The Media During The 1979 Iranian Hostage Crisis

During the 1979 Iranian Hostage crisis the American people relied highly on the American media systems to relay the information they craved about the events leading up to and during the crisis. The media itself did not generate much good news to the American people. The media during this crisis enhanced many of the American people’s feelings that were already felt towards their leaders and their ability to handle foreign affairs in relation to American interests overseas. The media covered this crisis by telling the stories of those captured. Allowing the American citizens to relate to each individual by letting them know they are just like them and would envelop the people into the crisis and make it seem that everyone was in it together.
The American media during this time was just as concerned about the crisis as the American people but their main focus other than to relay the information, was to gain as many viewers as possible in doing this they enhanced the range of emotions the American people had about this hostage crisis. To do this their strategy was to focus on the psyche of the American citizen about this issue and to find ways to in a sense bring in the country of America and have them feel if they are being held hostage by this crisis in Iran as well. Within days of the hostages being taken the news media had taken to the streets conducting interviews of everyday Americans on the street, showing the anger and heartbreak of the American citizens toward this situation in Iran. The news media also would begin the late night coverage of the crisis with the amount of days the hostages had been held and with a picture of one the hostage blindfolded with their hands tied behind their backs. They also took this crisis and reported on the private side to each hostage looking into their families, emotions, rather than what their job was in the embassy. This method of reporting made the American people see that it was every day Americans not government representatives being
The images portrayed on the media consisted of the Iranian students who had taken the embassy, burning American flags, having the likeness of the president being defaced and desecrated, all the while shouting anti-American chants the only thing the American people could do and did was sit there and watch in horror and anger and ask why would these people feel this way about the United States. Even with those violent, and anger inducing images being displayed by the media to draw in an audience, the American people during the first few weeks of the crisis had a mindset of helping both the hostages and their families. This urgent sense of help within the American people and the way the media brought the country itself into the crisis caused the American people to form a sense of a national community. This national community was truly visible six weeks into the crisis when an article was published about a wife of the embassy chargé by the name of Penne Laingen. Penne did what a hit 1973 song “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Oak Tree,” did and tied a yellow ribbon around the tree in her yard with hopes her husband will be home to untie that ribbon. Following this article the American public began to do the same thing tying yellow ribbons around “trees, telephone poles… and other inanimate objects.” Americans went on to make pins, and bumper