Media Analysis Essay - Vietnam War

Hey guys,

Here is a first draft of an introduction for a essay I am working on. I am writing this paper for a freshman writing course at a top university, so by critical please. Any advice that you would like to give would be greatly appreciate. Thanks!

Many American media historians view media representation and its influence on public opinion as a determining factor in the loss of support for the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War was America's first truly televised war. The diffusion of television made news broadcasts the dominant source of public information. As news programs began to present the misfortunes of American soldiers and the Vietnamese people, the American public began to lose faith in prospects for success in the war. In "The Uncensored War" Daniel Hallin explains that media's change in tone was not responsible for a lack of support for the war. Rather than a direct cause, the media's change in tone was a consequence of independent changes in the American public's perception of war. While the media's presentation of war may not have changed autonomously, when it did change, it catalyzed the downfall of public support for the war. Hallin is right in saying that the tone of media broadcasters did change along with the opinions of society. However, the raw content of the news broadcasts changed independently of this shift. Hallin fails to explore the evolution of news broadcasting as a technical art form, rather focusing on individual segments and broadcasters. As media technology advanced, casualty numbers with no emotional context were replaced with actual footage from the war zone. This footage brought a visual presentation of the plight of South Vietnam to the American living room, which humanized the South Vietnamese people. This changing humanization was a primary factor in transforming public perception of the Vietnam War, and ultimately determining the outcome of the war.

If you want to be more specific you could say, for example; that ...as independent news organizations presented real nightly news about war, with the ugly images of American soldiers being killed, maime and captured, the American public began to change it's views about the mission and the objective of the government to bring the war to an end. Almost simultaneously as the bad images started to filter into mainstream America, the administration started to lose the public relations battle. Mainstream America began to loose it's apeptite for the war and wanted an immediate end to the crisis, and for the soldiers to return home. The attempt by the administration to control and filter the news of the war failed and with it the objective of winning the war. The government controlled propaganda machine became redundant.

The truth is, the American people could not accept the images of slaughter and other atrocities that were being perpetuated in South East Asia in the name of freedom and democracy...that was a heavier price to pay than the cost of the war itself.