Media Manipulation: A Legacy of Vietnam Process Paper

Soyoon Kim Senior Division Individual Website

I. How I Chose My Topic An avid student of art history, I wanted to pursue a topic related to the themes expressed through the trends in art history. Through this initial interest, I discovered the advent of photography and its initial use during the American Civil War. From this point, I noticed a human trend to be naturally inclined to have war. Come to think of it, there is no other phenomenon that changes human history than warsno other phenomenon exist that are more destructive catalysts than wars. So through my initial research about Civil War photography, I found that these photographs were profoundly significant: it would be the first time in history the horrors, the atrocious nature of the battlefield would come home. From there I branched off from just the concept of war photography and delved deeper into the topic of media and photojournalism. Instead of researching the historical turning points of Civil War photography, I instead chose to research the Vietnam War. Unlike wars of the past, Vietnam was definitely an anomaly: an aimless war that most of the American populace still fails to fully understand. Part media failure and government miscommunication, the Vietnam War left the American public utterly polarized in their stance. No message from the White House could have convinced the Americans that they needed to go to war with the Viet Cong. Noting these unique characteristics of Vietnam, the failure of media spin in convincing the American constituency to support the war led would remain a long-lasting scar and haunting memory of lives lost, and hopes shattered. I grew more and more interested in uncovering the many different layers and aspects of how war and journalism were interrelated and coexistent in the American war narrative and how this relationship is very much alive in the depictions of war today as well. So from Vietnam, I decided to show a clear relationship between what American media and government learned from Vietnam and how they utilized this new-found knowledge and applied it to the Persian-Gulf War.

Since the government discovered the powerful influence of the media on gaining either support or rejection of war for public support, the connection between what American learned from Vietnam and its application in the Persian-Gulf became much more clear. It was therefore through this thought process that I was able to choose my topic for NHD.

II. How I Conducted My Research I conducted my research by first doing a broad survey of what historical events my topics involved. I did various web searches on the the American Civil War (for preliminary purposes), Vietnam War, Persian Gulf War, Gulf War Journalism, Vietnam War journalism, and more. After that, I looked through the resources portals that our school grants us access to and was able to access various journals and scholarly articles regarding my topics. I also visited my school library to find out what resources I could glean from there. After all of this, I worked on primary sources research and compiled texts and photos from the time period to put onto my website as primary sources and have a balanced list of secondary and primary sources from which I conducted my research. In addition, I rummaged the archives of the Library of Congress for images of war propaganda of time past.

III. How I Chose My Presentation Category At first, I planned on writing a research paper, but seeing that I chose a website for my presentation category because I felt that this would be the best way to present my information in a logical and visually stimulating manner. I thought that since my topic related to journalism and would need visual elements, I would have not problem creating a website for my project. I was proven wrong, however, since I found that navigating through the website host, Weebly.com, proved to be a much more difficult task than I had imagined and was much more time-consuming than I had expected. I feel that my chosen presentation category paid off in the end since I feel that

without the visual and audio aspect that can only be brought forth through the simplicity and straightforwardness of a website truly complements my topic and my project overall.

IV. How My Topic Relates to the NHD Theme My topic, Gulf War Journalism as a legacy of the Vietnam War, relates to the National History Day theme because it shows the influence of how the failures of the Vietnam War journalism affected how the U.S. government conducted future wars in conjunction with the media. As the theme for this years NHD is turning points in history, I feel that my topic befits the theme since a turning point can be defined as anything that bears a significant influence on subsequent events and their outcomes. In my case, the turning point of the Vietnam War was the fact that the U.S. was not able to win this un-winnable war since the U.S. government failed to give reason to their people, the American people, those who had every reason to know the reason why troops were sent to at that road to nowhere with providing an exit strategy. This would change in the Persian Gulf War of 1991 by changing the way journalist and the media responded to war and presented it the American constituency. America emerged from that war victorious not only because of their military methods and tactics, but also because the media was able to cull the support of American citizens on their side. In other words, what started off as black and white still pictures changed into hi-definition war like games blasted into living room televisions of millions of American homes. Therefore, the American populace was able to visit the war zones for themselves, indirectly without having to visit the war zones themselves. As an extension to this trend, I added a conclusion to my website by connecting the idea of governmental connection to the media with Americas response to the War on Terror. Bridging the gap between the long-gone days of Vietnam, I decided to link the past with the present in order to reveal that the relationship between the media and politics is no isolated occasion, but rather a relationship of cause and effectthe idea that despite the changing

tides of time, the underlying reasons behind certain governmental decisions will derive some of its influence from past failures, successes, and public reaction in mind. The bridge between Vietnam and Americas War on Terror is manifest in how America conducts wars the way it does today. With the 1984 Weinberger Doctrine in place, America was able to swiftly and soundly find victory in the first Persian Gulf War as they fulfilled each and every one of the six guidelines that Casper Weinberger outlined in this document. This decision to use decisive strength rather than massive escalation was a key element in America clinching victory in the Persian Gulfa clear testament of what they had learned from the quagmire of the Vietnam War. Following in his fathers footsteps, President George W. Bush would do the same in 2005 with his war on terror. Again, terror played a role in Americas reaction to international atrocities as it did in Vietnam. Terror was again met with terror. Just as the South Vietnamese posed an aggression to the democratic way of life, America again assumed the role of a international police force. From communism to Islamic extremism, from the Viet Cong to Osama bin Laden, America stepped in whatever situation posed a clear and present danger to its democratic ideals. History repeats itself and the similarities are simply a carry-over for a newer and more modern warfare. American troops are asked to be restricted so that the American government can be politically correct Vietnam and Iraq should never have happened. The unfortunate part of all this is that after all dust settles, nobody understands why we there first place. The similarities in both cases are all too clear: America had been over there for way too long fighting a war that never should have started in the first place, the public was unprepared and lacking a true understanding of a root cause for all the violence and bloodshed. Thus, we can see the connection that tie Americas War on Terror and the Persian Gulf inextricably to the government and the media portrayal of Vietnam. And in so doing, we are constantly reminded of that word, terror.