Mass Media and the Vietnam War Essay - 842 Words

Mass Media and the Vietnam War Many people at the beginning and before the Vietnam War were in confusion on whether going to war was such a good thing; this mainly consisted of the American public. By the time it had reached the peak of the war much of the American public had swung towards being for the war. This was mainly due the mass media at the time, one integral part of the mass media that often swayed public opinion was television, it proved to be such an effective method of communication, that it often shocked and consequently altered public opinion. Television wasn’t the only form of mass media; there were magazines and the radio. Radio was a large form of communication at the time as many†¦show more content†¦Television was often great quality and very hard to avoid as it was everywhere, many households had access to one as well. Source G was an article in â€Å"Newsweek† a US magazine that was published in 1967. This Source gives us statistics telling us that 64% of viewers sai d that television had made them feel like backing up the boys in Vietnam, while 26% had felt opposed to the War. This tells us that Television had played a major role in swaying people into being in favour of the war. There is a considerable percentage in favour of the war here compared to the 26% which means that the television probably used lots of propaganda against the Vietnamese. It shows that television did have an absolute enormous impact on the war, because it meant that the American public would become strongly in favour of it and so with the backing of his people, the American President would be in no hurry to terminate this war. Source G was written in 1967 before the Tet Offensive and My Lai Massacre, so many Americans believed that they would win the war, death figures were low and things seemed to be going smoothly for the Americans, towards the end of the War theShow MoreRelatedThe Effect of Mass Media on Americans during the Vietnam War Essay1114 Words   |  5 Pag esEffect of Mass Media on Americans during the Vietnam War When the war initially began, Dean Rusk, US Secretary of State, pointed out that: This was the first struggle fought on television in everybodys living room every day... whether ordinary people can sustain a war effort under that kind of daily hammering is a very large question. The us administration, unlike most governments at war, made no official attempt to censure the reporting in the Vietnam war. 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