The Media During Times of War Essay

By nature, the role of the media is to tell the people what is going on. In the case of the Vietnam war, the most important role became to inform the people ‘at home’ how the boys in Indochina were doing. The current consensus is � with the restrictions imposed on the US troops in Vietnam � that the US never had a realistic chance in the Vietnam conflict. As one Vietnam veteran puts it: it was the “politicians [who] lost the war in Vietnam, by declaring we couldn’t go into Cambodia and Laos, which is where the NVA strongholds were.” (Melnick 2002)

Let’s also keep in mind that the Vietnam War was the first war to receive such extensive media coverage ever.

     The media is often considered to be biased. The reason for this is because they do not act neutral on the things that they report on. They usually give their point of view and tend to warp the information so it’s easily digestible by the average person. This type of “nugget feeding,” can influence the judgment of some one who has no idea what is going on. The media tends to

Being in the twenty-first century, it is almost inevitable to not have media be a major aspect of one's life. With this in mind, the characters that make this possible are the news outlets who are actively present in politics and every detail that occurs within the government. Such news outlets include MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN, who over the past week have reported on the controversy over the deaths of four American soldiers who were killed by Islamic extremists in Niger. Such controversy has been receiving great attention from these news outlets due to the Trump administration delaying any sort of statement towards the attack and fatalities, especially on President Trump, who has not publicly himself said a word on behalf of this causality.

All three sources took either a neutral, minor, or highly biased position where the CBS article, the “Our Families Are Under Attack, So We Rise Up” article, and the “No Release for State Dreamer” article. While it is the essential job for the media to stay neutral, these mass media outlets are the ones that harbor the responsibility for perpetuation of misinformation due to their chosen pieces of research and evidence that they decide to integrate into their articles for all of the media to

In chapter 10 of Writing Today, by Richard Johnson-Sheehan, Charles Paine, Cathi Shaw, and Jordan Stouck, an essay titled, The CNN Effect Revisited, written by Piers Robinson, details the “CNN Effect” and contrasts the changes after the events of 9/11. Robinson explains that during the 90’s, the media had a much larger influence and impact with the United States foreign policy and would emphasise coverage on topics to push politicians to make change. If a government policy doesn’t gain the support it requires to be put into action, “[...] the news media influence increases” (P 234), while the ones that do, “[...] the influence of news media coverage is reduced.” (P 234) The media catered to their own self interests and agenda, using the audience

Media Bias has been a prevalent problem throughout history. For example in 1989 an article titled “Destruction of Warship Maine was the work of the enemy ”. Many would think this is a normal informative article however this article conveyed the idea that the destruction of the Warship was the work of the axis powers. This had been proven to be a simple accident. This is an example of pro-war bias. You can tell this because it is using the Pathos persuasive technique to make the people think that the destruction of the warship Maine was an attack to America and a threat to them personally, thus encouraging them to support the

Journalists who cover war are also putting themselves in danger just because they want to cover some parts of war that don’t even really matter to the war as a whole. According to April Thorn from rcfp.org, 15 journalists died while trying to cover the Iraq war. All of them were from different parts of the world, like Jose Couso from Spain. He died from a U.S tank firing rounds into a hotel full of innocent people like the cameraman himself. Another from Germany, was killed when an Iraqi missile was fired into a group of 3rd division U.S infantry. The journalists who work on war are putting their lives at risk for seemingly no reason.

These misperceptions are one of the reasons, why Iraq war in 2003 became an extensively discussed topic for many reasons and from many perspectives. One of them is performance of the media before and during

Until the 1980s, the control of the media was in the hands of the national government. From then, the control shifted to private outlets and by the 1990’s, there were more than fifty multinational companies who controlled it (“Mass Media”). Today, only about six major companies control the larger fraction of media in America (Williams, Par. 1). Norman Solomon wrote in the New Political Science Journal that most reporters and editors work for just a few huge companies. These journalists and editors are on the payroll for “mega-media institutions”, of which, only about six exist (Solomon 297). How much will the public learn if these companies generally control the output of information?

The role and use of media cannot be neglected or underestimated in the modern day world. Military operations are manifestation of political goals and agendas, therefore requiring efficient media portrayal to affect and convince the people back home and all around the world. A military operation not properly conveyed to the nation turn victors into oppressors, the way it happened in Vietnam War with US military forces. Also, the morale of troops is badly affected when they see the negative portrayal of media regarding the battles they are fighting for their motherland. If military commanders are not well conversant with the media working, they would not be able to counter its negative effects or respond to it in an amicable

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 Focus group is defined as a research technique that collects data through a group interaction, on a given topic from the researcher. Along with this definition are some essential components. Firstly, it states that, focus groups are research methods devoted to data collection. Secondly, it signifies the interaction of group discussion as a source of data. Lastly, it acknowledges the active role of researchers in establishing the group discussion in order to collect data (David, 1996.p.130).

     The media provides the public political issues, which sets the agenda for political discussion. In theory the media tries to attune themselves to the interest of the public, but “in most instances the media severs as conduits for agenda-setting efforts by competing groups and forces” (Ginsberg, Lowi & Weir, 1999, p. 298). To gain public support, groups and forces need media coverage to promote their ideas. However, the media has great control over which issues they televise. The issues must have media appeal or be considered newsworthy.

Around 50 million people watch CBS, ABC, or NBC every single night in order to obtain information from the day. Since the amount of people watching a news channel every night is so great, the media has had a great effect on the lives of everyone living in the United States. In our state and local government regions, each and every news channel or newspaper is going to take a certain view and stand-point on what the people say, think, and believe. Media effects are classified as direct or indirect, and the Media itself as well as the people behind the headlines can create positive as well as negative publicity. The media also has ways of going about their business and they even have their own terms for what they do, and how it should be