Page 210 - An Introduction to Political Communication Second Edition

INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

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, and 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

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