The Success of the Media's Manipulation on the Public's Opinion of the War

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The Success of the Media's Manipulation on the Public's Opinion of the War Source K suggests the media was more influential to the opinion of ordinary American citizens than the elected politicians of their country, whom many of the public had voted for and trusted. The source implies that the reason for this was because the horrific images of the war made the American public realise that the war was not going well, contrary to the claims of their government. Television coverage of the war meant that any American citizen could turn on the television and see that the war was going badly. This made the public less likely to believe the pro-war politicians (‘Hawks’) who proclaimed that the war was going well. The public turned to the media more and more for information, as the politicians were proven to have been lying. However, it is difficult to ascertain how much impact the media’s influence had on public opinion and Source K does not give us any examples. In Source A, President Johnson is addressing the nation on television to try and convince the public that the war was justified. Johnson was aware of the usefulness of the media in influencing public opinion, especially the television media. If Americans saw him on television arguing for the war in Vietnam, public support for the war was likely to increase. He also knew that a large portion of American citizens watched television and so were likely to hear his argument for fighting in Vietnam. These were the main reasons why Johnson chose to broadcast his speech on television. The source is limited however as it does not tell us the impact of the television address, so we do not ... ... middle of paper ... ...is rifle. The producers must have known that the soldier would be in an emotional mood at that time and not in the right frame of mind to answer questions. Due to this, we must question the source’s reliability and assume that this was not representative of the soldiers as a whole. The media wanted to show war in this way to shock the viewers and gain support for its ‘anti-war’ campaign. The sources do not give a clear answer to the question. Most of the sources are not completely reliable and only give a partial answer to the question. We must take into account that many factors other than the media contributed to the public antipathy towards the war, so evidence that American citizens were against the war does not automatically mean that the media were successful in manipulating the public’s opinion of the war

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