The Uncensored War

The Uncensored War
Author: Daniel C. Hallin
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 308
Release: 1989-04-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780520065437

Vietnam was America's most divisive and unsuccessful foreign war. It was also the first to be televised and the first of the modern era fought without military censorship. From the earliest days of the Kennedy-Johnson escalation right up to the American withdrawal, and even today, the media's role in Vietnam has continued to be intensely controversial. The "Uncensored War" gives a richly detailed account of what Americans read and watched about Vietnam. Hallin draws on the complete body of the New York Times coverage from 1961 to 1965, a sample of hundreds of television reports from 1965-73, including television coverage filmed by the Defense Department in the early years of the war, and interviews with many of the journalists who reported it, to give a powerful critique of the conventional wisdom, both conservative and liberal, about the media and Vietnam. Far from being a consistent adversary of government policy in Vietnam, Hallin shows, the media were closely tied to official perspectives throughout the war, though divisions in the government itself and contradictions in its public relations policies caused every administration, at certain times, to lose its ability to "manage" the news effectively. As for television, it neither showed the "literal horror of war," nor did it play a leading role in the collapse of support: it presented a highly idealized picture of the war in the early years, and shifted toward a more critical view only after public unhappiness and elite divisions over the war were well advanced.

Mass Media in Vietnam

Mass Media in Vietnam
Author: David G. Marr
Publisher:
Total Pages: 182
Release: 1998
Genre: Mass media
ISBN:

"Transformations in print publication, radio, film and television are an integral part of broader changes taking place in Vietnam since the mid-1980s. Although the Communist Party continues to scrutinise content, and every mass media outlets is formally state-owned, new market economy imperatives, technological upgrades, international linkages, and persistent audience demand for novelty all serve to propel media experimentation and innovation, whatever the intentions of Hanoi's elderly leadership. This is the first book in English to describe these significant changes, drawing on the knowledge and experience of both vietnamese and foreign experts." -- p. [4] of cover.

Protest and Survive

Protest and Survive
Author: James Lewes
Publisher: Praeger
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2003-07-30
Genre: History
ISBN:

Drawing from more than 120 newspapers, published between 1968 and 1970, this study explores the emergence of an anti-militarist subculture within the U.S. armed services. These activists took the position that individual GIs could best challenge their subordination by working in concert with like-minded servicemen through GI movement organizations whose behaviors and activities were then publicized in these underground newspapers. In examining this movement, Lewes focuses on their treatment of power and authority within the armed forces and how this mirrored the wider and more inclusive relations of power and authority in the United States. He argues that this opposition among servicemen was the primary motivation for the United States to withdraw from Vietnam. This first book length study of GI-published underground newspapers sheds light on the utility of alternative media for movements of social change, and provides information on how these movements are shaped by the environments in which they emerge. Lewes asserts that one cannot understand GI opposition as an extension of the civilian antiwar movement. Instead, it was the product of an embedded environment, whose inhabitants had been drafted or had enlisted to avoid the draft. They came from cities and small towns whose populations were often polarized between those who wholeheartedly supported the war and those who became progressively more critical of the need for Americans to be involved in Vietnam.

The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War
Author: Barbara Diggs
Publisher: Nomad Press
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2018-05-01
Genre: Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN: 161930659X

More than 58,000 American troops and military personnel died in the humid jungles and muddy rivers of Vietnam during the 20-year conflict called the Vietnam War. Why? What were they fighting for? And how could the world’s most powerful and technologically advanced military be defeated by a small, poverty-stricken country? These questions have haunted the U.S. government, the military, and the American public for nearly a half century. In The Vietnam War, kids ages 12 to 15 explore the global conditions and history that gave rise to the Vietnam War, the reasons why the United States became increasingly embroiled in the conflict, and the varied causes of its shocking defeat. As readers learn about how the fear of the spread of communism spurred the United States to enter a war that was erupting on the other side of the world, they find themselves immersed in the mood and mindset of the Vietnam Era. Through links to online primary sources, including speeches, letters, photos, and songs, readers become familiar with the reality of combat life for young American soldiers, the frustration of military advisors as they failed to subdue the Viet Cong, and the empty promises made by U.S. presidents to soothe an uneasy public. The Vietnam War also pays close attention to the development of a massive antiwar movement and counterculture that divided the country into “hawks” and “doves.” In-depth essential questions help middle schoolers analyze primary sources and develop their own evidence-supported views on a range of issues. The Vietnam War also fosters critical thinking skills through projects such as creating antiwar and pro-war demonstration slogans, writing letters from the perspective of a U.S. soldier and a south Vietnamese citizen, and building arguments for and against the media’s coverage of the war. Additional learning materials include engaging illustrations, maps, a glossary, a bibliography, and resources for further independent learning. The Vietnam War is one book in a set of four that explore great events of the twentieth century. Other titles in this set include Globalization: Why We Care About Faraway Events; World War II: From the Rise of the Nazi Party to the Dropping of the Atomic Bomb; and The Space Race: How the Cold War Put Humans on the Moon.

