Page 210 - An Introduction to Political Communication Fifth Edition

Intro to Politics Communication (5th edn)-p.qxp 9/2/11 10:55 Page 189

POLITICAL COMMUNICATION IN A GLOBALISED WORLD
explanations for their country’s humiliation at the hands of the North
Vietnamese, the information environment in which journalists found
themselves was relatively unrestricted. While the administration pursued its
public relations activities, journalists in the field were permitted a degree of
latitude with which to film often shocking images of death and destruction.
Television viewers in the US and elsewhere saw pictures of children being
burned to death by (US) napalm; of villages being torched by US troops; of
summary executions of suspected communists by South Vietnamese officers;
and, most significantly in the view of contemporary commentators, US
troops in disarray as the North mounted its ‘Tet offensive’. These images
were the product of the US administration’s view, in accordance with the
strongly liberal tradition of American democracy, that ‘the public have a
right to information’ (Mercer et al., 1987, p. 5). There were substantial and
largely successful efforts made to manage news and public opinion, as we
have noted, but control over journalists was far from complete. The belief of
some, essentially pro-war, journalists that they had the right and indeed the
duty to report the conflict in its totality, and the reluctance of the government
to censor on anything but security criteria, did generate disturbing images,
which cannot fail to have influenced many of those who became active
opponents of the war.

The Falklands
Whether the Vietnam War was lost on television or not (and a scientifically
conclusive answer to that question may never be forthcoming), the
perception that it had been remained strong in the 1970s. When a new
generation of political leaders came to power in Britain and the US in the
1980s they allowed that perception to govern their approach to information
management in the conflicts of that decade.
When Argentinian forces invaded the Falkland Islands in April 1982 they
triggered a conflict which, if relatively small-scale in military terms, was of
immense symbolic importance to the British government. At that time the
government of Margaret Thatcher was suffering the lowest popularity
ratings ever recorded. Britain was deep in economic recession, and
unemployment was over three million. ‘Thatcherism’ had not yet established
pre-eminence in the British political landscape. The Argentine aggression
against a piece of British territory overseas, however, permitted the Thatcher
government to undertake a late post-colonialist military expedition, and to
demonstrate its patriotism and resolve in the face of the upstart dictator
Leopoldo Galtieri. In this sense, the conflict became in itself an act of
political communication, loaded with symbolic resonance and echoes of
Britain’s imperial past. It was also a limited war, as defined above, in which
no less important than military success was the battle for public opinion at
home and abroad.

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