Media Influence On Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was harsh, brutal and horrific. It began in 1962, then ended in 1971. At first, there was general support from the news outlets and the public for the government's decision to get involved (Sqwirk, 2015). Soon however things began to change. The Vietnam War may have been fought in the jungles and rice fields of Indochina but it was lost in the lounge rooms on the television sets of the voters a home in the United States and America. This statement is essentially saying that the media had shown confronting news and images which led to the loss of public support. Negative images from the media led to an emergence of popular protest music. (BBC, 2005). Songwriters like John Lennon and Bob Dylan were anti-war activists who wrote

At this stage of his life, it was clear that John Lennon was a political activist. The song was published in 1969, which was during the peak of the Vietnam War. It gained immediate popularity due to Lennon’s huge fan base (Bio.com, 2016). The phrase repeated in the song is ‘All we are saying is give peace a chance,’ (John Lennon, 1969). John Lennon is saying that peace is non-existent in this world. He is suggesting that if we simply choose to make peace for once in our lives rather than resorting to war, then that could create an easier solution and would save millions of lives. The Stanford University has stated that “This song was especially appealing to the youth, as that generation held a more global viewpoint within the human race and being made to fight in the Vietnam War against their own free will” (Stanford, 2014). With this evidence, it appears that John Lennon had successfully influenced people to dispute against the Vietnam War. In 1971, John Lennon had become friends with co-founder of a Youth International party Jerry Rubin (Hammet, 2016). They had organised massive rallies during the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention to protest the Vietnam War (Weiner, John 2016). It is clear that ‘Give Peace a Chance’ left a huge impact among people, as the message of peace had struck among people, leading

Popular Music led to an outburst of protests, which had media had specifically advertised, in order to specifically antagonise the Vietnam War. This was evident when the media covered John and Yokos ‘Bed In for Peace’. ( “The bed-in caused instant worldwide media coverage, and Lennon and Ono spoke to up to 150 journalists each day. In the United States around 350 radio stations reported the event, carrying the couple's message of peace and protests against the Vietnam war.” (Beatles Bible, 2016). This proves that the media frequently advertised the bed in, which reinforced negative ideas of the Vietnam War, which sparked more people to lose support. A 1969 article in Newsweek entitled “The Peace Anthem” covered a protest rally. Newsweek stated that “Chance became the chant for anti-war protestors in Washington on November 15, 1969. On that day, 250,000 marchers demonstrated at the American nation’s capital for a Moratorium to stop the fighting in Vietnam.’ (Newsweek, December 1 1969) This makes it clear the media was supporting Lennon’s argument, rather than opposing his idea. The media used words such as ‘fighting’, for people to believe Lennon’s Protest was a positive cause, and to make the Vietnam War the sound like the Villain of the story. This was to make sure that people were manipulated