| There appears to be little doubt that the Vietnam War was the most unpopular war that American soldiers have ever fought. At the same time, little research has been conducted in the area of the media's treatment of what is described as our first truly media war.;Each story that was coded into the topic category "Vietnam" was analyzed further using 45 content categories, 6 writing mode categories, and 10 presentations categories. The intent of the analysis was to report on the (1) number of Vietnam-related stories, (2) specific content of those stories, (3) placement of those stories, (4) percentage of items devoted to Vietnam, (5) content of other stories carried and (6) words used in relation to the parties involved. For the analysis, video tapes of the actual news broadcasts and back issues of the magazines were used.;The analysis revealed that Vietnam dominated television news programs to the extent that 24.2% of all stories aired were Vietnam-related. News magazines devoted only 6.4% of their stories to Vietnam-related events. Of the Vietnam-related stories aired, network television news programs devoted an average of 3.4% of their stories to combat with accompanying film or photographs. Weekly news magazines printed an average of 5.2% of their stories in this category.;Anti-war news reports received more coverage on a per-item basis on television and in news magazines than did combat. Television devoted an average of 9.0% of its Vietnam-related coverage to the anti-war movement, and news magazines gave 18.5%, on the average, to the same topic.;This study applies content analysis to a stratified random sample of network television news programs for the period August 5, 1968, to August 15, 1973 and a sample of three major weekly news magazines--Time, Newsweek, and Life--correlated by date with the television sample. The analysis utilized 48 topic areas. Only the manifest content was studied and only non-advertisement portions of the programs and magazines were considered.;It was concluded that Vietnam was the dominant topic on regular evening network news programs for the period studied. Vietnam was not the dominant topic, though, in the weekly news magazines studied. And, as with the television coverage, graphic representation of battle or photographs of the dead and wounded were not predominant. |
