The Vietnam War was a conflict that had taken place in the countries of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from September 1959 to April 1975. The Vietnam War was triggered by the fact that the United States feared the spread of communism throughout Vietnam.
The country of Vietnam was in upheaval as the communist party was trying to spread it forces from the Northern part of the country to the Southern part. The United States then entered the war to prevent the spread of communism as their policies of containment detailed to combat any uprisings of communism.
My paper focuses on the Nixon Years of the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War was the first major war to broadcast by television and covered by the media. It has been said that the only reason why the United States had ever won any of its previous war before Vietnam War was because the media did not cover it.
The Vietnam War changed people's opinions of war forever. Every day media organizations were showing images and photos that depicted Americans dying in war and the Vietnamese either dying or losing their houses and livelihoods due to the bombing that was going on.
By just watching a few minutes of that video, you can see just how bad the atrocities of the Vietman War was.
By the time that Richard Nixon took office in 1969, the Vietnam War seemed to be worse than ever. Roughly 300 US soldiers were dying a week in Vietnam and during his campaign for President, Nixon declared that he would do all he could to end the war unlike his preceddessors had done.
Nixon also stated the media's coverage of the Vietnam was overly biased. This is where I began my research for my paper. After looking through sources during the Nixon years of the Vietnam War, there is certainly a case that could be made that the media tended to give a bias reporting of the war. I wanted to focus a good portion on not only how the media portrayed the Vietnam War biasly but also why they did and the ethics behind their actions.
Another aspect that my paper looks at is the question on just how much the media's coverage of the Vietnam War sparked protests and other uprisings against the Vietnam War throughout the country by regular citizens.
The protests that happened at Kent State University on May 4, 1970 was probably the famous protest that took place against the Vietnam War. The students that organized that protest were arguing against the American invasion of Cambodia which just a few days prior, President Nixon had announced his plans of the invasion.
I wanted to focus the protests against the Vietnam and the media's coverage of them as a whole and not just focus on one single protest. I also detailed on the differences of how the media covered the war versus the protest and if either the coverage were shown to be more favorably than the other.
Through all of this media coverage of both the war and the protests against the war. President Nixon always tried to control how news were being reporting knowing full well that to win the war, he needed to gain support for the war at home in America.
This is a great topic that I've periodically done some reading on. A useful resource that you might want to look into in the future--if this still holds your interest--is a book I read for my study. It is by Todd Gitlin, who details the early history of the SDS movement when they were specifically protesting the war (they were the first group ever to organize a large Vietnam protest). It also talks specifically of Nixon and the counter-inauguration that was held after he was elected. It offers a lot of great points, including SDS charging that the media would depict draft card burning more negatively than the burning villages of My Lai and elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteYou brought up the point about how hawkish politicians were saying that the media ruined the war effort in Vietnam. Are you planning on coming to that conclusion as well? There is plenty of evidence to the contrary too, which you might want to address. Noam Chomsky covers this in his landmark book with Edward Herman, Manufacturing Consent.
The two say that "it is widely held that the media "lost the war" by exposing the general population to its horrors, and by unfair, incompetent, and biased coverage reflecting the "adversary culture" of the sixties (169). Even though:
-The media weren't framing the war as something to get out of, but rather as a tactics game, like: what works best? What to try next?
- rarely did the media ever put a face on the opposition or consult the "enemy." (177)
- it was rare for the media to report on missteps taken by the US government, like when it would undermine the Geneva Accords.
- the My Lai massacre was ignored
Those are just a few examples. But it might help to analyze both claims about media action or inaction during the war.
Justin-I think you did a great job with presenting your paper here. To be honest I have never been up to par with most people's understanding and knowledge of the Vietnam War, maybe because I just never listened in middle school history class! I have obviously learned a lot about it in school now and what not, but I think you did a great job of sparking my interest. It is obviously very important to understand the Vietnam War and the ways it was portrayed in the media.
ReplyDeleteThe videos were very informative and made me want to learn and understand more about the War. When you discussed about Kent State, I was actually familiar with the protests here, as I have been learning about them more recently.
The video of Nixon does an informative job of allowing us to see how he tried to control the way news was reported.
You state, "Nixon also stated the media's coverage of the Vietnam was overly biased." I found this really important because often media coverage can be bias and it is important to get the real facts and not have a reporter lead towards one side or another. I think that by incorporating this into your paper, it will add a lot to the understanding of how media was viewed then and how it can be viewed today.
Good job!
Justin, I'm curious, how did the news media portray the anti-war protests? Also, you said that you wanted to look into how the news media portrayed the war and why. What did you find? Were there any familiar narratives that played out in their reports?
ReplyDeleteI think you picked a great topic Justin. I am doing my thesis on the ethics of government public relations and propaganda during War-time and I haven't found much on communication during the Vietnam war besides the typical rhetoric about the strained media-government relationship during that time. There are major comparisons drawn between the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with that of Vietnam. If you felt there was a major lesson learned from how the government controlled war information during the Vietnam era, what would it be? Also, are you interested in only the coverage of protests from a journalistic standpoint or are you interested in how the government (Nixon) framed the protests (with political rhetoric and press statements, etc)
ReplyDeleteDugan -- I found that this topic was also very interesting and a great topic to learn more about during my research.
ReplyDeleteI did find evidence that the media was trying to play the card of always looking for the correct answer when it came to the Vietnam War. I thought most of the time while the media was being critical of the war that it seemed like they were bias because they constantly looking for the hard answers to the war.
To contrast your comment that you made that media never put a face on the enemy. I did find one source that really put an idea on just who the enemy was. They were talking about a battle strictly between the North and South Vietnamese with no US forces involved. The media showed these battles as being very brutal and deadly. They even actually showed and talked about dead bodies. The media would not however, show the wounded or deceased American soldiers for obvious reasons.
Amie -- As I stated, the Vietnam War was the first televised war. I thought throughout my research that the media today is very much similar to the media back then on how they use dramatic stories, etc.
Rachel -- I found that the media just portrayed the anti-war movement sympathically but very critically. I don't think they showed the protesters to be legitimate (sp?) but still showed that they had a reason to not trust their government.
I also found that, similar to the coverage of the war, the media focused on a lot of anti-war movements that were violent. They were a lot of other anti-war movements that were peaceful but they didn't show theses stories a lot.
John -- I thought that the comparisons between Vietnam and Iraq/Afghanistan were serious as well.
I hate to say this and I might be thinking of this because of the timing. But constantly Nixon would be giving a speech or saying something to the media about his withdrawal strategy. It seemed Nixon had a new idea or timeframe for withdrawal every few months. I am worried that if Obama's withdrawal of Afghanistan strategy hits a few bumps along the way and if Obama is forced to re-adjust his withdrawal strategy. Then maybe there might be similarities of how Nixon continously harped on withdrawal with no results to possibly Obama doing or looking like he is doing the same.