The New School
Media Studies M.A. Program
Spring 2005
Online Course 3/15-5/13/05
Vietnam: Media and War That Won't Die
Instructor Information
Carol Wilder, wilderc@newschool.edu
Chair, Department of Media Studies & Film and Associate Dean
70 Fifth Avenue, 12th Floor NY,NY 10011
212-229-8903
Office Hours: By appointment
Hank McGuckin, chezmac@earthlink.net
Media Studies Faculty, Online Program Advisor:
Santa Rosa, CA.
707-578-6050.
Office Hours: By arrangement
Course Description
Vietnam and the United States shared a traumatic relationship in the latter half of the
twentieth century. Two countries of radically differing histories and cultures collided in a
bloody war that left 58,000 Americans and more than 3 million Indochinese dead. More
than a quarter century after that war’s end, Vietnam and the U.S. are beginning to
develop a new kind of relationship with changing images and expectations of each other.
The Pentagon learned much from the role played by the media in turning Americans
against the Vietnam War, and these lessons have been applied during other conflicts in
the ensuing decades up to the current time, with the U.S. mired in a "Vietnam Redux" in
Iraq.
This class examines media coverage and government media management of Vietnam and
Iraq wars with additional attention to the "smaller" wars in between. We critique
representations of Vietnam in the U.S. media and popular culture over the past forty
years, using examples from journalism (including photojournalism, especially in LIFE
magazine), film (e.g. Rambo, 1985), and veterans' stories available on the web. We will
compare and contrast the role of the media in Vietnam and Iraq war and also learn from
Vietnamese and Iraqi accounts of their respective war experiences.
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Course Objectives
To revisit the long history of US involvement in Vietnam and to dispel growing myths,
official and popular, about that involvement. To examine the role of media in the
propagation of pop culture mythologies. To examine the American wars since Vietnam
and apprehend the changing strategies of governmental media management and
the reactions of mainstream journalism. To consider the implications of war media
management for a free society.
Required Reading:
Robert McNamara, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, Vintage, 1995,
0-679-76749-5
Daniell Hallin, The Uncensored War: the Media and Vietnam, University ofCalifornia
Press, 1989, 0-520-06543-3
John R. MacArthur, Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the 1991 Gulf War,
Universtiy of California Press, 2004, O-520-24231-9
Michael Massing & Orville Schell. Now They Tell Us: The American Press and Iraq,
New York Review of Books, 2004.
Recommended Reading:
Phillip Knightly, The First Casualty: The War Correspondent As Hero And Myth-maker
From The Crimea To Iraq, Johns Hopkins, 2004. (Highly recommended, an essential
historical reference.)
George Herring. Americaís Longest War: The United States and Vietnam 1950-1975.
New York: McGraw Hill, 3rd. edition, 1995.
Michael Herr. Dispatches. Vintage, 1991. Originally 1978.
Bill Kalovsky & Timothy Carlson. Embedded: The Media at War in Iraq. Lyons Press,
2003
Bao Ninh. The Sorrow of War: A Novel of North Vietnam. Riverhead Books, 1996.
Tim O'Brien. The Things They Carried, New York: Broadway Books, 1999, Originally
1990.
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Course Outline Course Runs Online from March 14 - May 13
Week 1 14 March--20 March
Online Orientation Week/Self-Introductions
Week 2 March 21--March 27
Taking Stock: The Iraq war and resonance from Vietnam
Read all of McNamara, In Retrospect
Week 3 March 28--April3
History of Vietnam Part I
Read: Herring, America's Longest War
Week 4 April 4--April 10
History of Vietnam Part II
Read all of Hallin, The Uncensored War
First paper assigned (Due April 15)
Week 5 April 11--April 17
Vietnam/American War Part I, Echoes from Iraq
Read all of MacArthur, The Second Front
Week 6 April 18--April 24
Vietnam/American War Part II, Echoes from Iraq
Second paper assigned (Due April 29)
Week 7 April 25--May 1
Vietnam War Journalism, Echoes from Iraq
Read Wilder on LIFE
Read Massing, Now They Tell UsE
Week 8 May 2--May 8
Vietnam on Film
Read Wilder on Rambo , Hearts and Minds,
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Third paper assigned (Due May 13)
Week 9 May 9--May 13
Vietnam, Iraq, and America Today: Looking to the Future, Prospects, Questions, New
Lesson. . .
Course Requirements
Assignments:
All participants will be expected to complete assigned reading and engage in online
discussion on a regular basis. Students are required to logon and post at least three times
per week to satisfy the attendance requirement. (More is encouraged.) Media Studies
students who are enrolled for graduate credit will complete three 5-6 page papers on
topics including assigned readings and a review of a film or book on Vietnam outside of
the class. Specific guidelines for the papers will be distributed in class. Grades will be
based 75% on papers, 25% on attendance and participation.
The instructors are always open to suggestions for the creation of new discussion topics
within the class when a separate thread seems to emerge from a conversation or when
several class members share an interest in a topic not addressed in the main discussions.
Submitting Assignments: Written assignments will be submitted by e-mail to both
instructors unless otherwise indicated.
Book Purchasing:
WE RECOMMEND AMAZON.COM FOR BOOK PURCHASES. AMAZON IS FAST,
DEPENDABLE AND FREQUENTLY HAS USED BOOKS FROM OUR LISTS
AVAILABLE AT DRASTICALLY REDUCED PRICES.
About the Instructors:
Carol Wilder is Associate Dean and Chair of the Media Studies and Film Department at
The New School, where Hank McGuckin has been a professor of Media Studies and
Online Program Advisor in the graduate Media Studies Program since 1996. Wilder and
McGuckin first taught “Vietnam: Rhetoric and Realities” in 1985 while professors at San
Francisco State University. They taught the class each year until Wilder’s 1995 move to
New York. Guest speakers in the class included David Harris, David Dellinger, “Country
Joe” McDonald, Le Ly Hayslip, Trinh Minh Ha, Chuong Chung, Duc Nguyen, Major
Edward Palm, Daniel Ellsberg, activist Brian Willson, and many others. Excerpts from
Wilder’s book on Vietnam in American popular media, The War that Won’t Die, are
available at http://homepage.newschool.edu/~wilder Chapters have been published in
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books including Media USA and The Postmodern Presence, and in the Atlantic Journal of
Communication.