes such as Captain John W, Ripley of Dong Ha, Medal of Honor recipients, and overall troops that gave the ultimate sacrifice were forgotten for a brief period. As unpopular as the war was, the American people should still know the stories and good that some of these troops had done for the United States.
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.
Starting off with all the number of deaths, the article emphasizes that at the end of the Vietnam War, loss is much more tremendous than gain. The Vietnam War was in control of five U.S presidents. It was
Schreiber, E. M.. "Anti-War Demonstrations and American Public Opinion on the War in Vietnam." The British Journal of Sociology 27, no. 2 (1976): 225-236. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.rollins.edu:2048/stable/590029 (accessed March 4, 2014).
Paul Potter, president of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), held his first anti-war rally that attracted 25,000 people. The movement occurred between 1960 and 1970. Paul Potter’s speech, “The Incredible War”, was established in hopes of ending the war by creating a social movement. The only way for people to end the war is by challenging the system, creating posters, and not by having a couple marches because that wasn’t going to benefit them. “This war was mainly fought mainly by Vietnamese Communists, who were strong in the north of Vietnam.” (Britannica) The goal of the movement was to end the Vietnam War because it was taking away the American’s freedom and destroying their peace in the world. The Americans and South Vietnam were mostly involved in the movement. The movement started because Vietnam wanted to become a communist government and until then, corruption occurred.
After the Tet Offensive, more protests occurred demanding the withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam. The protestors used it as fuel and began expanding their ideas to the rest of the United States. Even Johnson’s opposing party saw it as his lack of leadership with the army. The media was able to shift the opinions of the people one way or another. With the new information from the Tet Offensive, most people switched to the side of the anti-war
it does not tell us the impact of the television address, so we do not
The majority of the country’s drama in the 1960s was a result of the Vietnam War. Many citizens weren’t happy about being at war once again, and this time, it seemed like a never ending war. As time went on the citizens grew more desperate for an end to this war. One reason that citizens were disgusted with the idea of the war was because of the Pentagon Papers. The Pentagon Papers contained private information about the Vietnam War. Daniel Ellsberg, who worked for the Department of Defense Study of the U.S. political and military involvement in the Vietnam War, got ahold of this private information. Daniel decided that what was going on wasn’t right, and we wanted the rest of the country’s citizens to know what was really going on. He copied and sent these papers to the New York Times and had them release the information for the public to read (networks). Once the citizens realized the truth about Vietnam, they were ready to start fighting for a change.
James A. Baldwin once said, “The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose” (BrainyQuote.com). In the 1960s, “the man” was youth across the country. The Vietnam war was in full force, and students across the country were in an outrage. Society needed an excuse to rebel against the boring and safe way of life they were used to; Vietnam gave them the excuse they needed. Teenagers from different universities came together and formed various organizations that protested the Vietnam war for many reasons. These reasons included protesting weapons and different tactics used in the war, and the reason the U.S. entered the war in the first place. These get-togethers had such a monumental impact on their way of life that it was famously named the Anti-War Movement. When the Vietnam War ended, The United States did not have a real concrete reason why; there were a bunch of theories about why the war ended. Through negative media attention and rebellious youth culture, the Anti-War Movement made a monumental impact in the ending of the Vietnam War.
“Photographs like the one that made the front page of the most newspapers in the world in 1972- a naked South Vietnamese child just sprayed by american napalm, running down a highway toward the cameras, her arms open, screaming with pain-- probably did more to increase the public revulsion against the war than a hundred hours of televised barbarities”(476)
The media played such an important role in the war. If it wasn't for the media, public opinion would not have changed and Riots and demonstrations would not have taken place. The media also helped pressurize President Johnson into not standing for re-elections. Which meant Nixon became the new president, who then removed all troops from Vietnam. So therefore I believe that the Media and the Tet offensive were two big factors which had a huge impact on the war.
The main purpose of that event was to let people get different information about the violence and escapism in different areas of the world for them to know and decide their right way of living. One of the instances of violence which appeared on the screen was “NBC news report in 1968 that aired a shot of South Vietnamese General Nyuyen Ngoc Loan executing a captive on a Saigon street” (The Saylor Foundation, n.d., p. 396). In the same process, television broadcast conveyed other messages regarding diversity and politics. For instance, “After the U.S. Supreme Court sanctioned women’s right to abortion in 1972, divorce rates skyrocketed during the 1970s, as states adopted no-fault divorce laws, and the change in family dynamics was reflected on television” (The Saylor Foundation, n.d., p. 397).