How did television affect the Vietnam War?
The portrayal of Vietnam-era troops on television also challenged the racially homogeneous images of the troops during the two World Wars. Television helped Vietnam, America’s first fully integrated war, transform the perception of the American military.
How did the Vietnam War affect American public opinion?
The Vietnam Conflict created distrust between people and the government, provided war protestors with an audience and altered the perception of the American fighting “man.” American television provided what was essentially some of the most objective war reporting to date.
Did the media help or hurt in the Vietnam War?
They argue that the media’s tendency toward negative reporting helped to undermine support for the war in the United States while its uncensored coverage provided valuable information to the enemy in Vietnam.
Was the Vietnam War America's first television war?
Take the Vietnam War, the country's first "television war." By 1965, more than 90 percent of U.S. households had a television and almost 60 percent of them used it to get most of their news. The new medium and the lack of government censorship granted the average person living in the U.S. unprecedented access to the Vietnam War.
How did television play a role in the Vietnam War?
The Vietnam War and Media: How Television Played a Vital Role in the War. When the citizens of Saigon prepared for their Lunar New Year — also known as Tet — on Jan. 30, 1968, they cleaned their houses and boiled their celebratory rice cakes. Even as the war ravaged their resources and rival forces in the North had stolen their families ...
What was the media role in Vietnam?
With Vietnam labeled as the “First Television War” and “the living-room war,” it is without a doubt that the media played a crucial part in shaping the public’s perception of the war and the troops overseas.
What was the media war?
The media war was two-fold: It painted the soldiers as ruthless and revealed their diminishing position overseas. If anything was obvious, it was that journalists who made the trip to Vietnam were growing increasingly weary of America’s participation.
Why was the Tet Offensive important?
The Tet Offensive was a major factor in piquing the American public’s already mounting anti-war sentiments. Until 1968, the war was reported on with the utmost vigor, networks often editing bloody footage to craft and maintain the country’s high morale.
What was the Vietnam War?
The Vietnam War was a military conflict that took place in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. It began on the 1st of November 1955 and ended when Saigon fell the 30th of April 1975. The war was fought between North Vietnam, supported by the Viet Cong and other communist allies, and South Vietnam, backed by the U.S and other anti-communist countries. The South and the U.S relied on extreme firepower and air superiority whereas the North focused on a more traditional, conventional style of warfare. The U.S were involved in the war as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam. This was part of their wider strategy of containment, en effort to stop the spread of communism around the world. U.S involvement in the war increased starting in 1960, with troop levels tripling in 1961, and then again tripling again in 1962. The most troops the U.S ever had involved in the Vietnam War was in 1968, at the time of the Tet Offensive. After this U.S troops finally started getting withdrawn. On the 15th of August 1973 all U.S troops were withdrawn from Vietnam. By the end of the war, in April 1975, when Saigon was captured by the north, approximately 1 million to 3 million Vietnamese soldiers and citizens were killed, 200,000-300,000 Cambodians were killed, 20,000 - 200,000 Laotians had died, and 58,220 U.S soldiers had died.
What was the most important news source in the 1960s?
In the mid-1960's the T.V was considered to be the most important and most trusted source of news for Americans and the most powerful influence on public opinion, and this is true to this day. As more and more Americans starting owning televisions, more people started getting their news from television instead of the newspaper.
What was the Vietnam War?
The Vietnam War (1955–75) was a time of great controversy in the United States. Cold War tensions ran high as the country relentlessly fought against the alleged evils of communism. At the same time, advances in video and audio recording enabled both easier and more news coverage. From 1950 to 1966, the percentage of Americans who owned ...
What was the first television war?
U.S. soldiers in position in the first wave of a helicopter combat assault, 10/26/1967. (National Archives Identifier 66956835) The Vietnam War (1955–75) was a time of great controversy in the United States.
How many people died in the Cultural Revolution?
A footnote from that page linked to a 1995 talk by a scholar at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum suggests 5-10 million victims: https://www.ushmm.org/confront-genocide/speakers-and-events/all-speakers-and-events/genocide-and-mass-murder-in-the-twentieth-century-a-historical-perspective/the-chinese-case-was-it-genocide-or-poor-policy.
Why did the camera crew stay in non-combat areas?
Camera crews stayed in noncombat areas to show the happier, more upbeat side of war. The stories were broadcast as motion pictures shown in theaters. And the newscasters shared only good news and reported bad news with a cheery disposition.
How did dramatization of stories in the news affect the public?
The dramatization of stories in the news distorted the public’s perception of what was actually happening in the field. Since it was visible in their homes, Americans were able to connect and empathize with the soldiers more than ever before. This caused an outcry of public opinion against the war.
How did government censorship affect the media?
Government censorship over the media influenced this outlook—if the press wanted access to stories about the war, they had to receive credentials from the military. This ensured that the news didn’t report anything that the military did not want disclosed to the public.
When did Johnson announce he would not run for reelection?
On April 1, 1968, the day after President Lyndon B. Johnson announced that he would not run for reelection, he stated:
When did the Vietnam War air on PBS?
Instead, it made both sides louder and more entrenched in their opinions. "The Vietnam War" premiered on PBS in September 2017. Check your local station's schedule for broadcast dates and times.
How does the news media shape public opinion?
The fact is that the news media shapes public opinion about current events in profound and unexpected ways. Take the Vietnam War, the country's first "television war.". By 1965, more than 90 percent of U.S. households had a television and almost 60 percent of them used it to get most of their news. The new medium and the lack ...
