| Summary: | 碩士 === 淡江大學 === 國際事務與戰略研究所 === 92 === Due to the influence of political system and thoughts, the mass media of U.S. are not control by government but run by the local or non-governmental company. Because of the different standpoints of each mass media company, the U.S. government become the weakness controller in the world. Therefore, in U.S., the mass media who processes trustworthiness can work upon governmental policy decision, especially in overseas military operations. On the other hand, U.S. as a democratic country which based on public opinion, so governments try to carry out any policy should gain the supports from people; furthermore, the overseas military operation is one of the foreign policies, so it becomes people’s focus certainly. Hence, during the period of overseas military operations, there are lots of interaction between the triangular relations of media, public opinion and overseas military operation, even make big influence on overseas military operations.
This thesis uses Vietnam War, Gulf War and Operation Restore Hope as case studies. During the period of Vietnam War, U.S. government provided free space for mass media to gather any information they want. But the war had come to standstill, then the against voices from domestic made U.S. government drew back from Vietnam and caused the acquired of Vietnam War. Woing to the bad experiences of Vietnam War, U.S. took strict measures toward mass media during the Gulf War period by controlling media actions and reports. U.S. got rid of the acquired of Vietnam and defeated Iraq in the battle and non-battle fields. One year later, U.S. failed again in Operation Restore Hope which based on human rescue. The failure reason was the brutal images which spread to domestic caused against voices and lead U.S. government to draw back the army. In addition, we can realize that U.S. is defeated by their mass media and public opinion.
We can realize that the key point of winning or losing the military operations is no longer depend on numerical superiority, equipment quantity, stuff quality and the level of science and technology or economics but depend on the power of mass media. This thesis provides us anther point of view to think over the influence of mass media and what role that mass media should play during the time of overseas military operations.
|
|---|
