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 accounts of horrific events that helped to change public opinion of the war like nothing it had ever been. This depiction by the media led to a separation between the United States government and the press; much of what was reported flouted the intentions of government policy. The media had received a tremendous amount of blame for the outcome of the war; as a result of media coverage American people were subjected to scrutiny and protest and were plunged into a state of unrest.
“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.” (MARSHALL MCLUHAN, Montreal Gazette, May 16, 1975)
This quote clearly reflects the intensity of the repercussions that American media had on the war. But what kind of propaganda could cause such an extraneous level of protest and objection by such a large population? The United States military in Vietnam was the best educated, best trained, best disciplined and most successful force ever fielded in the history of American arms. Why then, did they receive such bad press, and why was the public’s opinion of them so twisted? Television news came of age in the eye of Vietnam. By the mid 1960...
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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: A Concise International History is a strong book that portrays a vivid picture of both sides of the war. By getting access to new information and using valid sources, Lawrence’s study deserves credibility. After reading this book, a new light and understanding of the Vietnam war exists.
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
Fussell, Paul. "Vietnam." The Bloody Game: An Anthology of Modern War. Ed. Paul Fussell. London: Scribners, 1991. 651-6.
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.
"Overview of the Vietnam War." Digital History. Digital History, n.d. Web. 20 Mar. 2014. .
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...
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."
Government had a hard time keeping up with censoring what any American could potentially see when they tuned into the evening news. With the fast-paced increase in television sets in American homes, came a lack of adequate government control. The multitude of graphic images and videos from Vietnam that were being broadcasted in the living rooms of so many families is what made the Vietnam war the “Living-Room War.” Hundreds of thousands of NBC viewers watched Col. Nguyen Ngoc Loan shoot his captive in a Saigon street. It was violence like this that heavily impacted America’s feelings toward the war. “Vietnam was a journalistic milestone: according to Daniel C. Hallin … it was the first war in which reporters were routinely accredited to accompany military forces, yet not subject to censorship”(Blumenthal Web). This lack of censorship is what caused America to see the truth of the vietnam
Anderson, D. (2002). The Columbia guide to the Vietnam War. New York: Columbia University Press.
“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)
Since World War II, forms of mass media have significantly changed. The majority of information that was disseminated during World War II was in forms of newspapers, radios, and photos. Over 1,500 cameramen documented World War II with either pictures or video for the world to see (Schickel). A scene in the documentary, “Shooting War: World War II combat cameramen”, a Marine combat cameramen named Richard Brooks asked Lieutenant General Holland Smith ”Mad”, “General, is there a way that we can carry a side arm because we only have our cameras?” the General responded, “I don’t care if the cameras have no film, I want the cameras there in front of you and the cameras there at all times because those are the eyes of the world” (Schickel). The importance of media was one of the efforts that the government wanted to use in order to persuade the American people into supporting the war. A photographer named Jimmy Hare said, "Photographs seem to be the only thing the War department is really afraid of”(Neuman82). The enemi...
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”).
Willbanks, James H. "The Real History of the Vietnam War." ARMCHAIR GENERAL Nov. 2007: 54-67. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 3 Apr. 2014.