Mass Media and the Vietnam War Essay

It was the first war that was openly broadcasted on television; “the horrors of war entered the homes of Americans” (WeEBLY). It was the very first time people saw footage of combat in their homes; the casualties resulting from it, from either side. Prior to this, images were very rarely ever released to the public. At first, television has a positive impact. Coverage of the war showed support for the soldiers. People liked to think that they were helping or part of the war. At the time there was no censorship, so the atrocities of war were being recorded by journalist. In 1967, 90 percent of the news on television was of the Vietnam War. Every night about 50 million people would watch. But due to the graphic imagery that was shown, example being villages being pillaged or Vietnamese people being burned alive, people would begin to lose support for the war rapidly. The turning point of the war was the Tet Offensive, which was an American victory(BOOK). But, television portrayed it as a brutal defeat. Media would state that the United States would be unable to win the war. “It is increasingly clear to this report that the only rational way out would be to negotiate, not as victims, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy and did the best they could.” (Cronkite) Despite the U.S. doing well in the war initially. After all the negative coverage, most Americans would withdraw their support for the war. This would completely destroy soldier’s moral. They no longer wanted to fight knowing that the American public did not approve of them in the slightest. This made it the most unpopular war in US

During this time period, the use of television boomed, and for the first time was depended on and trusted significantly more than newspapers. “[Even though] the coverage of the war was significant, a relatively small portion of the coverage was actually combat footage (Anderson). Although producers captured thousands of hours worth of combat footage, they could not push out all of the coverage they captured, “The purpose being not to avoid showing the ugly side of war, but rather to avoid offending families of war victims" (Hallin). The media did not intentionally try to turn america against the war, to the contrary the media saw the war necessary to national security. However, as the war continued on in vietnam and watched daily in living rooms across the country, both the american soldiers and the public became disillusioned as they did not see an end to the war

During the early years of Vietnam War the public support was high. The "fight against communist" was grounds for many public rallies to encourage and support the effort. Despite the high approval rating the US government still released crucial propaganda that displayed communist as the evil of the world. It wasn't until Nixon invaded Cambodia that many protests occurred, mostly by democratic college students that led to the US government censoring American media. During hostile times in the Vietnam War the US government fell to censoring the media in order to lower the amount of opposing riots against the government. During an age of independent journalism, however, the government was not showing the same

The Vietnam War plunged the United States in an ever-increasing dilemma of how to exit what seemed to be an unwinnable war against a formidable foe without losing honor and respect in the global community. In a comparison of two essays regarding America’s involvement in Vietnam, the authors offer different perspectives on the war and what led to an America defeat. In the first essay, the effects of the 1968 Tet Offensive are examined and what impact it had on American policy and public opinion about the war effort. Likewise, the second essay examines the role the news media played in the war effort and what effect they had, if any, on official and public opinion, domestically and internationally.

In what ways did the medium of television news shape U.S. public opinion from 1945 to 2000? In

By 1968, more than half of the American people relied on television as their principal source of news. What they saw informed, engrossed, and unsettled them. CBS Evening News anchor Harry Reasoner referred to it as “horrors and failures.” The Vietnam War dominated the network newscast as it never had before. Suddenly the war was everywhere. The impact on the American public would indeed be great. It set off a critical reaction to the war within the American media and gave greater credence to arguments against the war that a vocal protest movement had been voicing for some time. The media coverage of the Tet Offensive had a great influence on the eventual outcome of the fighting and its aftermath. Clarence Wyatt, author of Paper

The purpose of my study is to provide a defence of US propaganda in the Vietnam War. Historians, such as Caroline Page are particularly negative about the campaign, but fail to sufficiently take into account the magnitude of the task of maintaining public support for a War where American involvement was open to significant question. They also struggled as the progress of the war made it difficult to point to regular victories, and the Tet offensive was particularly destructive. Such losses were well reported by domestic and foreign media.

