Girl taken on June 8,1972. This photograph illustrates the dramatic elements of Vietnam through the use of imagery. The photo of the naked girl demonstrated the war’s inhumanity that would forever be stapled into the national consciousness and woven into the cultural awareness surrounding Vietnam. These photographs were able to tell a personal story through images and not words. Absent in these stories were political twistedness and manipulation. These primary sources and narratives would reveal the cruelty and barbarism through of both the external and internal scars of Vietnamese Civilians. The media helped expose these stories to the political and cultural mainstreams of our country. The mass media was able to use imagery to illuminate
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Simultaneously, public opinion was also swaying the attitudes of the media. The My Lai Massacre showed the wickedness of our soldiers slaughtering in cold blood. While initial reports claimed this incident as a defense against an ambush of thirty Vietnamese troops and Vietcong combatants, the victims were eventually found to be Vietnamese civilians that totaled around 347. Graphic images that circulated of the Assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem (early in the war) and the Execution of A Vietcong Prisoner revealed the ruthless brutality of events happening in Southeast Asia. Similar instances of cruelty would occur in nearby Cambodia with the emergence of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rogue’s rise to power a few years later. Arguably the most shocking image of the Vietnam War though would be the protest of the burning Mahayana Buddhist monk in the streets of South Vietnam in 1963. The ritualized public burning by Thích Quảng Đức alarmed the American public that individual acts of violence threatened everyone. It also demonstrated the “shock” and lopsided cultural fissures that were inherently different in …show more content…
Walter Cronkite of CBS was the “most trusted man in America” on the CBS Nightly News. Whether involuntary or voluntary, his opinions would resonate with the viewers who watched and ultimately lacked judgments. Once Walter Cronkite stated that the war could not be won honorably after the Tet Offensive and the horrors of Khe Sanh, many were cautioned and reluctant to support escalation of the war. “To say that we are mired in bloody stalemate seems like the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory conclusion” (170). The United States had been left at an impasse between victory and defeat. Our political and national morale was sinking to an all time low. The course of action to take was now unclear more than ever. Television coverage signaled that while we were winning the war in terms of victories, but we were losing the war in many other facts. Public Opinion, fragmented political support, a demoralized military, and skyrocketing expenditures to the budget made concerns
Simultaneously, public opinion was also swaying the attitudes of the media. The My Lai Massacre showed the wickedness of our soldiers slaughtering in cold blood. While initial reports claimed this incident as a defense against an ambush of thirty Vietnamese troops and Vietcong combatants, the victims were eventually found to be Vietnamese civilians that totaled around 347. Graphic images that circulated of the Assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem (early in the war) and the Execution of A Vietcong Prisoner revealed the ruthless brutality of events happening in Southeast Asia. Similar instances of cruelty would occur in nearby Cambodia with the emergence of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rogue’s rise to power a few years later. Arguably the most shocking image of the Vietnam War though would be the protest of the burning Mahayana Buddhist monk in the streets of South Vietnam in 1963. The ritualized public burning by Thích Quảng Đức alarmed the American public that individual acts of violence threatened everyone. It also demonstrated the “shock” and lopsided cultural fissures that were inherently different in …show more content…
Walter Cronkite of CBS was the “most trusted man in America” on the CBS Nightly News. Whether involuntary or voluntary, his opinions would resonate with the viewers who watched and ultimately lacked judgments. Once Walter Cronkite stated that the war could not be won honorably after the Tet Offensive and the horrors of Khe Sanh, many were cautioned and reluctant to support escalation of the war. “To say that we are mired in bloody stalemate seems like the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory conclusion” (170). The United States had been left at an impasse between victory and defeat. Our political and national morale was sinking to an all time low. The course of action to take was now unclear more than ever. Television coverage signaled that while we were winning the war in terms of victories, but we were losing the war in many other facts. Public Opinion, fragmented political support, a demoralized military, and skyrocketing expenditures to the budget made concerns