What was the Tet Offensive?
The Tet Offensive was a turning point for public opinion. On Jan. 30, 1968, the Vietcong attacked 120 American and South Vietnamese locations. The U.S. regained all its lost ground, but the Tet Offensive was political defeat for the U.S., partly due to media coverage.
What are some examples of traditional view?
Many of the examples used to support the traditional view, including the exposure of the My Lai Massacre and a broadly published photograph of several Vietnamese children, one naked, fleeing a village mistakenly napalmed by the South Vietnamese, did not impact the next poll at all.
What was the new medium and the lack of government censorship granted the average person living in the U.S.?
The new medium and the lack of government censorship granted the average person living in the U.S. unprecedented access to the Vietnam War.
How much did the approval rating for Lyndon Johnson drop?
Approval ratings for President Lyndon Johnson and his handling of the war dropped more than 10 percent. The number of people in the U.S. who self-identified as a "hawk," or supportive of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War ("doves" opposed it), dropped almost 20 percent. By June 1968, 72 percent of the country believed the United States was ...
Which publication published the names and photographs of all 242 Americans killed over a one-week period?
This version has been updated to correctly identify the publication as Life magazine .
What was the role of the media in the Vietnam War?
The role of the media in the Vietnam War is a subject of continuing controversy. Some believe that the media played a large role in the U.S. defeat. They argue that the media’s tendency toward negative reporting helped to undermine support for the war in the United States while its uncensored coverage provided valuable information to ...
How did the media help the Vietnam War?
defeat. They argue that the media’s tendency toward negative reporting helped to undermine support for the war in the United States while its uncensored coverage provided valuable information to the enemy in Vietnam. However, many experts who have studied the role of the media have concluded that prior to 1968 most reporting was actually supportive of the U.S. effort in Vietnam. The February 1968 assessment by Walter Cronkite, the anchor of the CBS Evening News (known as “the most trusted man in America”), that the conflict was “mired in stalemate” was seen by many as the signal of a sea change in reporting about Vietnam, and it is said to have inspired Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson to state, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.” The increasingly skeptical and pessimistic tone of reporting may have reflected rather than created similar feelings among the American public. Reporting from Vietnam was indeed uncensored, but during the entire war period there were only a handful of instances in which the MACV found a journalist guilty of violating military security. In any case, American disillusionment with the war was a product of many causes, of which the media was only one. What most undermined support for the war was simply the level of American casualties: the greater the increase in casualties, the lower the level of public support for the war.
How many journalists were in Vietnam?
Prior to that time, the number of American newsmen in Indochina had been small—fewer than two dozen even as late as 1964. By 1968, at the height of the war, there were about 600 accredited journalists of all nationalities in Vietnam, reporting for U.S. wire services, radio and television networks, and the major newspaper chains and news magazines. The U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) made military transportation readily available to newspeople, and some took advantage of this frequently to venture into the field and get their stories first-hand. That proximity to the battlefield carried obvious risks, and more than 60 journalists were killed during the war. Many reporters, however, spent most of their time in the South Vietnamese capital, Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), and got their stories from the Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office’s daily briefings (which soon became known as “the five o’clock follies”).
What was the Vietnam War?
Vietnam War, (1954–75), a protracted conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam and its allies in South Vietnam, known as the Viet Cong, against the government of South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States . Called the “American War” in Vietnam (or, in full, the “War Against…
How were important stories transmitted?
Important stories could be transmitted directly by satellite from Tokyo. There has been much discussion of the way television brought battles directly to American living rooms, but in fact most television stories were filmed soon after a battle rather than in the midst of one, and many were simply conventional news stories. ...
Where is Vietnam located?
Vietnam, country occupying the eastern portion of mainland Southeast Asia. Tribal Viets inhabiting the Red River delta entered written history when China’s southward expansion reached them in the 3rd century bce. From that time onward, a dominant theme of Vietnam’s history…
What changed the way Americans saw the Vietnam War?
The campaign that changed how Americans saw the Vietnam War. The Tet Offensive began in stealth 50 years ago in Vietnam, but it ended up being splashed on television sets all over America. The North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong assaults in cities across what was then South Vietnam would become a military defeat for the communists.
Why did President Johnson tell journalists to focus on civilian rebuilding programs?
Some of President Johnson’s top advisers had been even more upbeat: one told an American journalist en route to Vietnam to concentrate on covering civilian rebuilding programs because the military part of the effort was being wrapped up.
What was Tet's military setback?
As Oberdorfer wrote, Tet was a “grievous” military setback for the North, especially for its indigenous Viet Cong ally, which was basically eliminated as a fighting force for the duration of the war.
Where was the footage of the teletype assault?
Teletype bulletins went out on the Associated Press and United Press International wire services. Television film footage of the assault was shipped by plane to Asian cities where it was processed and then transmitted by satellite to the New York headquarters of the three networks.
Who sent the tape to Johnson?
President Lyndon B. Johnson listens to a tape sent by Captain Charles Robb, LBJ’s son-in-law, from Vietnam, while sitting in the White House Cabinet Room, July 31, 1968. Photo by REUTERS/Courtesy LBJ Library.
Did the communists attack South Vietnam?
Across most of South Vietnam, the communist attacks were quickly repulsed, cities and towns re-taken in days, killing tens of thousands of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. The South Vietnamese government and army, shaken as they were, did not crumble as the communists had anticipated; indeed it momentarily gained new resolve.