War and Media
Perhaps one of the greatest impacts on the lives of the peoples of Earth is that of our own self-destruction; of wars, death, and decay. It is therefore very reasonable to suppose that at the forefront of these events would be the media, capitalizing on their ability to bring to the people, those less immediately afflicted by war, news and developments concerning the actual war, statistics, and shocking images from inside the various war zones. Though many may think that the purpose of this type of reporting is for the intellectual benefit of the viewers, some have argued that it is instead a sort of real-life “reality television show.”
Tom Engelhardt wrote in an article entitled “The Gulf War As Total Television,” found in The Nation, that the Gulf War “…proved promising exactly because the boundaries between military action and media event broke down in such a way that military planning could become a new form of media reality.” (Engelhardt, 108) If one follows this dissertation, we seem to pick up on how the Gulf War was actually a sort of ploy by the government and the newly conglomerated media industries to boost ratings and provide high-rated entertainment as opposed to news coverage. It is known that at this point in history the broadcast industry was in very real danger of falling through, even though they had mass financial support by various companies across the US, due to the cable industry and the then newly formed Fox network. This makes a lot of sense when you look at how the broadcast networks were planning taking back the industry, by getting in with the government and making the production of a lifetime.
“The history of the war has always been suppressed in the national...
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Cohen, Jeff. “Stenographers to Power: The Gulf War As a Case Study in Media Coverage.” Stenographers to Power. Ed. David Barsamian. Monroe ME: Common Courage Press, 1992. 139-162.
Engelhardt, Tom. “The Gulf War As Total Television.” The Reference Shelf: The Media & the Public, Vol. 66, Num. 5. Ed. Casey Ripley, Jr. New York: H.W. Wilson Company, 1994. 108-115.
Johnson, Peter. “Media, War and Scrutiny.” USA Today 17 Oct. 2001. 34 pars. 19 Nov. 2002 <http:// www.usatoday.com/life/2001-10-17-media.htm>
Kennedy, William V. The Military and the Media. Connecticut: Praeger, 1993.
Neuharth, Al. “Media Mesmerize with Attack Coverage.” USA Today 13 Sept. 2001. 14 pars. 19 Nov. 2002 <http://www.usatoday.com/news/comment/columnists/neuharth/2001-09-14-neuharth.htm>
In times of War, the media plays a crucial role both in reporting, monitoring and giving updates. During the Vietnam War of 1955-1975, the American press played crucial roles of reporting until it ended up shifting its tone under the influence of occurrence of some events like the Tet Offensive, the My Lai Massacre, the bombing of Cambodia and leaking of Pentagon papers resulting into lack of trust in the press (Knightly 1975). From the beginning of the war up to present times there have been undying
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The Impact of the Media on the Vietnam War This essay will discuss to what degree the media can be blamed for the United States’ loss in the Vietnam conflict ending 1975. It will be based predominantly on key written resources on the subject, but it will also contain - by means of an interview - certain first-hand observations from a Vietnam War veteran. For the sake of conciseness, and in order to focus the bulk of the content on the main topic, this essay will make certain assumptions
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Mass Media and the Vietnam War Many people at the beginning and before the Vietnam War were in confusion on whether going to war was such a good thing; this mainly consisted of the American public. By the time it had reached the peak of the war much of the American public had swung towards being for the war. This was mainly due the mass media at the time, one integral part of the mass media that often swayed public opinion was television, it proved to be such an effective method of communication
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alter the way that the media approaches such tragedies. It has been said that the Vietnam War started right after the media started to be an influential piece of everyday life. More American’s were watching television for their daily fix of news, partially because it did not require them to spend hours reading, and also because it allowed them to see images of different events happening around the world. The media coverage of the Vietnam War changed the way that we view media, changed the way the networks
During the Vietnam War, Americans were greatly influenced by the extensive media coverage of the war. Before the 1960’s and the intensification of the war, public news coverage of military action was constrained heavily by the government and was directed by Government policy. The Vietnam War uniquely altered the perception of war in the eyes of American citizens by bringing the war into their homes. The Vietnam War was the first U.S uncensored war resulting in the release of graphic images and unaltered