The coincidence of the growth of television with the first military defeat for America was used by the government to explain why the war was lost: it wasn’t because of government policy or by underestimating the enemy but because television journalism and lack of censorship that undermined the whole operation “by ‘graphic and unremitting distortion’ of the facts, pessimism, and unvarnished depiction of both Americas youthful casualties and American ‘atrocities’ inflicted on the Vietnamese.” The amount of televisions in America was on the increase; ‘In 1950, only 9 percent of homes owned a television. By 1966, this figure rose to 93 percent.’ This alone shows the sheer coverage that the news had and the potential influence that it could impose upon the minds of the people. Not only did more people have television sets in their homes but more and more people were relying on television over any other medium to obtain their news. The survey conducted by the Roper organisation for the Television Information Office in 1972 shows us that 64% of people got most of their news from television, an 8% increase from the survey conducted in 1964. Another factor in the power of television was not just the fact that it reached a wide audience, it was also the fact that people were more likely to believe what the television news said over reports in the newspaper or radio, especially if the reports were conflicting in nature. This was due to two factors; the personality who

Before the invention of Television, most people could not possibly be completely cognizant of events going on overseas or even on the other side of the country and therefore had to rely on the Presidents’ word. In 1968, the Vietnam War was at its peak. President Johnson held fast to his belief that we would be able to win so the American people continued to support him. However CBS’s Walter Cronkite decided to make a trip to the war-torn country of Vietnam to see the current situation with his own eyes. When he returned he announced to the American public that the war was hopeless and there was no way that military victory was possible. Johnson knew that the American people greatly respected Cronkite and that they would all believe the war was hopeless. So the only thing for him to do was to pull troops out of Vietnam and call the war “an honorable attempt to defend democracy.” I believe that Cronkite’s coverage of the war was a good thing because it allowed the American public to see exactly what was going on and make their own decisions about the situation. People no longer had to rely only on the President. Cronkite’s documentary was also an important deciding

Furthermore, Americans placed trust in the presence of pictures, for they could “see it happen.” Because it was a visual medium, television depicted the raw horror of war and primarily focused on the negative. In addition, media recognized the potential for television to exploit the war’s sensationalism and to capture the minds of their viewers. The Tet Offensive was noted by many intellectuals

Television, more so than any other form of communication, has been the ultimate tool of the propaganda effort. It is the trustworthiest

The Vietnam War was the first war that allowed uncensored media coverage resulting in images and accounts of horrific events that served to shape public opinion of the war like nothing that had been seen before. This portrayal by the media led to a separation between the press and the U.S. government, as much of what was reported defied the intentions of government policy. The media has fell blame by many for the result of the war, as it is widely believed that the war could not have been won under the scrutiny that came from the American people as a result of the media

The investigation assesses the media coverage of the Tet Offensive and its impact on American policy concerning the Vietnam War from 1968 until 1969. The investigation evaluates the contrast between media broadcasts and government reports of the war, the effect of the media on the American public, and the effect of American public opinion on President Lyndon B. Johnson’s course of action. Two of the sources, Vietnam and America: A Documented History by Marvin E. Gettleman, Jane Franklin, Marilyn Young, and H. Bruce Franklin, and The “Uncensored War”: The Media and Vietnam by Daniel C. Hallin are examined.

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 debates over the role of media in the war. The have been various criticisms over the American News Media’s actions and influences on the outcome of the war. The debate is embedded on the particular political assumptions perceived across the

“A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth” – Joseph Goebbels, German Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. This is the exact words of Nazis most famous propagandist in using media as a mass weapon of propaganda and mind control. Could you imagine Germany in 1930s, without Television channel, without the Internet, without every mobile device in your palm, what channel of information will you get? Of course, newspapers, flies, images, celebrities were used as tools for propaganda purposes, designed to provoke a reaction, and ultimately, a form of control over their citizen. Nowadays, with all the advanced of technologies, information can reach everyone in every corner of the Earth, the message is delivered in the subtlest ways, without people’s conscious, has shaped everyone’s decision, or at least shape their behavior toward the decision that the orchestrator want the audience to perceive. With the booming of internet, information sharing seamlessly, we must ask ourselves, the role of media in conveying, shaping the society that we are living in. Let look at few examples of U.S propaganda machine, and later, the particular case of fish sauce in Viet Nam back in October 2016.