The Vietnam War, among the most controversial wars to occur in history, had used speeches to persuade the American population to believe it was right.…
Throughout America’s history, few things have left the nation in such controversial turmoil as the Vietnam War. With an American death toll of almost 60,000 troops, the Vietnam War has gone down in infamy as one of the most tremendous struggles Americans have faced both overseas and on the home front. Because of the tumultuous controversies caused by the war, Americans split into two social factions – those against the war and those who supported it. During the years of 1961-1975 - the era in which the war had its greatest effect on Americans - the population of citizens from 18-35 years old and the Presidency were both affected irreversibly.…
The controversial Vietnam War had a huge impact on Australian society in the 1960's/1970's. Australia’s involvement in the key international Cold War conflict of the Vietnam War created instability and a significant shift in the nation’s military, social, political and economic status. Vietnam was known as a 'TV War'. A great deal of shocking and violent footage of the war was broadcasted right into people's homes. This caused a lot of social involvement and drama throughout Australia. People spoke and even protested their own opinions on what they believed were going on, although this was a very biased view of the war.…
The time period from 1955 to 1975 was a rough time for America. America was in the middle of the Vietnam War, and was a very hard war for America because the soldiers had no support for the war effort from home. The public could not see the reason for the war, and therefore did not support it, and because of this led to America’s first punch in the gut from communism. Along with every war comes the many heartfelt photos and stories of their countries soldiers fighting in the name of their country that show the public what the soldiers have to go through to fight the war. The photographer Larry Burrows captures many astonishing images of these soldiers in the Vietnam War to show the public that they should support the troops fighting for what America stands for. Despite all of his hard work and the risks he took to take the pictures the American public still rejected the belief that America’s involvement in Vietnam was for a good cause.…
The analysis of opinion polls from before and after the Tet Offensive demonstrate that US public support for the war had dramatically reduced, most likely as a consequence of media coverage. Before the Tet Offensive, the proportion of Americans who thought of themselves as hawks (pro-war) stood at 60%, but afterwards that number had dropped to 41% . This significant drop in public support could have resulted from the fact that the Vietnam War was the first televised war: “The scope, scale and intensity of the Vietcong Tet Offensive shocked most Americans. Nightly, television news beamed the sights and sounds…of battles…into American living rooms. ” Most Americans had not seen many images of American defeats because “initial coverage generally supported US involvement in the war.” In fact, in 1967 the US government’s ‘Victory Campaign’, which most media organisations supported, increased Johnson’s approval rating to 48%. During the Tet Offensive the US public saw graphic pictures of Americans being killed and brought home in body bags. This…
Question: Explain how events such as the Vietnam War and Watergate affected the American public’s opinion of the U.S government.…
Hallin, Daniel C., The Uncensored War: The Media and Vietnam. Los Angles: California University of California Press, 1986.…
Bibliography: Dudley, William. The Vietnam War: Opposing Viewpoints. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1998. Gardner, Lloyd C. , and Ted Gittinger. Vietnam: The Early Decisions. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: The War Nobody Won. New York: The Viking Press, 1983. Kimball, Jeffery. To Reason Why. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990. Lomperis, Timothy. The War Everybody Lost and Won. 2nd ed. revised. Washington: D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Inc., 1993. McNamera, Robert. In Retrospect , The Tragedy in Vietnam. New York: Dell Publishing Group, 1996. Olson, James S. The Vietnam War. London: Greenwood Press, 1993. Rowe, John, and Rick Berg. The Vietnam War and American Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991. Rust, William J. Kennedy in Vietnam. New York: U.S. News & World Report, Inc., 1985. Schwab, Orrin. Defending the Free World: John F. Kennedy and the Vietnam War. London: Praeger Publishers, 1998.…
However, as the war went on peoples attitude towards the war began to change, the more people thought about it the more they realised it was more of a civil war rather than war about communism which lead to the thought that it wasn’t our war to fight. Unlike other wars in the past, the Vietnam War was the first war to be filmed and broadcasted on the media, for the first time the public was able to see the violence and brutal effects of war. The war was also negatively published in newspapers, '... The…
“No event in the past half-century of American history has commanded a morep rominent place in the public consciousness than the Vietnam War” (Hall xi), a rightfully said statement. Lasting from 1960-1975, it is America’s longest war and changed the United States politically, socially, and culturally during that period. In the early 1970s, the voting age was lowered to 18, largely because of the war. Also, Vietnam was one of the first wars in which African Americans largely participated. Lastly, Vietnam changed America culturally by causing mistrust in government. In the 1960s through early ‘70s, the Vietnam War changed America in ways that nothing had ever done before.…
First of all, one reason many Americans oppose US involvement in the Vietnam war is that Vietnam War was the first war reported live coverage by many medias. So when Americans are having a breakfast, the war is keep going at the opposite of earth and they could see the shocking movie. For example, on March 16, 1968 The My Lai Massacre happened. It was a massacre by U.S. soldiers of three hundreds to five hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians, mostly women and children, on March 16, 1968, during the Vietnam War. Becoming a symbol of US-American war crimes in Vietnam, it prompted widespread outrage around the world and reduced public support for the war in the United States. In addition, on February, 1968 Tet Offensive occurred. However, America beat back NLF, it received as American's defeat. Because, media reported about Tet Offensive, and as a result, after the Tet Offensive, US anti-war movement got violent. Media can give lots of people information; so actually, media had huge influence on the anti-war movement on the Vietnam War.…
Zinn, Howard. “The Impossible Victory: Vietnam excerpted from a People 's History of the United States” http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/Vietnam_PeoplesHx.html…
Hallin, D. C. (1986). The "uncensored war”: the media and Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press.…
Consider the impact of the Vietnam War on American culture. In the decades prior to the 1980s, two issues beset American culture: civil rights and the Vietnam War. Both were televised directly into living rooms on all three channels. On college campuses throughout the world, but especially on American campuses, antiwar protests were routine. Hippies often were thought to conduct themselves on the premises of antiwar, free sex, and lots of drugs. The music that emerged from this era is still famously current and listened to today. It was an era of convertibles, gas guzzlers, freedom, and endless summers. Then that generation grew into adults–(your parents and grandparents). Writing with sensitivity to the nuances of the era, what happened to the dream?…
American movie Apocalypse Now described Vietnamese as voiceless people who did not know how to protect their country. Although Americans came to the Vietnam without invitation to help them, they just started to destroy their country, the book The Sorrow of War challenge the American perception of Vietnamese as…