Public Opinion on Intervention and the Media

I think that American intervention in other country’s conflicts in an extremely interesting topic to consider. Last semester I took a class that discussed just this, however it focused on the Vietnam War and the impact of the media on the American peoples’ perceptions on intervention. In general, many people know that intervention in Vietnam was not very favorable to the American people at the time. Americans believed that the U.S. army was performing human rights violations, or that they just didn’t have the right to interfere in a country that didn’t want our help. However, I think it is interesting that all of these opinions that Americans form regarding U.S. intervention are based off of the media; since the American people cannot see these events first-hand, I think that this gives the media a lot of power in determining the attitude of the American people regarding intervention.

            One specific aspect of this issue that is important to consider are the actual events on which the media is reporting. In the class that I took we learned about the tension between the U.S government and the media. For example, while multiple human rights violated occurred in Vietnam, many of them were not accurately investigated or reported on because the government and army did not want to disclose all of the information of the event. Many people may look at this in a negative light, claiming that the government should not be hiding things from the media, which is in turn hiding things from the American people. Others would claim that in order for the government and army to do their jobs to the best of their abilities, they cannot disclose everything that happens to insure optimal security for the people involved. While I am not sure which side of this argument I prefer, I do think that this incongruence between the government and the media affects the way the media reports U.S. intervention in other countries. Furthermore this goes on to affect the way the American people view intervention. Going one-step further, the opinions of the American people greatly affect the actions of the government, because of the fact that we live in a system where the government represents the people (and if the elected leaders do not represent the people accurately, the people will elect new leaders). This results in an interesting chain of influences: The media influences the people, the people influence the government, and the government influences the media.

            In addition to looking at the media’s role in Vietnam, we can also look at more recent instances where the U.S. in either considering intervening, or has already intervened in another country. For example, for class we read two very differing opinion on whether or not the U.S. should intervene in Syria. Since these were clearly opinion pieces this allows readers to look at them with a critical lens and still be able to form opinions for themselves. However, reporters can still write informative pieces and include their biased opinions, and this can cause a reader to form an opinion without acknowledging another side. Going back to the chain of influences, if the media is reporting on U.S. intervention in a biased manner, this can influence the people, which can in turn influence the actions of the government. Ultimately, I think that it is interesting to consider how much power the media has in shaping the public’s opinions, and therefore when we discuss U.S. intervention in other countries, we must be critical of the sources we are basing our opinions off of.