Killing for Show

Killing for Show
Author: Julian Stallabrass
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2020-10-30
Genre: Photography
ISBN: 1538141817

See firsthand how war photography is used to sway public opinion. In the autumn of 2014, the Royal Air Force released blurry video of a missile blowing up a pick-up truck which may have had a weapon attached to its flatbed. This was a lethal form of gesture politics: to send a £9-million bomber from Cyprus to Iraq and back, burning £35,000 an hour in fuel, to launch a smart missile costing £100,000 to destroy a truck or, rather, to create a video that shows it being destroyed. Some lives are ended—it is impossible to tell whose—so that the government can pretend that it taking effective action by creating a high-budget snuff movie. This is killing for show. Since the Vietnam War the way we see conflict—through film, photographs, and pixels—has had a powerful impact on the political fortunes of the campaign, and the way that war has been conducted. In this fully illustrated and passionately argued account of war imagery, Julian Stallabrass tells the story of post-war conflict, how it was recorded and remembered through its iconic photography. The relationship between war and photograph is constantly in transition, forming new perspectives, provoking new challenges: what is allowed to be seen? Does an image have the power to change political opinion? How are images used to wage war? Stallabrass shows how photographs have become a vital weapon in the modern war: as propaganda—from close-quarters fighting to the drone’s electronic vision—as well as a witness to the barbarity of events such as the My Lai massacre, the violent suppression of insurgent Fallujah or the atrocities in Abu Ghraib. Through these accounts Stallabrass maps a comprehensive theoretical re-evaluation of the relationship between war, politics and visual culture. Killing for Show offers: 190 photographs encompassing photojournalism, artists’ images, photographs by soldiers and amateurs and drones A comprehensive comparison of the role of photography in the Vietnam and Iraq Wars An explanation of the waning power of iconic images in collective memory An analysis of the failure of military PR and the public display of killing A focus on what can and cannot be seen, photographed and published An exploration of the power and limits of amateur photography Arguments about how violent images act on democracy This full-color book is an essential volume in the history of warfare and photography

Living-Room War

Living-Room War
Author: Michael J. Arlen
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Total Pages: 260
Release: 1997-10-01
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9780815604662

"One doesn't have to be a panjandrum of Communications to realize that television does something to us," Michael Arlen (former TV critic of The New Yorker) writes in the Introduction to Living-Room War. He continues, "Television has a transforming effect on events. It has a transforming effect on the people who watch the transformed events-it's just hard to know what that is." Living-Room War is Arlen's valiant-and entertaining-attempt to figure out exactly what exactly television does to us. This timeless collection of essays provides a poetic look at 1960s television culture, ranging from the Vietnam war to Captain Kangaroo, from the 1968 Democratic convention to televised sports.

The Politics of Media Policy

The Politics of Media Policy
Author: Des Freedman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2013-04-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0745657214

The Politics of Media Policy provides a critical perspective on the dynamics of media policy in the US and UK and offers a comprehensive guide to some of the major points of debate in the media today. While many policymakers boast of the openness and pluralism of their media systems, this book exposes the commitment to market principles that saturates the media policy environment and distorts the development and application of democratic media policies. Based on interviews with dozens of politicians, regulators, special advisers, lobbyists and campaigners, The Politics of Media Policy considers how governments, civil servants and media corporations have shaped the drawing up of rules concerning a range of issues including: Media ownership Media content Public broadcasting Digital television Copyright Trade agreements affecting the media industries. The book identifies both the institutions and the arguments that dominate the development of these crucial media policies. It will be of interest to public policy and media professionals, researchers, activists and students indeed all those determined to understand and respond to the impact of neo-liberalism on the contemporary world.

The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War
Author: Mark Atwood Lawrence
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2010-08-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199793158

The Vietnam War remains a topic of extraordinary interest, not least because of striking parallels between that conflict and more recent fighting in the Middle East. In The Vietnam War, Mark Atwood Lawrence draws upon the latest research in archives around the world to offer readers a superb account of a key moment in U.S. as well as global history. While focusing on American involvement between 1965 and 1975, Lawrence offers an unprecedentedly complete picture of all sides of the war, notably by examining the motives that drove the Vietnamese communists and their foreign allies. Moreover, the book carefully considers both the long- and short-term origins of the war. Lawrence examines the rise of Vietnamese communism in the early twentieth century and reveals how Cold War anxieties of the 1940s and 1950s set the United States on the road to intervention. Of course, the heart of the book covers the "American war," ranging from the overthrow of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem to the impact of the Tet Offensive on American public opinion, Lyndon Johnson's withdrawal from the 1968 presidential race, Richard Nixon's expansion of the war into Cambodia and Laos, and the problematic peace agreement of 1973, which ended American military involvement. Finally, the book explores the complex aftermath of the war--its enduring legacy in American books, film, and political debate, as well as Vietnam's struggles with severe social and economic problems. A compact and authoritative primer on an intensely relevant topic, this well-researched and engaging volume offers an invaluable overview of the Vietnam War.

Politically Incorrect Guide to the Vietnam War

Politically Incorrect Guide to the Vietnam War
Author: Phillip Jennings
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2010-02-02
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1596981423

The Vietnam War was a tragic and dismal failure—at least that is what the mainstream media and history books would have you believe. Yet, Phillip Jennings sets the record straight in The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to the Vietnam War. In this latest “P.I.G.”, Jennings shatters culturally-accepted myths and busts politically incorrect lies that liberal pundits and leftist professors have been telling you for years. The Vietnam War was the most important—and successful—campaign to defeat Communism. Without the sacrifices made and the courage displayed by our military, the world might be a different place. The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to the Vietnam War reveals the truth about the battles, players, and policies of one of the most controversial wars in U.S. history.

Who Controls The Mass Media

Who Controls The Mass Media
Author: Lloyd Steven Seiden
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 258
Release: 1975-01-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780465091812

This book is the first comprehensive description of all the mass media (TV, radio, newspapers and magazines) to provide authoritative answers to all these questions and many more.